Essential Tools and Apps
By Ashley Guevara
for Business Owners
Investing your time, skills, and money toward campaigns and social media has proven to be an effective
marketing tool for many companies, including small business-owners. Here are a few free apps and tools we
recommend to successfully engage your target audience.
Canva
Canva is a great tool for business owners that would like to improve their
social media content aesthetic. You are able to upload photos as well as find
a few royalty free images, however there is also a premium version that
allows access to their entire collection. Not only are there specific templates
for social media platforms like Facebook, but also templates for business
cards, post cards, flyers and more. This is a great online one-stop shop that
will help in the creation of your business marketing needs. Once you create
posts you can download these images directly to your computer in different
formats that you might need. Another great feature is the ability to allow
collaboration. You can create teams that can access project boards so that
everyone who is allowed access has the ability to edit and download
completed files when needed.
Hootsuite
This social media tool is key towards remaining active and engaged with
your audience in the digital realm. Hootsuite allows users to connect up to
three social media accounts as part of their free version with a limit on
scheduled posts. However, depending on your needs, you can upgrade the
software to gain access to other useful features. You can schedule engaging
posts for the future so that you don’t have to wait for a day or time to post
specific items. Once you have scheduled posts, they will automatically post
to your social media platforms seamlessly. Users can also remain engaged
with audiences by viewing social media activity in one place. Access to social
media analytics are tracked through the software and can also be exported
from the software in clean, easy to read reports.
Constant Contact
One of the most commonly known online software’s for email marketing is
Constant Contact. Through this tool, you are able to maintain communication
with your audience members who have provided an email. Through Constant
Contact, users can create email marketing campaigns that can be used for
e-commerce purposes as well as for weekly newsletters. Constant Contact
also can be used to conduct A/B testing, which can be used to test out
different versions of an email containing similar data, to determine which of
the two is more effective. This email marketing tool can also do more than
just email, events can also be created using the tool.
Collecting registration information, this tool can help businesses as they
coordinate events both large and small-scale and can help with the
dissemination of information.
MailChimp
Using MailChimp is another way to connect with your audiences through
email. MailChimp is also widely known for the customizability and ease of
use of the email marketing tool. Using this tool, business owners are able to
upload contacts and use the tool for free up until their contact base reaches
2000. MailChimp also allows users not only the ability to create email
campaigns and view as they would appear in different email servers, but also
allow for the creation of landing pages. Landing pages are important to a
business as they help potential clients and follower’s guidance as they learn
about your products or services. Landing pages on MailChimp are also very
customizable and can be used to collect event registrations/audience
information. Analytics can also be gathered on MailChimp which can help
business owners know whether their
audience is opening their emails
and clicking on links. LS
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