Small Business Tech Stack #2: Online Marketing & Cyber Security Tools

February 2, 2024

Of course at MayeCreate online marketing is a big part of how we grow our business. And we consider the tools you use to market our business AND keep it safe from cyber threats as essential components of any small business tech stack.

So, sharing our favorite tech tools for marketing was a no brainer. In addition to geeking out about the tools you need to make sure your marketing is working. We also brought in fellow tech geek and expert, Travis Schumacher, co-owner of Tranquility internet services to give us advice on cyber security tools to keep both your website and business data safe from hackers.

Let’s start at the top with…MARKETING TOOLS 🥳!

Small Business Online Marketing Tools: Websites, Social, Email and More

Website Tools

The first online marketing tool you’ll  need is a website.  Aaaand when it comes to website development tools, we’re obviously Team WordPress at MayeCreate. But, obviously,  there are other options. 

When deciding which website development tool to use, the most important thing to consider is how you want your website to work now and in the future. You want to make sure that the tool you select to build your site will have the capability to handle your website moving forward.

I have a whole slew of post/podcast episodes dedicated to website planning if you need them so I’m going to stay surface level here. You need a website built on a system that does what YOU need it to do. Moving on…one of those things might be selling stuff online, and for that you’ll want to pick the right e-commerce tool.

E-Commerce

We are big fans of Woo, formerly WooCommerce, because it extends WordPress into an ecommerce machine that can do pretty much everything you can imagine. But just like your base site software you’ll have a ton of options to choose from to sell products or take payments online.

The right system for you will be one that:

(More tips on setting up your ecommerce site in this blog/podcast.)

Social Media Management

Another tool we highly recommend having is a social media management tool. If you’re on social media with your business, you don’t want to have to spend the time logging into and then publishing posts on all the different platforms. Especially when you may be posting the exact same thing. Save time with a program that will do it for you!

We’re fans of both Loomly and HootSuite for these purposes. When we managed multiple social accounts for clients Loomly became a very cost effective go to for us to create posts, show content mockups to clients, get approval and show results all in the same platform.

They don’t offer a free version so if you need free you’ll want to take a look at HootSuite. Also a powerful system for those who only need to manage a few platforms.

Email Marketing

Lastly, we suggest an email marketing tool. Because if you send out hundreds of emails from your inbox, you will be marked as a spammer and your emails will not be delivered. There are lots of options for online newsletter programs that can be as robust or simple as you need.

There are soooooo many email platforms. 

Each has it’s pros and cons. I’m a huge fan of MailerLite. The user interface is super easy and it’s very cost effective.

We set up MailChimp for many of our clients because we can set up RSS feed triggered emails in the free version and auto send emails populated with content from their websites.

For our company, we use ActiveCampaign we because as we progressed in our online marketing journey we needed robust automation options. We don’t love the system, not the way we love MailerLite but it evolves every year and it has automated many processes for us in our marketing.

Get more advice on choosing the right email marketing software for you and a full comparison of MailChimp vs MailerLite in this blog/podcast.

Small Business Data and Analytical Tools to Drive Decisions

Every business needs a few tools in their tech stack to assist with making data driven decisions. 

You need to have analytics, so you can see if your marketing is working or not. It’s like a science experiment. You do the experiment, then you look at the results and improve it for next time. The basic tools you need to make purposeful marketing decisions are:

NOTE: Any other types of marketing will come with their own reporting and if you’re doing them then you probably know exactly what they are 😘.

Website Analytics

If you are going to build a website, it’s important that you follow the traffic to it and see how people are using it. There are tools and programs that can help you see these things so you can improve your website or the marketing that leads to it to reach more people or provide a better user experience.

We use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to give us a complete picture of how people find and use a website. It’s important to remember that these tools don’t track people as individuals, so while you won’t know exactly who is coming to your site you will be able to see how many users, where they’re coming from, how they are interacting with your site and much more helpful information. These statistics can help you make smarter, better informed marketing decisions for your business

Between those two systems you can have more data than you handle to make data driven marketing decisions. If you’re not sure how to use the systems or want to learn how to audit your site’s performance check out our on-demand Complete Website Audit Workshop.

