Marketing is an essential aspect of any business, but it often requires more time and money than small businesses have. There are many free marketing tools out there that you can use to help promote your business without breaking the bank and give back some of the time you spend on these efforts.
Here at Touch, we like to work smarter, not harder. The free marketing tools listed here are our recommendations that you can get started with today.
Social Media
Social Media
First up are our recommended social media scheduling tools. When used correctly, social media is a powerful tool that small businesses can use to grow. When used strategically, social media outreach can build awareness, increase sales and build a customer base.
Often content is put out on social media to check off the box and does not yield results. Social media goals should align with the mission and goals of your business. Once you have a social media strategy, we suggest building out monthly content. With this plan, we recommend utilizing a social media scheduling tool to ensure that your content makes it to the intended platform and remains consistent throughout the month.
Our recommendations include Meta Business Suite and Buffer.
Meta Business Suite: the social media giant Meta, aka Facebook and Instagram, has made scheduling within the business suite seamless.
Publish feed posts and stories for both Facebook and Instagram at the same time
Schedule posts and stories
Save drafts and upload creative assets to the media library
Post performance and ad management
Buffer: this social media management tool allows you to schedule posts across multiple platforms.
Schedule up to ten posts across three social media platforms
Perfect option for small businesses who want to schedule content on platforms other than Facebook and IG
Option to upgrade to paid tiers for additional services
While there are other options on the market, we recommend these free tools for your social media scheduling.
Graphic Design
Graphic Design
Branding is an essential aspect of your business. Competition for real estate on social media, inboxes, and ad space is steep. Compelling graphics, images, and videos is essential to grabbing and keeping the attention of your target audience. The number of free graphic design tools on the market continues to grow.
Canva: Our recommendation is Canva. Canva is a popular design tool that has a free and a premium version. Canva offers all the capabilities needed to build graphics for a successful marketing campaign.
Wide range of templates and design elements
Upload your images and customize them to fit your brand
User-friendly
Web Design
Web Design
In addition to graphic design for your social media, email marketing, and ads, having a professional and eye-catching website is essential for success in today’s digital world.
Two free tools and website design services are Wix and WordPress.
Wix: With Wix, you can create a professional-looking website in minutes.
Easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder
Offers templates and customizations
Add-ons including photo galleries, social media icons, and contact forms
WordPress: WordPress is a free website builder and content management system.
Hundreds of website templates
Customization options
Integrates with social media platforms
Thousands of free plugins to enhance functionality
While we love both tools, we suggest Wix for beginners and most small businesses.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to communicate with your audience and drive conversions, to directly reach customers and provide updates on your latest products or services.
There are a ton of free email marketing tools available that can help you get started.
We want to share two of the top contenders, MailChimp vs. HubSpot.
Both of these email marketing tools offer solid free plans
- Mailchimp is intuitively user-friendly
- HubSpot has a steeper learning curve for new users
- Both offer drag-and-drop templates
- Mailchimp offers more with limited customization options
- HubSpot offers fewer templates with more customization options
Our recommendation for most small businesses starting, Mailchimp is the perfect fit, it offers just enough to be successful without being overwhelming.
Free marketing tools are suited for most small businesses. By utilizing these tools, you can avoid investing heavily in services and tools you don't need. We suggest due diligence to investigate these free options based on organizational needs. Follow us on IG for marketing tips.