Top 10 FREE Tools to Up Your Digital Marketing Game In 2020
A strong digital marketing strategy is non-negotiable for any business - no matter the size or industry. However, if you’re just starting out, there’s no guarantee you have the budget to be able to invest in the premium versions of all of the latest tools.
That’s why I compiled this list of the top free digital marketing tools to help you streamline your efforts, access new data, and boost brand awareness.
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools help you do exactly that - manage your relationships with your potential and existing customers. The free version of Hubspot CRM lets you track sales leads, access and organise important data on existing clients, and communicate with them through the platform.
Hubspot CRM is a top tool for those who want to nurture their sales leads all the way through to conversion. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost, meaning this opportunity shouldn’t be passed up.
Email marketing is an extremely powerful way to build relationships with prospects and paying customers. So powerful, in fact, that it has an astonishing 4400% ROI.
Mailchimp’s free plan lets you contact up to 2,000 list subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails a month. It also includes design and image upload functions, media storage, email design templates, list management, A/B testing, and more.
When it comes to SEO tools, the list is endless. Personally, I favour this one because, not only does it provide a breakdown of your score, it offers actionable feedback as to how you can improve. I love a checklist and, at the end of each crawl, that’s exactly what you get. Work through the list and watch your score increase.
Being seen online - and in the right places - is crucial for any business. Moz Local helps businesses get listed correctly on data aggregator sites like Google and Yelp which, in turn, boosts conversions in local markets.
The free version of the platform provides insights into how your business appears across the internet, keyword value, recommendations for SEO, and organic rank tracking, amongst other features.
If you are ever stuck for content inspiration, look to your keywords. The way Ubersuggest works is thus - you type in a keyword (the more long-tail the better) and it serves you a veritable smorgasbord of titles. Sure, they don’t all make sense - it is a bot after all. But there’s more than enough to get those creative juices flowing. It also allows you to gain insight into what your competitors are up to so you can adopt what’s working, improve on it and get an edge on them. Not bad for a zero fee.
These days, every business that wants to widen its reach and engage its audience should have a strong social media presence. Social media is a huge tool to tap into: the number of global social media users is predicted to hit almost 3.43 billion in 2023!
Here’s where Hootsuite comes in. Within Hootsuite’s basic service, you can publish and schedule posts, monitor your feeds, engage with and share posts within the dashboard, integrate with third party apps, and access basic analytics. This will save you serious time and effort when it comes to nailing your social media play.
Much of building a turbo-charged online presence is about making it look eye-catching as well as sound engaging. Canva can help design novices who can’t afford to hire a graphic designer make sure their brand image is slick and professional.
Canva lets you create images for social media, blogs posts, email campaigns, presentations, and anything else you could possibly need. The platform even has easy-to-use templates that are specifically formatted for posts on different platforms.
Google Analytics is a must-have for monitoring the most important marketing metrics. The service gives away an incredible amount of information on your online performance - all for free. With Google Analytics, you can keep track of key data points about your audience’s demographics and location, how people get to your website, how those site visitors behave, insight into conversion actions - and more.
If you are ever wondering what your competitors are using to achieve their digital marketing goals, look no further than builtwith. Just type in their site URL and you will see every technological tool and platform they utilise. It also allows you to monitor digital technology trends, market share information and country based analytics for all web technologies. Release your inner geek freak and go wild with lists, data and sales intelligence.
Similar to the above, wappalyzer provides technological data on whatever site you look into. But, not only does it give you insight into their technology stacks, it monitors their choices and alerts you if there is a change. So, whatever your competitors are doing to evolve, there are no secrets in the game. Use this tool to compare the good with the bad and, again, whatever is working - adopt and amplify.
You’re not going to nail your digital marketing game overnight, especially if you’re just starting out. However, kicking off your efforts with these free tools and combining them with a solid marketing strategy will give you the best chance of gaining visibility and reaching your audience with meaningful messaging.
Need help with the strategy side of things? That’s what I’m here for. Get in touch today.