How to choose the best all-in-one marketing software for a small business

In this guide, a vendor is a company that sells marketing software.

Why the adverts and the sales demo are not enough

Marketing software is sold by companies that are very good at marketing. The tools you see first in search results and adverts are often the ones with the biggest advertising budgets, not the ones that suit a small business best.

The sales demo then shows a full calendar of attractive posts. What it rarely shows is:

• which social networks it can actually publish to by itself,
• whether it can publish to your website, or only write drafts you have to copy across,
• what its "SEO" feature really checks,
• what the bill will be in your own currency, including tax.

So ask about these in writing, and ask every vendor exactly the same questions. Then you can compare their answers directly.

Before you contact any vendor

Write down your answers to these four points. They decide which questions in the checklist matter most to you.

• Where you post. Which social networks you use, your website or blog, and your Google Business Profile. Which of these matter most to your customers.
• What your website is built with. The website platform you use decides whether a marketing tool can publish to it directly.
• Who does the work. You alone, a small team, or an outside agency. Whether posts need someone's approval before they go out.
• Languages, location and billing. The languages your customers read, the time zone you work in, and the currency and kind of invoice you need.

The checklist

The questions are in three groups. Must have means most small businesses cannot do without it. Nice to have means it saves real time or trouble. Optional means it only matters for some businesses. When you open the checklist in NeutralPick, you can move any question to a different group to match your answers above.

• Must have
• Publishes directly to the social networks you useWhich social networks can it publish to by itself, with no reminder and no manual step, including images, videos and links?For some networks, a tool can only send you a reminder or save a draft, and you still have to post it yourself. Check the networks you use.
• Publishes posts to your website or blogCan it publish finished blog posts directly to our website, on the platform our website is built with?If it can only write drafts, someone still has to copy every post into your website by hand.
• Posts to your Google Business ProfileCan it schedule and publish posts to our Google Business Profile, including for more than one location?This matters most for shops, clinics, restaurants and other businesses that customers visit in person.
• One calendar for everything scheduledDoes one calendar show every scheduled social media post, blog post and profile post, and can we move a post to another date by dragging it?Seeing everything in one place is the main reason to choose an all-in-one tool.
• A correct tax invoiceDo you issue an invoice that meets our country's tax rules, showing your tax registration number and ours?Many businesses need a correct invoice to reclaim sales tax or VAT. A vendor in another country may bill differently. Ask your accountant what your invoices must show.
• Handles your customers' data under data protection lawOften required by lawWill you sign a contract saying you will use our customers' personal data only as we instruct, and tell us in which country it is stored?Data protection laws in many countries expect this whenever another company handles personal data for you. Check which laws apply to your business.
• Nice to have
• SEO checks that tell you what to fixWhat exactly does the SEO feature check on our pages and posts, and does it tell us what to change?"SEO" can mean anything from a box to type a keyword into, to a full check of your whole website.
• Pricing in your currencyCan we pay in our own currency, with payment methods common in our country, and without foreign exchange charges?Paying in a foreign currency adds bank charges, and the amount on your bill changes with the exchange rate.
• Support during your working hoursDuring which hours, in our time zone, is support available, and how can we reach it: email, chat or phone?If support is only open while you are asleep, you wait a full day for every answer.
• Works in the languages you needCan we write, schedule and publish posts in the languages we need, with their alphabet or script displayed correctly?Check the editor, the post previews and any writing assistant, not only the published post.
• One report for all channelsCan we see the results from social media, website and Business Profile posts in one report, and export or share that report?You want to see which posts bring you customers, without opening five different dashboards.
• Approval before posts are publishedCan posts wait for the owner's approval before they are published, with comments on each draft?Useful when staff or an outside agency write posts for you.
• Optional
• AI writing help that you controlIf it can write posts with AI, can we switch that off, edit every draft, and is the AI charged for separately?Posts written by AI still need checking before they go out under your business's name.
• One inbox for comments and messagesCan we read and reply to comments and messages from all our social media accounts in one inbox?Saves logging in to each social network separately, if you get enough messages for that to matter.

Answers to look at carefully

Vendors often answer the points below in vague terms. When you get a vague answer, ask the follow-up question shown here. A vague answer often means the honest answer is "no" or "only partly".

• "Supports all major platforms." Ask for the full list of social networks, and for each one, whether the tool publishes by itself or only sends you a reminder.
• A price per month. Ask for the full yearly price for your business, in your currency, including tax. It should include extra social media accounts, extra locations, extra users, AI usage, and the price after any first-year discount ends.
• "Boosts your SEO." Ask: what exactly does it change or check, and what can it not do for us?
• Leaving later. Ask: can we export our posts, images and reports, and does everything it published on our website stay there if we cancel?

What to do with the answers

1. Put all the vendors' answers side by side.
2. Look at the Must have questions first. If a vendor cannot do something you marked as a must-have, remove that vendor.
3. If a vendor answered "Partial" to a must-have, ask them exactly what is missing.
4. Try the tools of the vendors that answered well, using a free trial or a product demo.
5. Check what they claimed in writing, using your own accounts: schedule a post to each social network you use, publish a test post to your website, post to your Google Business Profile, and ask for a sample invoice.

Why use NeutralPick to compare marketing software

• Every vendor answers the same questions. Each vendor gets its own private link to your checklist and answers in writing, so you can compare their answers question by question.
• All the answers in one table. You see every vendor's answer to every question side by side, instead of searching through emails and call notes.
• No vendor can pay to influence it. There are no adverts, no paid placements and no "featured" vendors. No vendor can pay to be shown to you or placed higher.
• Free, with no account. You don't need to sign up or pay anything.

Start with this checklist See an example comparison