With online businesses rising and falling by the thousands every day, your startup or entrepreneurial endeavor can easily get lost in all this turmoil. Sure, you have heard about hundreds of digital marketing tools and strategies. You know you need the perfect website, outstanding, never-seen-before social media campaigns, influencer marketing, customer loyalty mechanisms, CRM, advertising, branding strategies, and so forth. If you wonder if you could check all these in your first year of business, the answer is probably no. Affording such investments upfront is also not likely, especially if you are a beginner with limited funds. So let’s see where to start and what to use to have a chance in the business jungle.
Are Free Digital Marketing Tools as Useful as the Premium Ones?
If you wonder whether to choose a professional web designer over a website builder when you only have an idea and a small budget, the answer is this: go with the free (or very affordable) website builder. The same applies to digital marketing tools – and even more so. For instance, Google Analytics is free, and it is the best you can get if you want to learn how you rank in Google searches and what you can do to bring more traffic and engagement to your website.
Some free tools are just as reliable and proficient as paid tools. From a free logo maker and blog designer to social media scheduling or website performance monitoring, you can build a startup’s free digital marketing toolkit to help you catch your wings!
7 Free and Reliable Marketing Tools to Start Your Business
Many people take websites for granted, but a well-designed, responsive, and UX-based website is the premier marketing strategy. As a startup, a free website creator is the best solution. A free website builder allows you to get free adaptive themes and layouts, integrate media, add customer support mechanisms, build your brand, and customize your online presence with necessary and useful tools. But it is not the only time and money-saving option out there!
1. A Free Logo Maker
In this day and age, nobody questions the importance of a logo when it comes to both new and established businesses. Besides making you stand out of the crowd, a good logo tells the story of your brand and can even promote customer loyalty. You might wonder whether to hire a professional designer to create an unforgettable logo for your business, but it is not necessary.
You can choose a reliable and free logo maker to meet your needs and help you promote your business across all physical and virtual environments. Before you pick a free logo creator platform, make sure it provides you with a wide variety of royalty-free and curated vector icons. Moreover, make sure you have the opportunity to customize your design (colors, shapes, shadows, textures, etc.) and that you can export it in a format your website can integrate.
2. SEO Tools
If you haven’t lived under a rock for the past decade, you know on-page, and off-page SEO is crucial for your website to generate traffic, stand out of the internet noise, rank well in Google, and retain your customers. From free plugins installed by your website builder to more complex free SEO tools you can download or use separately, you have a wide range of choices.
Many people take Search Engine Optimization for granted and do not consider this practice as marketing when, in fact, it is probably one of the most powerful strategies out there. Consistent, smart SEO is a surefire way to boost your online presence, position your business in front of the customers, and deliver them what they want in a seamless process.
3. Website Analytics and Performance Monitoring Tools
We talked about Google Analytics at the beginning, but you have other free digital marketing tools that offer optimization solutions and help you customize your marketing strategies better. From heat maps implementation to the deployment of feedback polls, performance and optimization tools allow you to understand your user base and tailor the experience they have with your website so they can stay longer and return more often.
4. Social Media Scheduling Tools
Your business needs to be everywhere, even if you don’t understand how to mainly use one platform for your type of service/product. In the best-case scenario, you only have time for some platforms, not all of them.
Welcome to social media scheduling tools. Many offer real-time posts across all platforms, while others make scheduling of posts a breeze. Some such modern tools also allow you to:
- track your social media accounts;
- recycle old posts that had the best reach and engagement;
- allow access to free photo and media stocks to share;
- monitor metrics;
- and see all your comments, messages, etc. in a single interface and more.
5. Content Creation Tools
They all tell you a picture is worth a thousand words. However, you will still need them for the blog section of your website. Do not ever underestimate the power of the written word for traffic generation, search engine rankings, and customer retention. In fact, before anything else, you should check out the latest trends in content marketing to boost your overall marketing strategy.
Before you choose a video creation tool that is free and easy to use, ask for other users’ feedback, and do your homework. Some providers are cunning enough to let you work for a couple of hours to make the promotional video or your life only to ask for a hefty price the second you hit the download button. When something says, it is “free,” make sure you do not pay a cent any step of the way.
6. Multi-Channel Marketing Tools
You may think such tools and platforms come with a hefty price tag but do your research. You may find free (or at least very affordable) platforms offering all-in-one marketing solutions, from automated email marketing campaigns, automated SMS campaigns, push notifications, and more.
7. Blog Topic Research
You have a business to grow and run, customers to keep happy, bills to pay, contracts to sign, a website to create, and so on. Who has the time to write curated and original long-form content to meet SEO standards, foster organic traffic, keep customers engaged and returning, and promote sales? And what to write about after 10-12 hours of work?
Well, you have tools and platforms that can help you with that. And many are free. It is crucial to learn what potential and existing clients are looking for on the Internet concerning your business. Blog topic research tools can help you find the best subjects to address on the business blog according to keywords, language, or trends. If you feel more like a business person and less like a creative writer, such tools can help you at least sift through Internet noise and cherry-pick topics that are the most likely to land readers on your page.
Bottom Line
You can start your digital marketing campaign with the free logo maker or with an affordable CRM tool. The main point is that technology now offers a wide range of options that will not burn holes in your pockets but help you grow. Do your homework before you begin!
