Have you ever looked at your competitors’ marketing materials and wondered how much money it costs them to get such great-looking results? Have you ever wished to have a larger marketing budget so you can help your business grow? Well, we can’t help with increasing your marketing budget, but we can definitely help you save some money by using some of the great free marketing tools you can find on the Internet.

As a small business owner, you want to promote your business in a professional yet cost-effective way. Logo, website, blog, and email campaigns are all important, but cost money. Here are a few free and amazing tools that can help you market your business:

5 Great Free Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

Email campaigns

Email is a great tool for engaging with your customers/prospects, as it is a free and direct way to reach them. Yet, it can be easily become as an annoying spam. To create a successful email campaign, you have to measure your results and track how many contacts have opened your email and how many bounces you got.
Many email campaign systems provide these features. One of them is MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com) – a highly recommended system that offers a free plan for up to 2000 subscribers.

Social media

In our digital era, you must have a strong Internet presence. Using social media as part of your marketing plan, as well as SEO (search engine optimization), can help increase awareness of your business.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat could be an integral part of your daily routine, but first you have to figure out which social media platforms are good for your business. Start by asking yourself where can you find your audience and what is the best way to engage with them, but just remember: Social media is called SOCIAL for a reason. Once you start using it for advertising, you will lose your audience very fast.

Free image banks

You’ve probably heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but you’ve also heard that hiring a photographer and renting a studio cost a lot of money. Luckily, there are a few free image banks on the Internet that offer thousands of free images. Yes, there are not as professional as hiring a photographer, but there are pretty good images there. Please note that to use these photos, you have to follow the license conditions (crediting the photographer, etc.). Otherwise you will be breaking copyright law. Here are a few links : www.flickr.com, http://picjumbo.com, https://pixabay.com

Google Analytics

So you’ve already invested in a good website, you post articles on your blog on a regular basis and you use the relevant social media. Now it’s time to analyze your results! Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track very important information regarding your website’s traffic. For example, you can see how many visits you’ve had every day, the gender of your visitors, where they’re from, which pages they’ve visited and for how long.

Canva

Canva is a great online graphic design platform. It allows you to create collages, banners and ads very easily, even if you don’t have any graphic experience. https://www.canva.com

Looks good? Well, we truly believe these are some of the great tools to promote your business, but before you jump in and start using them, we highly recommend you plan your marketing strategy first!

Apart from the above, various other marketing tools are available to make your marketing campaigns smooth & result-driven. Contact Marketing For You – A digital marketing agency in Toronto that learns all the business dynamics and develops unique customized strategies around your business, achieving marketing objectives.

image credit : flickr, SEOPlanter