We want to help business owners take advantage of the free digital marketing tools for small businesses. They already have a lot to deal with each day. Running a business, trying to ensure that it makes money, managing employees, and the mundane, administrative stuff that might make them want to pull out their hairs.
Traditional marketing, now and in the past, has made it difficult for small and micro-business owners to get their products and services in front of potential customers because of the lack of access to large marketing budgets and resources. Digital marketing has removed that barrier and has made it remarkably easier for businesses to widen their reach.
No longer do businesses need multimillion-dollar marketing budgets to get ahead of their competitors. It also makes it easier for business owners who are paying for things as they go or are putting up all the cash out of pocket to begin. While online marketing is important for any business to see true growth in today’s digital age, it is equally as important to know how to do it well. Read on to find out what free digital marketing tools you can use to manage and enhance your business’ online presence and digital marketing efforts.
Online Business Listings and Profiles
Any business looking to be more visible has to start with making themselves visible online. Consumers search the internet for businesses and explore their options before making a purchasing decision. You even have to cater to your loyal customers and be conscious that other businesses are targeting them with enticing offers and being constant in their minds. Even the most loyal customer will eventually go elsewhere if they don’t hear from you in a long time.
Online business listings are great, free ways to get your name online. This is often the first step that entrepreneurs take as online listings and directories are free and widely used by consumers. Google My Business, Yelp, Yellow Pages are a few of the online directories that not only allows you to list for free, but have added features such as assisting with your business rank in search engine results, allowing you to collect reviews, post pictures, your contact information, address and much more. Every business owner needs to have a Google My Business profile. It is so critical to your digital marketing efforts that we created a checklist to help you get the most out of your listing. You can download it here.
CRM
As soon as you start thinking of moving your business online, you have to start managing your customers’ information effectively. No more writing names down in a book that you might lose. It makes sense to store their information in a customer relationship management (CRM) system which will allow you to track all your interactions with them, as well as streamline your processes and automations.
Hubspot has an academy that explains how to use their products effectively.
Email Marketing
How will you utilize your customer’s contact information now that you have it? Email marketing takes the hassle out of communicating with your customers by allowing you to create content they want to see and automating the process of sending them out. It also helps you to create one email and send it to everyone in your contact list, while still being able to personalize it.
With email marketing, you can also set up automations so that whenever someone new subscribes to your list, they receive automated emails as well as other emails at different trigger points based on their actions or inaction. Popular email marketing providers are Mailchimp and Constant Contact. They have free versions that are adequate for small business and have all the email marketing tools you may need. There are many others available, so you should be able to find one suitable for you.
Social Media Management
Social media is the main digital marketing channel that has consistently grown in popularity and usage over the years. The various platforms have billions of users each day, with Facebook leading the charge at over 2.7 billion active users monthly. Creating content, knowing when to post them, knowing how to use the insights to reach more people are essential. If you don’t have the time to invest in this, it is best to hire the services of a social media management agency to handle it. They will have the social media management tools that will be useful to optimize the traffic you already receive and to take the steps to put you in front of a wider audience.
One of the main social media management tools we use for our clients is eClincher. We schedule our content, add hashtags and select the best times to post, all in one place. It is easy to use and takes the hassle out of organizing content for the month, which will leave you to focus on your marketing campaigns. Other popular ones are Hootsuite and Buffer.
Keyword Research & Analytics
Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner are free resources available under the Google umbrella. For novices, Google is the largest search engine in the world, and these tools are designed to help you to make it easy for search engine users to find your business online.
Google Keyword Planner provides insights into the best keywords you can use to optimize your online presence. These are keywords that people are using to find your products and services. We highly recommend that you optimize all your business listings, website and social media profiles with search engine optimization (SEO) and knowing which keywords to use is the first step.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console allow you to see how well your website is performing with SEO. They show you which keywords are performing the best, where your traffic is coming from and what links/pages people are viewing. These insights will help you to adjust your SEO strategies to your advantage.
We also recommend Facebook Pixel for retargeting and traffic purposes on your Business’ Facebook Page.
Graphic Design
If you’re creating content, you have to ensure that it is appealing and that the branding, graphics and designs are consistent. For basic photo editing, we recommend Adobe Spark Post and Canva. Of course, if you’re a graphic design pro, go ahead and use the photo-editing software of your choice. The ones we mentioned are great for people who aren’t professional designers. They come with templates and are easily customizable. They also have free versions that will cut down on cost, but not quality.
Get Started!
As a digital marketing company, evlos digital is tasked with managing all aspects of the digital marketing process. From content creation, management, distribution and advertising, we have a lot to juggle, so we have to ensure that everything aligns in order to deliver efficient service to our clients.
Though we religiously use the tools mentioned above, we have others that make our service so much better. Based on your industry, you might need more or less, but these are the basics.
If you are a small business owner, a social media marketer, or a digital marketing professional, knowing what digital marketing tools to use will help you to streamline your business without breaking the bank. Contact evlos digital to find out how we can help to make this process less stressful for you.
