Five free tools for the everyday marketer
As a marketing assistant, managing multiple clients and events on a daily basis, there are numerous go-to tools I rely on. Below are five (FREE) tools for the everyday marketer:
1. Canva I <3 Canva! It is my way to make my creative soul shine free at work and at home. It is a (mostly) free online graphic design platform. With a wide variety of templates to choose from, or get inspiration from, I could (and sometimes do) spend hours on this site. I work on multiple events on a daily basis, so I need a program that is easy to use and creates quality images. With the option to download your work as either a jpg, png, or pdf, Canva is the perfect tool for creating and storing branded flyers, adverts, and email images unique to each client. Or for those fun projects at home!
2. Gimp Gimp is an image editor software, much like Photoshop, but free. It is my go-to platform for editing images, resizing, and my new favourite, making transparent backgrounds. It might take a bit of getting used to and perhaps a lot of googling how-to, but once you figure out how it all works (and trust me, I still am!), it’s a great software for the inner image editor in you. And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg!
3. Google Analytics
Ah Google, the god of the interwebs. Being a company worth over £350 billion, it better have the most powerful web analytics tool on the market. And with Google Analytics Premium being £90,000 per annum, thank God there’s a free version. Google Analytics is a great way to measure your marketing strategies. Find out what works and what doesn’t by keeping track of your website sessions, users, page views, average time spent on your site, and more.
4. Bitly
140 characters. That’s all you get to share what you need to in a tweet. So what happens if you have a long URL, like, for instance, http://laurakarimiller.wix.com/thatniftyblog? That’s 44 characters right there. Now I have less than 100 characters to share what’s important. That’s where Bitly comes in. Bitly is a free and easy URL shortener and link management platform. It allows you to take a long URL and turn it into a shorter, more aesthetic link: http://bit.ly/thatniftyblog. Now that’s better!
5. Hootsuite
When you have multiple social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) to manage, posting can take time. This is when Hootsuite becomes handy. This social media tool has many different uses, from posting on multiple platforms at once, scheduling future posts, to measuring campaigns. There are three different plans to choose from, and one of them is free, perfect if you are an individual or small business.
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