How marketing software solutions are critical for your business

“If your business is not on the Internet, then it will be out of business”, Bill Gates.

It is not enough to be present on the Internet; it is also necessary to be visible and searchable on the Internet, which is where digital marketing can help. Traditional marketing has evolved to the digital level, where it duplicates the pace of brand awareness and sales, thanks to remarkable improvement in software solutions and technological advances.

To stay competitive in digital marketing, businesses hire software developers or pay for open-source sales and marketing tools.

What is the definition of digital marketing?

Digital marketing is an online activity that uses digital platforms to communicate with present and potential customers. The following are the primary categories of digital marketing:

• Search engine optimization (SEO),
• Social media marketing (SMM),
• E-mail marketing,
• Content marketing,
• Affiliate marketing,
• Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing,
• Video advertising etc. 

Marketers install and use open source software for a variety of marketing campaigns. There are both free and paid services available with these software solutions.

Marketers or C-level executives hire a software development company to create, implement, and support their custom marketing software solutions.

Let us examine when it is advantageous to use open-source marketing software solutions and when it is preferable to develop and implement custom software solutions:

Reasons companies hire software developers to create custom marketing software solutions

• They want to develop a marketing strategy and open a new sales and marketing channel. Custom sales and marketing software enables business owners to reach out to their target audience in more creative and effective ways and tactics. Custom software also provides comfort to marketing and sales professionals because it includes only the functions that are truly necessary and excludes those that are not. It is also ideal for businesses concerned about security and intellectual property rights.
• They want to increase their ROI. Businesses strive to develop unique and tailored sales and advertising strategies to persuade their target audience to buy from them rather than millions of other competitors. Approaches that are out of the ordinary attract attention. Who, for example, would turn down a highly advantageous sales offer that is perfectly tailored to their preferences and is simple to purchase or order online? We imagine this to be a simple task, but there is a whole team of market experts, customer satisfaction specialists, and market analysts who deliver an offer that is precisely tailored to your needs and is extremely simple to use.
• They want to streamline and connect various systems. As earlier stated, work management is essential for the successful delivery of marketing campaigns. Many businesses attribute the success of their campaigns to open communication among employees from various departments on a single platform.
• They require 100% guaranteed security and intellectual property rights protection. If a company needs to protect vulnerable information, installing and using open-source software is not a good idea. After all, such software solutions are intended for general use, and while software developers maintain and support the system, the risks of information leakage are higher.

Companies that use open-source marketing and sales software, on the other hand, do not require a unique, tailored-made marketing and sales strategy for their business. These companies are already well-established in their fields and have devoted customers. Installing free or paid services of open-source marketing and sales solutions is sufficient for them.

According to Statista, by the end of July 2021, there will be 1.9 million JavaScript open-source projects in the Maven Central Repository and 21 million JavaScript project versions worldwide. While the Maven Central Repository has the most open-source projects for JavaScript, there are thousands of open source projects for Python and.NET.

These statistics shed light on the ever-increasing number of open-source software solutions. IT firms hire software developers or build an in-house software development team to create the most competitive and popular apps or tools for their target audience. The most widely used open-source marketing software solutions in the marketing industry are: 

· Software solutions that provide search engine optimization services, 

· Software solutions that analyze target audiences and their behavior, 

· Software solutions that automate social media marketing (SMM) campaigns, 

· Software solutions that aid in content writing, such as spelling checking and rephrasing tools, 

· Software solutions that track, optimize, and analyze.

We have experience with the last one at CodeRiders. We created marketing and analytics software for external use. Let us examine this example: 

YouTube Analytics, Optimization, and Tracking SaaS Application

We built an easy-to-use tool (Rankify Analytics) that allows YouTube marketers to track, optimize and analyze channels and videos. It is built to research channels, make assumptions and run a YouTube channel with a fact-based strategy.

The functions of this marketing software include:

• Tracking videos and channels
• Advanced rank tracking
• Clickability calculator
• SEO module
• Competitor analysis
• Thumbnail A/B testing
• DeepDive advanced search module
• Performance analysis
• Tracking subscriber views
• Integrated cross-channel calendar
• Keywords for ranking better
• Collecting various data through YouTube API (views, watch time, likes, comments, description, age, etc.)

1. CRM (Customer Relationship Management System)

CRM is a sophisticated technology implemented and used to manage interactions with current and prospective customers. Integration of the best CRM system for a specific niche is required to build customer relationships, nurture these relationships, and streamline processes to increase sales and profitability.

CRM systems have been in the market since the 1990s but gained popularity over the last decade due to the additional beneficial features. These systems store and connect all your data from the sales leads to your customers. The main functions of CRM systems include:

· Recording and analyzing all your calls and online meetings with leads and customers,

· Storing and categorizing e-mails and automating e-mail campaigns,

· Tracking, segmenting, and slicing data,

· Helping improve customer service and satisfaction rate,

· Increasing revenue by customizing e-mails, etc.

Read the rest of the article on CodeRiders' blog.