There is a lot of work that goes into marketing and sometimes businesses have a hard time managing marketing efforts on top of running their business full time. Guess what, it doesn’t have to be so hard. There are a variety of marketing platforms that can help make the process easier by automating a lot of the steps. That way you can focus on keeping your business running smoothly. Here are some of the marketing platforms we use at Uptown Studios, as well as some alternatives that might be easier for beginners to use.
What is a Marketing Platform?
A marketing platform is an online software or solution that helps digital marketers manage their digital marketing activities. The ultimate goal of any marketing platform is to help your brand stay connected with your customers and prospects so you can deliver the best experiences at every touchpoint1.
There is a variety of email automation software available. At Uptown Studios, we use Mailchimp to send out eblasts and newsletters for ourselves and most of our clients. However, we have had some clients that use platforms like Constant Contact, IDSS, or Mautic.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email automation platform for users to create and send out emails and SMS messages. It’s very user-friendly and easy to navigate. It also provides easy-to-understand reporting for you to analyze data and make adjustments.
With Mailchimp, you can generate conversions with email and SMS automations, develop content faster with generative AI, refine your reach with audience segmentation, and optimize your results with analytics and reporting
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is another email marketing platform that provides tools for businesses to capture leads, share updates, and drive traffic. This might be a better option for beginners because it provides different levels of support based on your experience with email marketing platforms so you can optimize your results. With Constant Contact, you can get access to email marketing, SMS marketing, social media marketing, and marketing automation tools.
Social Media
Developing social media captions, creating graphics, or capturing photos and videos to go along with them, posting them, and keeping up with the comments is a full-time job. Plus, it can be very difficult to keep up with the ever-changing algorithms. Social media scheduling platforms make it easier to manage all of these tasks while providing insight and analytics into which posts are successful. At Uptown Studios, we use Sprout Social, but you can also check out Hootsuite, Brandwatch, or Sendible.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media management and intelligence tool for brands and agencies of all sizes to manage conversations and surface the actionable insights that drive real business impact. With Sprout Social, you can publish and schedule posts, engage with your target audience, and generate reports to analyze the performance of your posts.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows people to schedule social media posts and access reporting from their accounts. You can provide access to team members to delegate tasks. This would be a good option for marketing departments with multiple team members who would need access to social media scheduling.
Design
Designing high-quality graphics can be hard for people who don’t have a lot of experience, but there are options for design that are easy for beginners to catch on to. At Uptown Studios, we use Adobe products, like Adobe Express or Adobe Illustrator, but you can also try Canva or Toools.design.
Adobe Design Tools
Adobe Express is a creative management software that people use to create custom graphics, videos, websites, and more. You can get access to team hubs, templates, and AI generative features.
Adobe Illustrator is a great design tool for users to create brands, eye-catching designs, and jaw-dropping logos. This is a great option for people with a bit more experience to create fully customizable designs, but if you are a beginner, there are various tutorial videos and trainings for people to learn more about the program.
Canva
Canva is a great free option for beginner design. It gives you the option to create graphics in a variety of sizes, with different design elements, photos, and templates. Within Canva, you can get access to a brand hub that allows you to upload your brand guidelines; including logos, colors, fonts, and icons. This way, your team will have access to your brand guidelines when creating designs to ensure consistency across your work.
Video
If your company is creating a lot of video content, it might be helpful to use video hosting software. This will allow your videos to be accessible from many different places and devices all while you can manage all of these videos from one dashboard. At Uptown Studios, we like to use Vimeo, but you can also check out Hightail, or of course, YouTube.
Vimeo
Vimeo is an all-in-one video hosting, creating, and live streaming platform that makes it easy to share videos with many audiences. At Uptown Studios, we will create videos for ourselves, and for clients and upload them to Vimeo to share with target audiences. Vimeo also works well with Mailchimp, so when we send out newsletters, we can include Vimeo links so recipients can view these videos directly in the newsletters we send out.
Hightail
Hightail is a cloud service that lets users send and receive digital files. It is an easy way for users to download videos if they wish to use the videos we create on their website or other platforms. This is a great alternative for when you need to send large video files that can’t be sent via email or Dropbox.
Work With Us
If all of this still seems overwhelming to you or you don’t have enough time, or personel to get these things done, don’t worry! That’s what we are here for. Uptown Studios is happy to help you manage your marketing and execute your vision so you can focus on running your business. Visit our website to learn more about our services, or get a quote today!
