Businesses have long relied on well-defined marketing strategies to reach their target market. By investing in promotional materials, businesses can generate actionable metrics that can turn into conversions. In the long run, a good marketing strategy can increase your return on investment (ROI) and grow your business. However, recent technological advancements during this digital era paved the way for the evolution of consumer needs.

Today, there’s a huge difference between offline and online consumer behavior. Luckily, countless marketing tools have emerged with technology to match fast-paced advancements. This means entrepreneurs, businesses, and companies can access free marketing tools that can help them promote products, engage with customers, and track actionable metrics.

Entrepreneur Starter Pack: Essential Marketing Tools

Most marketing tools are available via monthly subscriptions. Some offer free trials so you can test their features and decide if it’s the right marketing tool for your business. If you’re not ready to commit to a monthly subscription, there are several free tools that you can access with a click of a button. But it can get quite difficult to choose which tool can help your business achieve its goals. Plus, it can be time-consuming to read reviews, feedback, or do your research. This is why we listed down essential marketing tools to give you a general idea of what you’ll need.

1. For Social Media Marketing

Social media is the best way to connect with people who are not within the vicinity of your business. Upon launching, your target market has no idea that neither you nor your business exists. In order to make your services known, you’ll have to be consistent in posting about your products, services, and the value you bring to customers. But be wary, as social media is filled with businesses yearning to be heard by the millions of users within the platform. One way you can stand out is to make sure all your posts are more visual, creative, and informative.

There are social media marketing tools that automate your social strategy across several social media networks. Now, most small businesses don’t see the value of social media automation. But scheduling your posts in advance can help you preserve the most valuable resource you have—time. Automation will allow you to post what you need to post in advance and consistently disseminate your branding while you do more important tasks. This will give you more free time to focus on other aspects of your business, such as analytics and metrics. With social media automation, you’ll get a holistic view of how your target customers react to your social media networks. You can view reports that will let you identify the effectiveness of your communication channels.

The most common mistake business owners do is remaining stagnant with their promotional strategies. It’s alright to focus on direct client acquisition. But consumer behavior is rapidly and constantly evolving. Most of your potential customers are online, looking for your products without you even knowing. This is why you need to be present online as well, especially on social media platforms.

2. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Content is, and always will be, king of marketing. If you constantly write blog posts about the problems your product solves, potential customers will, one way or another, end up on your website. Or so you think! If you don’t use the right keywords, your content might remain in the abyss of search engine libraries. This is why you need to consider keyword research and analysis before you plan out your content strategy.

If you want to increase your search engine rankings, then you need to perform SEO analyses on your website’s content. There are plugins for website platforms that can analyze your content before you post it on your website. SEO tools will let you know if your content has good readability scores, competitive keywords, and well-placed links. Ideally, using SEO tools can help you reduce your website’s bounce rates because readers will find your content easy-to-read and informative.

While Google’s previous algorithms celebrated keyword spamming, it no longer tolerates content that doesn’t bring value to readers even though it has relative keywords. In order to rank with a high score on search engines, you need to be able to bring value with what you write. Installing SEO tools and plugins on your website can help determine whether or not your blog will be penalized or rewarded by search engines.

If you want to drive traffic to your website using SEO, make sure to use the right keywords. This way you can serve your content to customers who are directly looking for the content that your website can offer. Grab free keyword analysis tools online and start searching for keywords you can rank in. And by tracking the right metrics, you can identify which of these keywords work and which of them don’t.

3. For Graphic Design

Gone are the days when aspiring entrepreneurs would spend hours on YouTube watching Adobe tutorials to create visually-attractive posters. Today, you can spend less than an hour creating graphics to promote your products and engage with customers. While creativity is a learned skill, there are design tools you can now conveniently use to quickly whip up a creative poster for your marketing efforts.

If you’re looking for a simple way to create marketing posters, there are easy-to-use design tools online. Most of these tools have ready-to-use templates that you can edit freely according to your company’s branding guidelines. Because Photoshop is a tool mostly used by advanced designers, graphic tools online make sure that your experience as a beginner will be smooth and structured. You can drag and drop most of the tools you need to complete marketing posters, logos, or other promotional materials. The best part is there are tons of free graphic design tools that you can use without paying for monthly subscriptions.

Grow Your Business with the Right Marketing Tools

Once you start pushing content in different online platforms using the marketing tools above, it’s time to start tracking your visitors’ behavior. Perform A/B Testing to identify your best marketing efforts and set aside more budget for that. Always remember that your brand’s online behavior can change the way your business works. If you’re not ready to commit to the paid services of the marketing tools above, try them out for free. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll notice significant changes in how your brand appears online. So, get started today—plan your marketing calendars, subscribe to the free trials of the marketing tools above, and execute your marketing strategy.