If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you may feel like you need a lot of capital and resources to launch or run your new business. But, that’s not necessarily the case. In today’s digital age, there are tons of free tools that you can make use of to give your new business the push it needs. From scheduling meetings to managing projects to converting leads into customers, these tools can be useful for more purposes than you’d imagine.
Hence, whether you plan to launch a company/service like Cox cable or run a garment store, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the following tools to benefit from them.
#1. Hootsuite
In today’s age, you cannot expand your reach, build a market presence and boost conversion rates without effective social media marketing. Constantly trying to hit everyone’s social feeds seems like a costly and difficult-to-manage job. The good news is, it’s not! With the social media management tool Hootsuite, you can manage multiple social media accounts with utmost ease. From scheduling posts through a service business software to tracking engagements to providing useful analytics, Hootsuite can do a great deal to help businesses analyze and optimize their marketing tactics. The free plan lets you manage two social media accounts and schedule up to five posts.
#2. Asana
Launched by two ex-Facebook colleagues, Asana is a helpful tool for business owners who struggle to manage their to-do lists. It keeps your projects organized and allows you to work more productively.
In Asana you can make a list of all the projects that you and your employees are working on. Each project has an owner who delegates different tasks to team members. When you finish a certain task, you can simply tick it off and pass it on to the other member of the project. You can also add comments to a task within a project. This helps keep everyone informed about any additional requirements of their respective tasks. The free basic Asana version can be used by a team of 15 people. It is an ideal tool to streamline projects, plan effectively and deliver better results.
#3. MailChimp
Email marketing is a great way to connect with your leads, existing customers as well as potential customers. This is because it allows you to speak to them at a time of their convenience. Thus, with the right messaging, email marketing can be one of your most powerful marketing tactics.
MailChimp is a useful email marketing tool in this regard. It has a free plan that allows up to 2000 subscribers. You can use its marketing automation functionality to welcome new subscribers, send emails to people who’ve abandoned their shopping carts, and reach out to others automatically. The best part is that MailChimp lets you test different versions of an email campaign to check what works best for your business.
You can also integrate Asana with Twitter and Facebook to inform your followers about company updates. Besides, you can create segmented customer lists to market to different customers differently.
#4. Canva
Effective marketing has a lot to do with making aesthetically appealing content. This includes everything from posters to presentations and logos. Impressive visual content helps attract the attention of the audience and puts you ahead of your competition. This may be the expertise of a graphic designer but with tools like Canva, you can make eye-catching presentations, infographics, letterhead, and logos by yourself as well. The tool’s drag-and-drop functionality is so user-friendly that even a layman (with no experience in design) can come up with impressive marketing collateral materials.
#5. Calendly
Missing or postponing appointments can have a detrimental effect on your business. You need to be able to schedule events, calls, and meetings in a time-effective manner. However, when you have a lot on your plate, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. This is where the use of Calendly or a WordPress booking system comes in. This free and simple-to-use software schedules your meetings, appointments, and events for you. And you don’t need the other person/party (that you’re booking a time with) to use Calendly. The best part is, you can also integrate this software with apps such as Gmail, Zoom, and more.