Stretch Your Budget with Free Marketing Tools

Successful marketers rely on an arsenal of high- and low-cost tools to publicize products and promote services. Have no fear savvy entrepreneurs and small business owners! There are a variety of free (yes, free!) web-based marketing applications to help you get the job done on a budget.

Many of today’s marketing tools offer “base plans” that are reliable, effective, and require zero dollars.  Here is a short list of free tools that are ChattyLime tested and approved.

MailChimp: If you’re new to the email marketing game, you can’t beat MailChimp. You can send up to 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers absolutely free. There are easy-to-use email templates or you can customize your own design. Plus, you can capture analytics such as opens, clicks and bounce rates for each email campaign you deploy.

Hootsuite: The free plan at Hootsuite allows you to sync three social media profiles and easily curate, schedule, post and respond across all your social platforms in one easy-to-use dashboard. As a small business owner, time may not be on your side, but this tool allows you to create a constant stream of information during a dedicated time each day so you won’t have to be hooked to your Twitter or Facebook feed at every moment.

Canva: Want the look of professionally designed graphics for your blog or marketing materials without the cost or the expertise? Canva offers pre-formatted templates to create social media banners, blog graphics, marketing flyers, and much more. There are loads of free images too, or you can upload your own.