Folks who work at small businesses wear a lot of hats. For those who DIY their own digital marketing, we have compiled a list of 5 free marketing tools your small business needs to know about.
Why are they important? All of these tools balance two factors: they are easy to use (even for beginners), and they are highly valuable.
- Google Analytics: We can’t express enough how low-effort/high-value Google Analytics is. Installing it is simple, and even for businesses who don’t know how to use it, the data is there for when you do have a specific question. Aren’t you wondering how many people come to your website? How many of them are from SEO? Google Analytics will tell you!
- Canva: Digital design is straight up hard for people who are not designers. Fortunately, Canva offers ready to use templates for everything: postcards, hero images, brochures, social ads, etc. Just change the text, download, and use. There are a few sites like this available, so look around if Canva doesn’t match your visual style.
- Search Console / Bing Webmaster Tools: So many of our small businesses get approached by SEO companies, based overseas, who provide low-quality services for an ongoing cost. Instead of that approach, we recommend submitting your site to Google & Bing’s SEO tool for free. There are hundreds of tutorials, although it’s actually fairly simple on its own. Just by submitting, you will receive a little bump, and then you can go from there.
- Pixlr: We think of Pixlr as Adobe Photoshop – Lite. It’s the most thorough photo editing site we’ve found that doesn’t come with a subscription. Although some of the tools require some practice or Photoshop background, this tool is great for little things like resizing or re-touching images.
- MailChimp: Email marketing can be intimidating to start, and perhaps having a designer create your emails doesn’t make sense for you. MailChimp shortcuts the creative and the execution in their free version. This tool also grows with your business, providing more advanced options as your program gets more sophisticated. However, not all features are free.
All of these free marketing tools are easy to use and almost totally free. They can even handle complex challenges for programs that have a more robust marketing program. As always, if you have any questions, we are happy to talk digital marketing or ad design.