For most large businesses, having a true marketing budget is absolutely necessary. In fact, not only is it necessary… it’s crucial. When a business is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on marketing, it requires a lot of planning, research, and access to really great resources.
So what about the smaller businesses that may not have the budget or resources to achieve some of those larger marketing initiatives?
We may not have a complete solution, but if your answer is “no” to any of the questions below, then you may be in luck!
Duct Tape Marketing is a great resource for small businesses to receive practical, achievable, and interesting business advice through blogs, books, webinars, and newsletters. By signing up on their websitewww.ducttapemarketing.com, you will receive a weekly newsletter packed full of sales and marketing links, eBooks, podcasts and the crème de la crème… SMALL BUSINESS TOOLS!
So ask yourself, “Does my business have the marketing budget for…”
- Finding an outsourced company that can build my website?
- Hiring experienced designers to create my marketing material?
- Hiring full time bloggers to create content on my social media profiles and company blog?
- Creatively formatting and managing unique email campaigns?
- Getting presentation software that’s more dynamic than PowerPoint?
… Or anything and everything in between?
We’ve compiled some of our favorite small business tools, compliments of Duct Tape Marketing, that are geared toward helping small businesses and business professionals to achieve large-scale goals with the use of budget-friendly (and sometimes FREE) resources.
Enjoy!
Crowdmics – This is a unique app that turns mobile devices into microphones for Q and A at conferences. crowdmics.com
Canva – This is an online graphic design tool for simple but powerful Facebook covers, presentations and social media images. www.canva.com
Content Top Idea Generator– This tool allows you to type in a keyword and get help brainstorming topic ideas for your next blog or content marketing piece.www.rypmarketing.com
Whobaloo – This is just another nice, simple, online graphic design tool. whobaloo.com
Rebump – This is an email tool that automatically sends follow up reminders when someone does not respond. www.rebump.cc
Stormboard – Nice little online brainstorming and collaboration tool that uses an online sticky note whiteboard. www.stormboard.com
MOZ Local– The SEO folks at MOZ just launched a tool to help local businesses show up in search. moz.com
Chromebox for Meeting– It was only a matter of time before Google entered the video meeting space – this set-up gets you into conducting video meeting via the big screen.www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/solutions/for-meetings.html
Woovent – This is a nice looking tool for organizing and promoting events on Facebook.www.woovent.com
Organigr.am– This is a tool that makes creating directories and org charts easy.organigr.am
SlideDog – Free multimedia presentation software that lets you create playlists of different media. slidedog.com
AWR Cloud – This is an online rank tracking tool, great for competitive research.www.advancedwebranking.com
Snappy Checkout – Simple and slick looking way to add shopping cart to your website.www.snappycheckout.com
Grapevine6 – A tool that connects to your LinkedIn account and suggests content to send to people you want to network with. grapevine6.com
Syndical – A service that makes it easy to create and share events across networks.syndical.com
Present.me – Very nice presentation tool that allows you to create a video with your slides next to them (great for pitching ideas). present.me
… AND…
Online Marketing Tool Directory– This is a one-page directory of 300+ online marketing tools and resources that any business or business professional can use!