Best Free Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

The best things in life are free—for a little while

We understand that, as a business owner, your time is valuable and having marketing tools in your pocket is crucial to helping you reach your goals. Even better is having FREE marketing tools at your disposal. You’re in luck. Whether it’s photos, graphics, or email options, we’ve got a collection to keep you covered. 

Branding and Design Applications

Not everyone is a graphic designer and it can be hard to convey your ideas visually without a designer’s eye and training. However, with Canva, you have a drag-and-drop style design tool that can help you keep things looking professional. Canva offers several free template designs as well as some free images, graphics and font selections. Canva is especially great for designing social media and email images and infographics.

The free version is a great place to start and, if you need better quality images, you can get them from the stock photo sources discussed later. Please note, there are some costs if you choose to upgrade to Canva’s professional images or take advantage of some of their premium offerings. Also, creating truly customized templates can still be difficult in Canva, so you may want to work with a graphic designer to get your assets and styles set up correctly in the beginning.

Photos and Videos

Having high-quality images for your email headers and social media posts can boost your brand, but many times there is a high price tag. Pexels offers free images (photos and videos) from talented photographers licensed for commercial use. It is a great source for fantastic, less over-used stock photos and videos. The only caveat: there isn’t a huge library and if you’re looking for something very specific, it may not be available. Another source for free, high-quality commercially-licensed photos is Unsplash. 

Marketing image tip: find an image style that works for you and your company and stick with it. Please don’t use images you find on Google, unless you enjoy being sued.

Writing Tools

Please note, there are times that Grammarly’s suggestions are not correct. Read and reread your writing before sending it to a new client. Grammarly will catch a lot of mistakes, but the document(s) should still sound like you. 

Email Systems

Having a custom-designed email template can help you look professional and aid in helping you position your brand and/or your products and services. With marketing email automation services, it is important to know your goals so you can choose the plan or service that is right for you. But there are some free options out there! One of our personal no-cost/low-cost favorites is Mailchimp. 

Mailchimp offers excellent email templates that will look and feel professional, plus integrations that will work with your free account, including Zapier and Canva. The only caveat: Mailchimp is free up to a certain number of contacts, so if you have a large email database, you will have to move to a paid plan. 

Feedback Tools

SurveyMonkey is a great software designed to help you create custom surveys to collect feedback and analyze data. If you want to know how you could improve your customer services and products, this tool is a great way to gather feedback and help you continue to offer excellent customer service and maintain repeat business. 

Business Tools

Microsoft Office products can be expensive, but there are tools at no cost that can work just as well, if not better (my opinion). Google’s Gmail offers some storage through your account and Google Docs and Google Sheets are comparable to Word and Excel. If you choose to invest in a low-cost office tools option, the G Suite basic plan starts as low as $6 a month/per user and includes 30GB of storage, business Gmail and a host of other applications likes Forms, Slides and Meet.

As useful as they are, these free tools are only that—tools. When it comes to marketing your services, having a key strategy in place and objectives against which to measure your tactics and results will help you reach your goals. Our marketing team is focused on strategic planning and implementation. If you are looking to improve your strategy and gain more customers, contact us to see how these marketing strategies can help you grow your business.