8 Design Tools to Boost Your Marketing Efforts

In today's digital marketing world, you're probably trying to juggle many things at once.Does this sound like you? Planning and creating written content, designing visual assets and videos, pitching to advertisers, analyzing results, using multiple social media accounts, and ad services with multiple logins and different target audiences.If you want to see successful results, you need to simplify and automate your job or end up sinking. To help you out, check out these 8 design tools to boost your marketing efforts and raise your productivity.1. OktopostSocial media is a powerful marketing tool, but it's a hard maze to navigate when you're trying to promote your business to other businesses (B2B).While there are many business to customer (B2C) orientated tools, finding a high-quality B2B one is a bit tricky. After sorting through them, there's one, in particular, we think you should check out, Oktopost.Okotopost (like the name suggests) offers multiple services under one roof. You'll be able to build a complete social media marketing strategy, publish content at scale with scheduling and automation, and engage with your audiences by tracking keywords, mentions, competitor pages, and measure your key performance metrics (KPIs) in real-time.2. Tailor BrandsTailor Brands is a one-stop-shop for businesses that need a logo, website, or entire brand design.Just enter your brand name, industry, and preferred style, and their AI platform does all the heavy lifting for you. You'll be presented with hundreds of beautiful logos to choose from based on your needs.You can freely customize your logo by changing the layout, color, images, or even start from scratch at any time.Once your logo is complete, Tailor Brands will automatically generate your entire branding which includes social media templates for posts in Facebook, Instagram, etc., a website which matches your logo and brand style, and the option to print your logo on thousands of items like business cards, notepads, pens, aprons, t-shirts, bags, and more.3. WistiaVideos are a vital tool to help strengthen the relationship between you and your customers. Videos can also help you get your point(s) across quickly and even help you boost conversion rates.And it's not just limited to B2C, plenty of B2B marketers are also creating and sharing videos to supercharge their efforts.And unlike YouTube, Wistia is designed to benefit you, and not YouTube. Upload your videos to Wistia and embed them directly onto your site and create a TV-quality experience with their customized video player.Change the look and feel of it by including your logo, modify the video controls and color scheme to match your brand.And the best part is you can include essential marketing tools like CTAs, annotation links, and email gates while keeping it ad-free.4. MailchimpHaving a list of subscriber emails is worthless if you don't nurture it and create a trustful relationship with them.Every marketer under the sun is trying to collect email addresses and send high-quality content to stand out.If you want to get ahead of the game, you're going to need to use a service like MailChimp.MailChimp is a complete integrated marketing platform for business where you can manage your audience data, marketing channels, build campaigns, create segmentations, analyze your email marketing efforts, send surveys, embed sign-up forms, create landing pages, use lookalike audience finders, and automate your email calendar.To get ahead of the game, and acquire and retain customers, consider using MailChimp.5. HotjarOptimizing your website to suit your customer can be tricky as you need to get inside the mind of your customer, by thinking and acting like them.You can use Hotjar, a powerful marketing tool that clearly highlights your users' behavior by highlighting every click, tap and scroll with easy-to-see heat maps that provide strong indicators of your users' actions.You can also take it one step further by recording their behavior to identify usability issues or discover roadblocks stopping your users from continuing their journey and dropping off your conversion funnel.6. ZendeskA big piece of the marketing puzzle is creating an amazing user experience, especially if your customers have questions or concerns that need to be answered.Zendesk is an award-winning customer service software that helps you make sales, and create support portals such as ticket-based assistance, and knowledgeable guides with customer engagement capabilities.While primarily a support service, the marketing suite of Zendesk provides a sales CRM to increase your productivity, sales, and improve processes for teams, as well as a full set of analytics to measure and improve your customers' experience.7. SumoGetting your customers' email addresses is critical if you want to grow your business. While there are plenty of email acquisition tools available, there's one that stands out due to its simplicity and ease of use.Sumo is one of the best email capture tools, plus it's free, which is always a bonus. It takes less than 60 seconds to set it up. All you need to do is install Sumo email capture, turn on the form (zero coding required) and watch your email list and subscribers grow.8. AnimakerWith Animaker, you don't need to be a pro digital artist and designer to make incredible animated videos.Using a simple drag-and-drop builder and customizable templates, you can create and animate characters who move, have facial expressions, and even auto lip-sync with your voiceovers.And it doesn't end there. You can include animated items like balloons and bouncing balls, add subtitles, watermarks, and creative overlays with text, images, and stickers. There's a free version, as well as a paid subscription with premium features. If you want to bring your digital marketing to life, create an animated video with Animaker.Before you goBefore using any new digital design tool, check if it fits your requirements:

• Is it compatible with your current marketing tool setup?
• Will it save you time and money?
• Does the cost outweigh the benefits?
• Can it only be used by one person?
• Is it aimed at B2B or B2C?

And don't forget, many marketing services offer a free trial so you can 'try before you buy' to see if it's the right tool for the job.