Here is my list of tools and recommend resources for school marketers. These are products that I use or have used, love, and highly recommend with confidence for your use. Hopefully, they’ll help you as much as they’ve helped me.
Disclaimer: I am an affiliate for some of these resources which means that, at no cost additional to you, I make a commission if you purchase via my link below.
Tools To Help School Marketers
Inbound Marketing
Hubspot
In my opinion, Hubspot is the gold standard software to use when implementing inbound marketing at your school. This software is my highest recommend resource for school marketers. We've been a Hubspot customer for years and I find the integration of their many tools to be the secret sauce of their software.
Webinar Software
Demio
I have tried every webinar software there is. I'm serious. This is by far my favorite! It's very stable and offers a great experience for the attendee and presenter. This is the software I use for the VirCon.
Graphic Design
Canva
Canva describes itself as "Design for Everyone." I like to refer to Canva as graphic design for dummies. In short, Canva is an INCREDIBLE tool for making images for social media, blog posts, or anything else you can think and most importantly, Canva allows to create images and graphics that look professional. While Canva does have a free plan, I encourage you to check out the Pro Plan which includes free stock photos, more templates, a background remover, and a Brand Kit area to store logos and brand colors.
Social Media Management
Missinglettr
Missinglettr is my social media publishing secret weapon! This tool allows me schedule social media drip campaigns which are created automatically by the software and can be scheduled out for 12 months. I can't even begin to tell you how much time this tool saves me. You really owe it to yourself to check out this tool.
Buffer
This is my do it all social media scheduling tool, period. If you’re looking for a tool to schedule and manage your social media with the perfect level of analytics you need to start here. There is even a free plan that is loaded with features.
Tailwind for Pinterest
This is my favorite Pinterest management tool, and I can’t imagine my Pinterest life without it. My favorite Tailwind feature is the ability to schedule pins for later. I encourage you to check it out and take advantage of their free trial.
Blogging
WordPress.org
If you're starting a blog at your school I would highly recommend WordPress.org. It's free, although you'll need hosting, and it's incredibly powerful with thousands of plugins that add functionality. This blog is run on WordPress.
Nexcess WordPress Managed Hosting
The major website companies don't have great blogging platforms. If you are going to start a blog for your school, I recommend using WordPress and hosting with Nexcess WordPress Managed Hosting. Please, please, please don't go with a cheap web host to save a few dollars. While Nexcess is a bit more expensive than those cheap web hosts, the extra price is worth it in terms of stability, security, speed, automatic backups, and excellent customer service. Oh, and did I mention, this site is hosted on Nexcess.
Studio Press Themes
When starting your blog you'll need to create a design that mirrors your main website. Studiopress is a collection of themes that will "skin" your WordPress blog. You can then easily and quickly change different elements to achieve a professional look for your blog without needing a designer or coder. This blog has a Studiopress theme.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is my recommended tool to create lead nurturing campaigns for your school. At its core, the software is an email marketing platform, but it also includes basic landing pages, automation, forms, and lead nurturing at a great price. I use ConvertKit for my email list.
Curated Newsletter
Curated is the tool that I use for my Cup of Coffee Newsletter. It's incredibly powerful AND customizable and has cut down on my time to create a newsletter, which is nice. I encourage you to check it if you're creating a newsletter that shares content from multiple places.
Conversions for Inbound Marketing
Leadpages
This is my tool of choice for creating landing pages. I’ve tried a number of different services in the past, and this service is the best. The price is reasonable, it’s incredibly easy to create professional looking landing pages in minutes, you can easily A/B test your pages, and they offer a ton of pre-designed templates that you can use. Bonus: If you sign-up using the link below you'll get a 14-day free trial.
OptinMonster
Powerful pop-up opt-in conversion tool. There are so many variables you can set including A/B tests, display on exit intent (a very cool feature), and much more. This is the tool I use on SchneiderB.com.
Podcasting
Captivate.FM
Starting a podcast for your school can be intimidating, to say the least, even though it's really not that difficult. If you are going to start a podcast or are looking for an easier podcasting platform for your current podcast, I can't recommend Captivate.FM enough. I recently switched to Captivate.FM for SchneiderB.FM and am blown away by their reliability, cost, statistics, and just how easy they make it to launch and maintain a podcast.
Rode Podcaster Microphone
There are many different microphones available but this is the USB microphone I currently use for my podcast, webinars, and video recordings. It's not the cheapest but the sound is really incredible for the price.
Productivity
Full Focus Planner
My productivity secret weapon is actually a paper planner. Shocked? Don't be. This paper planner is simply amazing and I have been using it for years in conjunction with Todoist. This planner really does help me stay organized and I don't know what I'd do without. A bonus is that it is inexpensive and comes in a ton of colors and styles.
Todoist
My current application to track my To Do list. There are too many features I like but I love that I can implement the GTD system with ease. I can access this tool on the web, iPhone, and iPad.
Evernote
This tool is the center of my digital life! I store everything I want to keep in
Video
Vimeo Video Hosting
I use Vimeo Pro to host many of my videos and love it's ability to restrict where I post videos by domain, the ability to customize the video player, and it's analytics. Vimeo offers many options in terms of price and should appeal to any budget.
Ecamm Live
This is my current live broadcasting software of choice. It’s full of features at a fantastic price. The only negative is that this software is Mac only.
Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam
This is the camera I use for Zoom meetings, my webinars, and anytime I record myself. I don't think you can find a better combination of quality vs. price.
What are your recommendations?
I hope you've found helpful my recommended resources for school marketers. Did I miss something that you love and recommend?
If yes, please share your resource in the comments below.
