10 Free Marketing Tools Every Small Business Should Use
Your marketing plan and execution can make or break your business. The “build it and they will come” strategy isn’t advisable if you are looking to grow your business successfully, especially when you are web-based. The challenge many small business owners face is budget constraints when it comes to marketing. This should not be an excuse to neglect the marketing part of your business or you can easily fall behind your competition. If you are willing to put in the time, there are many free do-it-yourself tools you can use to help you promote your business..
To help you maximize and successfully run your promotional campaigns here are 10 free marketing tools you can try.
Your marketing efforts are only as good as your branding. If you don’t already have a logo in place or want to update your existing one give a logo maker application a go. Logo Creator let’s you design professional logos in minutes absolutely free. Once you are happy with your design click download to access your logo files in high-resolution format.
Your marketing efforts will require promotional material like business cards, pitch deck, ads, flyers and more. Try a free graphic design solution like Canva to help you create beautiful and matching brand assets. Your sales pitch is only as good as your supporting documents so take your time designing your marketing material. The process is simple, choose a template, customize and download instantly.
Before you publish new marketing content or designs it’s advisable to gather some unbiased feedback. You can do so by conducting a direct survey with existing customers and business stakeholders. If you are looking to scale your responses give Google Surveys a try. You can create surveys with just a few clicks. You can then use that survey and send it to your email list or send it out to the public.
One of the most effective marketing tools is email. If you don’t already have a way to collect customer and website visitor emails you should get on that right away. A clever email drip campaign gives you an opportunity to engage with leads over time. As you build trust and authority it will be easier to sell your product or service. MailChimp offers a free plan that lets you create and manage email lists and campaigns effortlessly. (Bonus: MailerLite. MailerLite also offers a generous free plan)
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Successfully driving traffic to your website is crucial in your marketing efforts. What happens next is just as important if not more. If your visitors don’t engage with your website and leave without making a purchase or signing up that’s a lost opportunity. Tidio is a live chat and chatbot solution that you can quickly install on your website. Their free plan allows you to chat with visitors to your website instantly and provides insight such as chat history.
Google Analytics is an obvious candidate for this list. Assumedly most entrepreneurs are familiar with this essential resource but for those who aren’t it’s a free website analytics solution. Running your website without an analytics application in place is like flying blind. This should be the first code snippet you add to your website so you can see where your traffic comes from and how users engage.
Blogging is a wonderful way to establish your business as a leader in your niche. Not only will it help to educate and promote your business to existing customers but it can drive valuable organic traffic to your site. Coming up with blog ideas, writing, and then promoting your posts can be time-consuming. Use a free blog topic generate like HubSpot’s version. To get your brainstorming session going simply enter a keyword and watch title topics being generated.
Promotional video content is another great way to market your business. Creating and editing video content can be extremely time consuming when done the traditional way. Animoto offers a free promotional video maker that is easy to use. Choose a video template, add your content, and publish to your preferred video-sharing website.
No marketing campaign is complete without at least considering social media. Generating engaging content and managing your different accounts can be extremely time-consuming. Something many small business owners can’t afford. To help them and make their lives easier, there are many tools, such as Later. This tool allows you to link all your social media accounts and manage them from one single platform. Scheduling and managing your content becomes much easier with automation.
The goal of all of your marketing efforts is to drive sales and to increase your brand presence. Monitoring where and how your brand gets mentioned in real-time can be tricky. Mention lets you monitor the web so you can engage right away and keep track of your hard PR work.
Bonus: If you need help creating content, check out these AI Powered Writing Tools
About Author: Isabella is a freelance writer who’s passionate about design, entrepreneurship, marketing, and branding. She spent several years working for agencies but prefers the freelancing lifestyle these days. When she’s not writing you can find her hiking with her husband or updating her photography portfolio.