Small Business Cyber Security Tools: Protect Your Data, Customers and Employees

Remember when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and we used to go to computer labs to write papers?

And you had to bring a floppy disk that wasn’t actually floppy to save your work. 

(It didn’t just auto save itself to the cloud, you actually had to press SAVE.)

And what about that time when you forgot your disk in the lab? 

Couldn’t find it and had to start allllll over again…

…only to have one of our classmates turn in your paper as their own 😳.

Wait, that wasn’t you. That was Travis! 

Yeah, he definitely came by his love for cyber security at an early age. But his vigilance keeps so many businesses safe from threats they can’t see and probably wouldn’t even think about until it’s too late.

Good cyber security protects data, employees, customers and assets.

Cyber security tools are a kind of insurance for your business and a definite essential in your small business tech stack.

Hackers hack to gain information, promote their own sites or even just to send emails. There are many different ways hackers and phishers are trying to get information or access to your data. Sometimes they reach out to employees through emails or other means to get access. Having good practices and the right technology in place will help to thwart these bad actors.

Four basic steps can help anyone manage their cyber security:

Get a good router/firewall.

Travis says your router is a frontline offense for cyber security and the number one tool he recommends to keep your business safe in the office. 

Most internet companies include one with your service. If you have Wi-Fi, you’ve got a router. However, the internet service company provided routers are generally designed to simply provide internet access. They are not really set up to help protect you or your network. 

Since  not all routers are created equally, Travis recommends Cisco Meraki Routers as well as Ubiquiti UniFi, Sophos and SonicWall for small businesses. With these types of routers you can do things like restrict access from unauthorized devices, block network users from accessing specific websites, set up a VPN and more. (I personally like to use mine to kick my kids off the internet 😂).

Backup & Recovery

Back in the dino days most backup and recovery systems involved a local or file server that also backed up off-site. Because while an onsite backup is nice and does keep data safe if your server hardware fails it doesn’t protect it from a hacker on your local network or fire.

So now, most small businesses use the tools  integrated with their office suite, such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, or even Dropbox. Storing files in the cloud, especially if you’re already using email and calendaring services, is a convenient option.

Travis says some businesses opt for a hybrid approach—saving files both locally and syncing them to the cloud. It depends on your business structure and needs. Generally, having data on OneDrive or Google is better than just having it on your computer. This way, you can access it remotely and have off-site backup.

Website Security Tools

Cyber security threats attack your website too.

We know alllll about this drama. At MayeCreate, we remember it as the Great Website Hacking of 2014. There were several causes to this problem — outdated software, vulnerable websites, no system to oversee multiple sites…us trusting clients to update their own website software.

Let’s just say it’s a maternity leave I will never forget, and not for the normal reasons.

We called Travis in to figure out HOW to hack a site. Then armed with his new found hacking skills and a punch list figured out how to lock it all down. This type of problem wasn’t unique to us. But ten years ago, we didn’t have tools to help us manage and protect ourselves online like we do now. 

Update Site Software & Plugins

Since the Great Website Hacking of 2014 we’ve progressed through a few solutions to keep our website secure. Our current favorite plugin is DefenderPro. This plugin paired with our other offensive strategies implemented in our Safe Site Plan has a nearly 100% success rate from hackers.

SSL Certificate

There are also tools built into websites to protect them. One of these is the SSL certificate, which protects the connection from the viewer to your website. Basically, it encrypts the connection and encrypts your website, so it’s safe for the user to go to your website. These certificates are required and a good hosting provider should include it with your hosting plan.

Cyber security and marketing tools can sound intimidating but they’re critical elements of your small business tech stack. 

Well…wWhat started out as fun marketing advice amped up to a bit of gloom and doom on the cyber security front. But both are essential components of your small business tech stack. Marketing builds your assets and cyber security helps keep them safe.

Get started by finding the right marketing tool for you then set up tracking to make sure it’s all working. Then protect everything you’ve worked for with an extra layer of cyber security by keeping everything up to date and secure, including your website. 

And of course if you need help with any of it – just give us a shout!