Because digital marketing has become so much more common in recent years, small businesses are getting into the game and finding that it really gives their business a leg up. There are tons of accessible, easy-to-use, and cheap tools out there that can be leveraged for effective marketing strategies. Instead of requiring a massive marketing budget to be effective on a large scale, anyone can create high-quality content to beat the competition. Here are a few tools to help you do that.

Email Marketing Tools

Even though email has largely been replaced by other messaging formats for peoples’ personal lives, almost all businesses rely on email for part of their marketing strategy. By having an “in” to someone’s inbox, you’ll be one of the first things that greet them when they open their phone or computer email in the morning. Email marketing tools like Mailchimp make it incredibly easy to pull off a marketing email strategy with high cardinality. Emails can be automated and sent on schedules, and your list of receipts can be managed with a tool like this. Many of these tools will also offer free subscriptions for tiny businesses with a certain subscriber threshold, making it perfect for small businesses that are just getting started. 

Google Analytics

Speaking of free tools, small businesses would be remiss not to take advantage of what Google Analytics has to offer. This free software can provide your business with a top-tier level of insight into who visits your website and what they do while they’re there. Analytics such as keywords used to find your site, demographics, geographic data, and volume of visitors can help you make necessary changes to your business website to get more traffic. SEO can be a tough thing to nail, but you might be surprised by how accurately Google Analytics can tell you what words do or don’t help you get more views. Try experimenting with popular search terms by writing blog posts for your website that contain those words, and see if you get more traffic.

Social Media Tools

Along with email, every business has a presence on social media for marketing purposes. If you’re doing everything yourself in your small business marketing strategy, you might have noticed that social media can take up a lot of your time, even if you have a plan mapped out. Tools like Hootsuite thankfully exist to help take some of that work off your hands.

Social media management tools will let you plan all your posts weeks in advance, or even months, allowing you to spend a day strategizing and then forget about it until the content runs out. These tools also come equipped with analytics to help you decide which posts are more effective than others and how you can optimize future strategies. Through a simple dashboard interface, you can see at a glance how well your social media profiles are doing, without even having to log into your accounts. 

Content Strategy Tools

In this article, you’ve heard the words “content strategy” a few times. But what does a content strategy actually entail? Even for a small business that’s just getting started, creating content without any thought about where it fits into an overall strategy is a bad idea. To create a cohesive brand, you’re going to need a content strategy. Thankfully, tools like Feedly will help you out by showing you what’s trending on social media, allowing you to create content that gets clicks and views. 

SEO Tools

SEO is becoming a more commonly understood aspect of marketing, and for a good reason. Without search engine optimization, you’re unlikely to get much traffic for your business. SEO isn’t just about having the right keywords to show up on searches – you’ll also need a well-designed website layout that works on mobile. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner can help you create an SEO strategy that works seamlessly with your content. Utilizing marketing tools can take a lot of the burden of successful campaigns off your shoulders.