A List of the Marketing Resources and Tools I Use
This is a very personal list of the tools I used when first building my business, marketing resources we continue to use today.
Photos and Images
To create, edit, and manage photos and images: Photoshop Elements
PowerPoint: Create images for your web pages and blog with PowerPoint.
HubSpot: To create InfoGraphics , pick up these free templates and how-to’s.
PicMonkey and Canva – two free online tools.
To communicate via email to individuals: Gmail. It’s good to create a Gmail account for your business and then create your other Google accounts under this umbrella e.g. Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google + personal profile and then business page.
To create, manage and send email to your lists (e.g. clients/customers and prospects): MailChimp if you’re on a very limited budget and/or you’ll have just one main list of under 500 subscribers. Constant Contact if you are a local business with a marketing budget since Constant Contact has been specifically designed for local business marketing. Aweber if you are going to do a lot of internet marketing, have more than one website and want to do affiliate marketing.
Login Management
To keep track of that growing list of login usernames and passwords: Use LastPass for free and work in the Mozilla Firefox and/or Chrome browser. (Will now work with Internet Explorer.)
I love Roboform. You might want to test drive it and compare with LastPass.
Websites
To build and style websites: I use WordPress because it’s free and secure and it’s easy to teach clients how to “drive” it on their own.
I style baby websites (new and just getting started) with Woo Themes, primarily Canvas.
To grow beyond your initial website and have a website that you own and control, a website that’s stress-free and designed to meet the needs of business and business owner (not the designer/developer’s needs), try Stressless Web (Web Design Company).
Social Media Management
To schedule and manage posts across multiple social platforms: As an individual business or solo entrepreneur, keep up with social media posting across platforms e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. Schedule posts across timezones 24/7. I start my clients at Buffer.com with Buffer’s Awesome Plan, the same plan I use to manage posts for Social Biz Local Biz.
As an agency, I use Sprout Social to post and track and measure progress across groups of accounts.
Search Engine Optimization
I use Word Tracker to do search term research for myself and for new client websites and content marketing (web pages, blog posts and social media posts). WordPress SEO by Yoast is my choice of WordPress plugin to optimize every blog post and web page at my WordPress websites. It is the best and Yoast is the BEST on the web at supporting his customers.
For local businesses, I use Yoast’s Local SEO plugin.
Video
YouTube is your first choice to find video to embed in relevant posts and grow a following for your channel. To create short videos, I start with Animoto.
Tools You Use
Let us know in the comments below, which marketing resources are your favorites.
Which tools do you use in marketing for your small business?