As marketers, we all have our favorite tools to ease our daily workload. But some tools can be a huge investment, especially when you’re an independent contractor, entrepreneur or small company that doesn’t have the money to allocate for expensive methods. I’m always looking for the most efficient and affordable ways to create the best marketing assets. So I’ve compiled my top 5 tools that—get this—are completely free!
Using these marketing life hacks, you can exceed all project (and boss) expectations!
1. Canva
Canva is an online editing platform that makes creating any marketing asset simple. While the editing opportunities in Photoshop are endless, there is a time-consuming learning curve that comes along with it. Not to mention, a license will set you back over $200. With Canva, you can adjust photos, make appealing advertisements, and layer photos all for free. Additionally, Canva provides easy layouts that are already optimized for different social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram.
2. Buffer
Buffer is my go to for scheduling out social media posts. Buffer’s free version allows users to schedule up to 10 posts per social media channel at a time. It’s a massive time saver to plan out social posts in advance without the headache of contributing content throughout the day. Plus, you can also easily assess the type of content you’re posting and diversify it. Between blogs, images, testimonials, and reviews, Buffer will share out your content at optimal times to attract the most traffic.
3. Google Analytics
Ever wonder how customers are getting to your website? How long they’re viewing your pages? Or even their demographics like age, gender, or location? Google Analytics offers the insights you ever wanted to know about your website traffic. As a social media marketer, this is the perfect tool to see how much revenue you are generating from each social media site as well as your biggest traffic source to the website. Additionally, demographics can come in handy when creating new content to attract a certain gender or age group.
4. Mailchimp
While building a presence through social media is important to any marketer, especially in today’s digital world, email marketing still reigns king when communicating with customers. Mailchimp makes email marketing a breeze with drag and drop widgets, quick and effective campaigns, and instant subscriber management. Mailchimp is a great tool to communicate to your external customers about deals and updates and to your internal employees about any company news.
5. Later
Ever wonder how brands are able to create such a cohesive Instagram aesthetic? They’re most likely using Later! Think of Later as your visual content calendar. It allows you to set up your content before posting to make sure it’s in the most visually appealing order. Companies like S’well, Patagonia, and WeWork use Later to schedule their posts on Instagram.
With drag and drop widgets, this platform is user friendly and a convenient scheduling tool that allows you to post straight from their platform to your profile! As an Instagram partner, Later ensures all of your content and posting is completely safe with their application.
These five tools only scratch the surface of what marketers can utilize every day on the job. We’re lucky to live in a world of technology that helps in content creation and analyzes data faster and easier than ever before. Take advantage of these free resources to help you kickstart a powerful marketing plan.