5 Recommended FREE Marketing Tools for SMEs
1) Mailchimp for email marketing.
Email marketing is imperative to the success of most SMEs. While building a brand on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are important relevant to the business, you’re limited to the constraints of those channels. This makes it particularly difficult to move consumers through a funnel and provides you with relatively little control.
However, email provides a more intimate interaction between brand and consumer by offering you the tools you need to control effectively and nurture leads. Mailchimp is an excellent free email marketing tool and one of the easiest for small business owners to learn.
2) Canva for easy designing.
Visual content is an increasingly popular form of marketing collateral. From custom illustrations and infographics to fully-designed sales proposals, visual content is a fantastic way for SMEs to gain credibility and build a professional appearance.
There are several free graphic design tools on the market, but one of the most intuitive and easy-to-use is Canva. Its free library of fonts, illustrations, templates and images give you a pool of graphics that you can easily drag-and-drop. From flyers and brochures to social media images and infographics, you can create it all for free in Canva.
3) SurveyMonkey for feedback.
SurveyMonkey is one of the most popular free online survey tools. Surveys are a good way to collect consumer information, engage customers, uncover trends and secure tangible insights on your business. SurveyMonkey’s software is incredibly simple. In just a few minutes, you can design, create and publish your own business survey. Additionally, you’ll be able to analyze the results in the backend.
4) Buffer for social media management.
Buffer is a social media management tool that will help you streamline your social posting efforts. We already know how powerful social media is for your marketing initiatives, but leveraging a tool like Buffer will help you increase your followers; engage your audience; and build your brand.
The benefit of Buffer is its ability to let you connect multiple accounts to one dashboard; schedule posts; create drip campaigns; and analyze the success of your posts. Buffer’s free plan is perfect for new businesses looking to grow their social presence, but to unleash the full power of the software, you might want to consider one of their upgraded plans.
5) Google Analytics.
As one of the top free tools from Google, Analytics should be part of your digital marketing strategy from the very start. It only takes a couple of minutes to add the Analytics code to your website, giving you the ability to track every action by every visitor.
This is considered by many to be nothing more than a traffic tool, but it can actually have a big impact on your marketing strategy, if you know what you’re doing.
Take, for example, the ability to see where your traffic comes from:
Maybe you realize that a particular social media campaign is driving tons of traffic to your website. With this data, you can adjust your future strategy, in an attempt to capture the same results.
Or, maybe you find that a particular set of keywords is doing wonders for your organic traffic. Again, you can turn your attention to these keywords, ensuring that you keep these in mind as you create content down the road.
Google Analytics isn’t one of those tools that you should ignore. Installing this early on is a key decision, in regards to your online marketing strategy. The data you can collect and review is extremely valuable.