There are thousands of business apps out there, so how do insurance agents find the best ones for their digital marketing? Here is a list of tried-and-true apps that digital marketers swear by.
Social Media
You should always have the social media sites that you use for business as apps on your phone, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more. But here are some apps that will make managing your accounts and discovering and posting content easier.
- Hootsuite is one of the pioneers of social media management. The platform offers multiple pricing levels ranging from free to enterprise. Which level you select depends on how many accounts and users you have and the level of reporting you require.
- Feedly enables you to subscribe to and categorize feeds with your favorite content producers. It's a great way to keep up with news and also share relevant content with your followers.
- Buffer is a social media scheduling tool. Like Hootsuite, Buffer also has free and paid plans, depending on your requirements. Buffer is useful because it integrates with Feedly, allowing you to add content to your Buffer queue as you read.
- Mention is a social listening tool which enables you to keep track of conversations about your brand and your competitors' brands.
Organization & Document Management
Having an easy way to stay organized while you are constantly on-the-go is the key to success in business. Here are several apps that will enable you to remember what you need to accomplish each day and where you can find important documents and files.
- Google Drive is a great cloud file management tool that you can access from your phone, tablet, or desktop. You can upload files and create new files using Google docs or Google spreadsheets.
- Asana is a project management tool that offers both free and paid versions. It allows you to collaborate with your team by joining and/or following projects, tasks, and conversations. It will send you daily digests of your tasks, what you and your team have completed, and any other updates to projects. You also have the ability to assign tasks.
Design
Much of social media today is visual, and sharing photos and images on social media sites or your blog is increasingly simple due to the plethora of editing and design tools available. You no longer need to be proficient in Adobe Creative Suite to create and share compelling visuals.
- Canva has pre-sized templates for every type of digital design, including email headers, Facebook ads, Facebook headers, blog images, and more. It's simple to use and even has a collection of $1 stock images you can choose from to enhance your designs.
- VSCO is a photo editor that enables you to apply filters and make your own edits to saturation, hue, and brightness before you publish a photo.
There are a lot of email marketing apps that enable you to monitor your email campaigns and automated workflows. They vary in price and complexity and range from small business to enterprise friendly.
- Mailchimp is a simple email management tool that offers three plan levels from free to pro. Pro comes with enhanced testing and reporting, while the free version enables you to easily send and track emails.
- HubSpot is a more robust inbound marketing platform that provides email marketing automation, landing page design, blog creation, social media management, and more. It offers levels that range from small business to enterprise.
- Sumome has a number of tools, including list builder and welcome mat, which you can easily add to your website to start collecting emails quickly. You can set pop-ups to appear as users visit certain pages. You can also create optin forms, which prompt users to sign up for your newsletter or visit a specific piece of content. These options pop up once the reader has scrolled to a certain area of a page.
Reporting
Once you have all of your apps set up, you need to report on your success.
- Google Analytics is a must-have for all marketers. While you should use the reporting offered in your individual social media and email apps, Google Analytics is where you can really dig into who your website visitors are, how they are reaching your website, and what they are doing.
