3 Best MarTech Tools for Home-Based Businesses

Marketing and tech used to be independent fields with distinct functions. Marketing was focused on creating demand for a product or service through campaigns, whereas tech was all about developing and implementing the products that supported those messages. 

Now, the barriers between marketing and technology are blurring. The growth of search engines and social media platforms continues to make it crucial for businesses of all sizes to market online and use technology to streamline and automate their marketing efforts, even home-based ones.  

Enter marketing technology (MarTech) tools, a fusion of both worlds. These are technology-based tools that home-based businesses can use to create, execute, monitor, and optimize the performance of their online marketing initiatives. 

In this article, I’ll share some of the best MarTech tools for home-based businesses. I’ve broken down these tools based on the categories of a digital marketing framework that home-based businesses should focus on when starting. 

Of course, you’ll need a fast and reliable internet connection to make the most of them. If you’re looking for one, I’d recommend looking into Verizon home internet. 

Now, without further ado, let’s get into it!

1 - Lead Generation – Hunter

Lead generation is one of the most important digital marketing functions. It allows you to identify the buying stage of an individual who has interacted with your business. You can target them with more relevant and personalized content and marketing strategies, increasing their likelihood of moving into the next stage of buying your product (if they’re in the final stage, that is). 

To help you with this process, Hunter can be an invaluable tool. Through this, you can seamlessly find, verify, and contact leads by automating the entire process. You can provide it with the demographics of the type of leads you’re looking for to ensure you find the right customers. 

It also offers a search feature where you can look up the right people to contact within a company by simply typing the name. The tool verifies and provides you with your lead's email ID, making it easier and more rewarding to reach out. You can also use their Campaigns feature to craft and deliver personalized outreach emails, increasing your chances of a high click-through rate. 

Plans 

• Free plan with limited features

• Starter for $49/mo. 

• Growth for $149/mo.  

• Scale for $299/mo. 

Pros

• User-friendly interface 

• A variety of cold email templates

• AI-based email generation assistant

• Allows multiple integrations and add-ons

• Team members can be invited to collaborate and assigned roles

• The database is updated regularly with new publicly available emails

Cons

• Only verifies professional emails

• No AB testing options for their email campaigns

• Removes emails once they are removed from a website

• You can only use their campaigns feature after connecting a Gmail or Outlook account

2 - Social Media Marketing – Hootsuite

Social media marketing is a great way to reach and build long-lasting relationships with your target audience on platforms that they’re using the most. There is a chance that you may not have to focus on all social media platforms, however, this depends on your industry, as well as the preferences and demographics of your audience. For example, if you’re a clothing brand for Gen Z, you might want to focus on all of them, and if you’re selling a software as a service for companies, you might want to focus on LinkedIn. 

Either way, Hootsuite can help you manage your social media presence. The tool offers a kit of features to create, schedule, or publish posts and ads. You can manage several social media channels from a single platform and gain insights into post or ad performance with detailed analytics.

You can also engage with your target audience in real time by responding to comments or queries, and explore what people are saying about your product or service using their social listening feature. Both these features allow you to gain a better understanding of where you stand and revise your strategies accordingly. 

Plans

• Standard for $99 monthly per user

• Advanced for $249 monthly per user

• Enterprise: You’ll need to contact them for a custom price 

Pros

• 30-day free trial

• Social listening tools

• Supports multiple social media platforms

• Integrates with Canva, Dropbox, and Google Drive

Cons

• Free trial asks for payment details

• Might need to spend time learning

• The user interface may be challenging for a few

3 - Search Engine Optimization – SEMrush

Most of your target audience won’t bother going beyond the first page on Google, and that’s where you wanna be. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website to reach a higher number of relevant users. This process involves a set of practices that help you rank higher up on search engine results and increase your chances of website visits and conversions.  

Tools like SEMrush can help you get there. Often regarded as one of the best in the business, SEMrush is a suite of tools that allows you a range of insights. You can use it to research and choose keywords, optimize your content, analyze competitors, track your ranking, build backlinks, and optimize both the technical and nontechnical aspects of your website. 

You can also use the tool to seamlessly plan and execute an effective content marketing strategy by providing tools to create, distribute, and optimize your content for better rankings and engagement. Additionally, it allows you to manage your paid ads and monetize your website.

Plans

• Pro for $139.95 monthly

• Guru for $249.95 monthly

• Business for $499.95 monthly

Pros

• Better reporting limits than competitors

• Simple data visualization

• CRM-style link-building tools

• Search intent features

• Provides PPC data 

• 14-day free trial

Cons 

• Provides Google data only

• Only one user account for all plans

• Expensive add-on features 

• Broken link analysis features are not very user-friendly

• Not optimized for mobile use

MarTech Tools – Enabling Home-Based Businesses to Maintain Their Competitive Edge

Whether it's lead generation, social media marketing, or SEO, you don’t need an unnecessarily large team of people, you just need the right tools.

With MarTech tools streamlining and automating each of these marketing functions, home-based businesses can level the playing field and possibly compete with larger brands in their niche.