Marketing can be a scary thought for plenty of small business owners. And while some people outsource their marketing, there are also plenty of others who want or need to tackle it themselves.
If you’re launching a business and trying to manage your upfront costs, how can you possibly roll out a marketing plan? And what tools do you need to do it with? These questions have been top of mind for me lately in a couple of different scenarios. First, I have a couple of close friends who recently launched their own ventures, and they reach out regulary for marketing advice. Then I also get questions from BrightGauge customers from time to time. While we have plenty of large shops partnered with us, we also have numerous small MSPs who are just beginning to think about proactive marketing efforts and don’t really know where to start. If you’re in the latter group, then consider a few of my favorite marketing resources to help you get started.
Note: The brands listed here are my personal preferences and tried-and-true resources that I’ve discovered along the way in my marketing journey. BrightGauge and I are in no way benefitting from the sharing of any brands listed below.
My favorite free tools to kick off your marketing efforts:
(The All-in-One) HubSpot Growth Stack: As the name implies, you get a whole bundle of tools to use with this option. I may be partial, as I use HubSpot every day in my marketing role, but if you know you’re ready to dive in and launch a full marketing program this is it! You’ll get all of their marketing, sales, and CRM tools in one app, and since everyone likes to save time and have less clicking around, that’s a huge benefit here along with everything being really simple to use. From a marketing perspective we’re talking tools to manage your website, blog, email, social publishing, landing pages, SEO, analytics... the list goes on but you can get all the details here.
Canva: A bit of graphic design is par for the course with any marketing efforts, whether it’s a blog image, a flyer, a social media post, or any other cause for an eye-catching design. A few years ago, there seemed to be no options in between the childish clip art found in word processing programs and the intimidating, costly, and time consuming Photoshop. So when I stumbled upon Canva, it was really a whole new world of approachable design. They make it incredibly easy to create professional-looking stuff, either by using their templates or you can start from scratch. There are tons of stock photos starting at just $1 (so much cheaper than the big name sites), plus free icons, illustrations, and more. Then if you need to scale up with team level access in the future, you can do so at a very reasonable price.
I use Canva to create some of the call to action images you see on our blogs
MailChimp: Sending one email at a time just doesn’t cut it when you have a message to share with your loyal community. And the old “BCC” version blanket emails are no better... you can’t even personalize those things! What you need is an email platform to really ramp up your efforts. While there are dozens, if not hundreds, of email platforms out there to choose from, my preference is MailChimp. If you have less than 2,000 subscribers you can take advantage of their free account, although my favorite part about MailChimp is that it’s very user-friendly and simple for creating good looking emails. Some of the other platforms I’ve tried are just plain clunky when it comes to their user interface, and you have to pay for them on top of it!
Hootsuite: Posting regularly on multiple social media sites can wear you down pretty fast. That’s where a social management dashboard comes in. Check out Hootsuite (free for up to 3 social accounts), which not only lets you post on multiple social platforms from one central location, but you can also schedule those posts in advance, and see all your analytics in one place.
Droplr: Videos are more popular than ever when it comes to marketing. If you’re thinking about trying out some video options, of course you can use your phone for featuring yourself or others, but what about a how-to or instructional video where you want to walk your viewers through something on your computer? Not too long ago, I found myself in this scenario when I had launched a completely revamped version of BrightGauge’s free Resource library. I wanted to walk our community through our Resources with a quick video, and I used Droplr to make that happen:
On a side note, we also use Droplr to create those oh-so-famous BrightGauge custom support videos that our community loves so much. Plus, Droplr also makes it easy to take a screenshot and turn it into a shortened URL link when you need to share something quickly.
Bonus free resource! Need some tunes to go in the background of your Droplr video? I suggest checking out YouTube’s collection of free, royalty-free music which is a great solution so that you don’t have to cite the artist/composer.
Join.me: Webinars are a great way to help educate your audience, one to many. That's why we host one about every month or so at BrightGauge. If you’re going to host webinars sporadically, or want to test the waters before committing to a pricey software, check out Join.me’s free webinar solution for up to 10 attendees.
Alexa: SEO is such a complex topic, but getting a hold on your organic reach can yield incredible results! When I first got started at BrightGauge, I used Alexa for some free insights before diving in any further and paying for a tool. With Alexa, you can use their Site Overview to monitor your competitors and also gain some insights about your own site, such as top keywords visitors used to find your site, your ranking power, visitor engagement rates, and more.
Google Analytics: When it comes to monitoring your website’s performance and gaining insights on your visitors, Google Analytics is the most widely recognized name. You’ll see which pages have the best or even worst performance, determine where your best visitors are located, uncover your top content, and more. Plus, it’s easy display your Analytics data on your BrightGauge dashboard by downloading the info and then using our Dropbox integration to finish the job.
Do you have favorite, free marketing resources to share with the community? Let us know in the comments below.
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