By Melissa Miller October 30, 2023
Being in a start-up or having an underfunded marketing budget sometimes makes finding the right tools even more difficult.
Whether you're looking to improve social media marketing, send email marketing out to a client list, boost content creation, or optimize your website for search engines, I’ve got you covered, come explore a variety of free tools for digital marketing.
Social Media Marketing
1. Buffer is a super helpful and free social media management tool that enables you to schedule and analyze posts across various platforms, making it a must-have for social media marketers. The free version of Buffer offers a free plan with limitations which is to be expected but you can try it before you buy it.
2. Hootsuite provides a limited free plan for social media post scheduling and management. It's a great solution for keeping your social media presence going or even better to help get you started
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
1. Google Keyword Planner offers keyword research and analysis tools to help you optimize your content for search engines. Please make sure to set up an account first!
2. Yoast SEO, if you're using WordPress, Yoast SEO is a handy plugin for optimizing your website for search engines.
Email Marketing
1. MailChimp offers a free plan for email marketing, allowing you to send a limited number of emails to a limited number of subscribers. This will allow you to start marketing at a low cost but likely you will need to pay eventually.
2. MailerLite is a great tool that provides a free plan for sending emails to a limited number of subscribers with automation features which as you know from my last blog is vital to retention marketing.
Analytics and Data Analysis
1. Google Analytics and Data Studio: Google Analytics (GA4) provides in-depth website analytics and user behavior data, helping you understand your audience. Data Studio always you to create customizable dashboards and reports using data from various sources, providing a visual representation of your marketing performance. This is a great tool to share with leadership and keep it clean!
2. Bitly helps create short and trackable links to measure their performance, helping you understand which content is resonating with your audience. They also offer QR Codes and Links in bio tools you should look to leverage as well!
Content Marketing
1. Google Docs: offers a collaborative platform for content creation and editing. It allows for multiple users to access the same documents from anywhere and can be substituted for Microsoft Teams but for free!
2. HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator: This can be used to help brain fog in creating blogs... it helps generate blog post ideas based on keywords, helping you brainstorm content ideas that resonate with your target audience.
3. Grammarly, if you like me and struggle with grammar and typos fear not, Grammarly is for you it helps with your grammar and spelling mistakes, ensuring that your content is error-free and professional. It is free but has limitations.
4. ChatGPT This is one of my favorites and now probably the most well-known... it has a lot of uses in marketing to help you write, grammar check, explore new thoughts and ideas and so much more. It can also be integrated into your website to engage and assist visitors with content-related queries, providing a more interactive user experience.
5. DALL·E is an AI model that generates images from textual descriptions, making it a valuable addition to your content marketing toolkit for creating unique and visually appealing content. This can also be a great tool for concepting your next marketing campaign before the design team works on it!
Graphic Design & Creative (other than DALL·E)
1. Canva which in my experience is the most popular is a versatile graphic design tool that provides a wealth of free templates and tools to create eye-catching social media graphics.
2. Piktochart can be used to create infographics and other visual content for your marketing materials, this can be really helpful with presentation and offline marketing tools.
3. GIMP is an open-source image editor with capabilities similar to Adobe Photoshop and is very helpful when starting out and needs support.
4. Vista Create formally known as Crello is for designing graphics for social media, ads, and marketing collateral using Crello's free tools.
5. Snappa is used to create visual content for social media and marketing.
These free digital marketing tools can save money, allow you to test new technologies, and improve your current process. PLEASE remember that while these tools offer free versions, many also provide paid plans with additional features, so you can upgrade as your needs grow.
Comments