Imagine you’ve put together the best party the world has ever seen. We’re talking about a reincarnated John Lennon performing live while robot waiters serve fillet mignon from the very same cow that jumped over the moon.
You’ve missed one thing though. You forgot to invite any guests.
You simply wouldn’t have a party without inviting guests, so why would you start a small business without making sure that your potential customers know about it?
Below are a few of our favourite free marketing tools that some of our co-workers have found helpful.
Free stock image sites
Finding the right images for your campaigns and website often takes up way more time than it should - especially if you have to take the shots yourself. Fortunately, websites like Pexels and Unsplash offer thousands of free images and videos that you can use on your social media, websites, posters, flyers + more.
One thing to remember though is that the search functionality on these sites is average at best (so you’re best to use one-word search terms), and you may often find that paid services like Shutterstock will offer many more choices.
Emojipedia
Emojipedia is your one stop free library of every emoji known to humankind - plus a few more! While many don’t consider them overly professional (these people are wrong), emojis can be super handy for making your social media posts stand out from the crowd.
Don’t believe us that there’s an emoji for everything? Well, here’s 🎐 glass wind chime, 👹 ogre, 📟 pager, and 🕴️ person in business suit levitating.
Canva
Founded in Australia and used worldwide, Canva is an incredible tool for taking your marketing collateral to the next level. Whether you’re designing a poster, social media content or even your annual report, its drag and drop tools mean that everyone in your team can take their design skills to the next level.
Don’t have the time to design on your own? Give Fiverr a go.
Flaticon
Free with attribution of the designer, Flaticon is great for breaking up text-heavy websites and documents to make it easier for customers to understand exactly what you offer. What’s more, they’re pretty!
Grammarly
If you’re a person who gets confused about which ‘their’ goes ‘there’, or you make the occasional embarrassing typo (who doesn’t?), then Grammarly is the perfect platform for you. The free version can be plugged directly into Google Chrome making it perfect for website editors and social media users, while the paid version actually teaches you how to become a better writer.
MailChimp
Programs like MailChimp and ActiveCampaign make reaching out to your email list easy. Simply sign up to a free account, add your list and follow the prompts.
Humanitix
Hosting an event? Humanitix is a great alternative to Eventbrite for hosting your ticket booking process. Humanitix also offers the bonus of:
being an Australian-based business
a portion of all event booking fees supporting a good cause
Being named one of the ‘Top 20 Businesses of Tomorrow’ in the 2018 Google Impact Challenge.
ProfileID
Before entering a market, it’s super important that you understand who your customers are, what they do and what their capacity for spending is. The City of Playford’s ProfileID page helps you to understand all this and more. Here are a few helpful links:
Facebook Groups
While social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn offer incredibly tight targeting on paid ads, as Rhuah from Playford Plumbing and Gas recently recommended, posting regularly in community groups on Facebook can be a great way to drive new business.
Here are a couple of local Facebook groups that accept ads from local businesses:
Have some great tips of your own?
Flick an email to connect@strettoncentre.com.au and we may add them to this guide.