6 Simple (Yet Powerful) Everyday Marketing Tools
Marketing as a field is made up of about 85 different disciplines all rolled up under one title. Other departments think of marketers as wizards who’ve mastered all elements. They don’t realize that fire wizards don’t like the cold, and earth wizards turn to mud when it rains.
Take my team, for example. I’m all strategy, operations, and tech — but I’m not altogether certain my graphic designer knows what a funnel is, and I’m pretty sure my app developer is color blind.
Unless you’re a magical marketing unicorn, you probably have some skill set gaps. Hopefully, one of these tools will make your day just a bit easier.
1. Grammarly
Many marketers have developed skills to write great copy, but that doesn’t mean their proofreading is always up to par. If you’re like me, you’ve read something 7,000 times before you publish it and don’t see the typo until the moment after you’ve hit “send.”
Grammarly has been gaining popularity lately, but I still find myself introducing it to almost every new hire. It’s a great free tool that layers into any browser-based interface and highlights the mistakes for you so that you can fix them. There’s also a stand-alone editor that you can simply drop the text into for a complete breakdown. Grammarly is more than spell check and is a must-have for anyone who frequently writes copy.
2. Paletton
I remember once using red (#FF0000) in a presentation, and my graphic designer told me it made his “eyes vibrate.” He suggested I used a contrasting orange (#FFA500) as a highlight, and so I did. That was also wrong, and he explained I was supposed to use a specific dark orange (#FE8C00).
For those of us who haven’t memorized color wheels, it’s all about Paletton. This handy browser tool lets me drop in a base hex color and creates entire color palettes with easy to copy hex or RGB color codes.
3. ColorPick Eyedropper
My favorite tool. It helps me easily select and copy any color from a webpage. Very handy when I need to remember the hex code for my web font and don’t want to dig out my branding guideline doc.
4. Max Pixel
If you’re a single person marketing team, two things are almost certainly true: no one understands what you do, and they don’t give you enough budget to do it. Free stock images sites come in handy when you need a great image on a limited budget, and Max Pixel is my go-to source for free stock photos.
5. MX Toolbox
I was recently asked, “If blacklists are so common, why aren’t more people concerned?” My answer was sad, “Because they don’t know they are blacklisted.” If you send email, blacklist monitoring is critical. The fastest, easiest way to monitor your listings is to drop your domain into the MX Toolbox Blacklist Checker. If you are listed, it will link you to the appropriate delist tool so you can get your reputation back on track.
6. Surges.co
If you need help beyond what the tools here can provide, try Surges. This website acts as a masterlist of top marketing tools, similar to this post itself, but much more comprehensive. Whereas here I’m simply sharing my favorite tricks, Surges serves as a complete reference guide of over 100 tools and includes recommended decks for different projects.
Why am I advertising for these companies? Was I paid? Nah, I’m just a beggar telling another beggar where I found bread. Now and then, you find a few tools that make your day a little easier. Hopefully, something on this list will help you today.
