Free Small Business Marketing Tools… We Are Loving!

With so many small businesses mushrooming around us, the topic of marketing tools is an important one. If you are a business owner, you probably want to get your brand out there to generate leads and conversions.

This doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg as we are very happy to say that there are lots of FREE – yes, totally free – marketing tools available that will enable you to market your brand in a professional manner.

So, as a small business enterprise ourselves, we decided to share with you some of the free marketing tools that we are loving and using to effectively enhance our marketing efforts.

1.      Canva

Canva is a fantastic design tool! If you consider yourself unable to design anything (and just the word “design” sends a chill up your spine) then Canva is for you. It is incredibly simple and will have you rolling out amazing marketing material that will wow your family and friends.

Embed gif: https://media3.giphy.com/media/5VKbvrjxpVJCM/giphy.gif?cid=790b76115ca5fb103337494c519adaec

It is a drag-and-drop tool that is chock-a-block full of resources to design just about anything, including emailers, websites, social media posts, and more. You can choose from readymade templates or design your own from scratch. Canva is not overwhelming and will change you from clueless to competent in a jiffy!

2.      MozBar

MozBar is a Google Chrome extension and a great SEO tool. It displays the important SEO metrics for any webpage or SERP (search engine results page), including page authority and domain authority. The higher the numbers the more popular and reliable the site is.

This all helps you increase your ranking as it, amongst other things, helps you create better content because you are drawing information from credible sites. Also, you will be linking your brand to higher ranking websites which in turn increases your ranking.

3.      Asana

Do you need to keep track of your team and their work activities? It can be difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of everything that needs to be done and who needs to do it…

Enter Asana.

This simple tool will project manage for you and reduce the need for a never-ending slew of team meetings and manually written emails. All tasks are uploaded and assigned to your team on the Asana dashboard and from there can be monitored. It is project management at a glance.

4.      Google trends

This is a serious marketing tool that can really help you deliver excellent content. Yes, it is a keyword research tool, but it is also much more.

Google is a part of our lives and all the search data is correlated to give you insight into search trends. Google trends paints a picture of the life of a keyword over a period of time and how it has been influenced by geographic location, media, or even seasons. It’s pretty comprehensive and all the data is displayed on dynamic graphs.

5.      Splice

If you are wanting to add video content to your marketing plan, then Splice is for you. You can make professional looking videos on your iPhone or iPad as easy as 1,2,3!

You can add music, text, special effects and even change the speed of your video to create exactly what you want. Check out this awesome skydive video we filmed and edited on our phones with Splice.

Be brave and make those awesome videos that will promote your brand and take it to the next level.

6.      Giphy

Giphy is the fun factor! Gifs capture attention and can say in an instant what words fail to do. Pop them into any marketing post or blog and see an increase in engagement and interest.

Gifs illicit a response from your audience because they connect on an emotional level, and surely engagement is the goal of any marketing strategy? Here is a situation we can probably all relate to – have a good laugh:

Embed gif: https://media1.giphy.com/media/1APaaUc09xFSGHXECL/giphy.gif?cid=790b76115ca720a8683946554dee1765

7.      ColorZilla

This is another Chrome or Firefox extension which is most helpful to maintain colour uniformity throughout your social media platforms. You are able to grab a colour hex code with the colour picker and then paste it into another document or area. This is very useful to accurately keep your brand colours the same everywhere.

So, there you are, from one small business to another. These few free marketing tools will save you time and make the job of marketing your business a lot simpler and efficient. Get creative, try some new ones, and you will find they will help increase your following and profits. You’ve got this!

About the Author, Barrk Marketing