We had an event at our space recently where we talked about free and low cost tools for your business. These were some of the favorites discussed that relate specifically to marketing.
Business owners are always looking for places to find free photos. If the image is for your website, I do highly recommend buying photos. For other purposes, these are some great options.
Photo sites:
Pixabay – https://pixabay.com/
Pexels – https://www.pexels.com/
Gratisography – If you are looking for slightly wacky or even bizarre images, I love this site.
Death to Stock- This site used to be free, but now it comes with a small monthly charge. If you are looking for very unique images that tons of other people won’t be using, it might be worth checking out. They do offer a 14 day free trial. https://deathtothestockphoto.com/
Photo editing apps/websites:
Canva: Tons of templates and options on this site. I refer to it as Photoshop for Dummies. The free version gives you a lot of options, but I use it so much now, I upgraded to the paid version. I also highly recommend their printing services. They can easily and affordably do small batch postcards, business cards, flyers and anything else you need to help you market your business
PicMonkey: This is a site I use nearly every day. I refer to is at Canva for Dummies.
PosterMyWall: I recently discovered this site as a way to create professional looking flyers, etc. The free option means there will be a small watermark on your creation or you can pay $2.75 to have that removed. They also have printing options.
Wordswag: Phone app used to add words, etc. to the photos you take on your phone.
Email marketing services:
There are a number of free and low cost email marketing tools. Many are free with a small number of subscribers. Lots of options and most are very intuitive. I personally use ConvertKit. The features they offer made it an easy yes for me even with a small monthly fee.
Other options that were mentioned, but that I know less about are Mail Chimp, Mad Mimi, Kiwi Mail (local woman owned business) and Click Funnels but I know there are so many more.
Other online networks you may not be taking advantage of are Alignable.com and NextDoor.com. They are other great places to find like minded people in your community.
Here are a few more that don’t necessarily have a category.
Airtable: This is a tool that a friend shared with me and now it’s something I use every single day. There are all sorts of templates available from managing your contacts, project management and a place to store your content.
If this then that. There are so many options for how to use this as a tool. There are formulas for so many things I couldn’t even begin to tell you. I use a few you might be interested in. Example: If I post to Instagram, also share (as an image) on Twitter. Without that formula, your IG image shares to Twitter with a link and no image. Check it out to find formulas that will save time for you.
Slydial: I am giving away a huge secret right now. Slydial is an app that allows you to leave a message on someone’s cell phone without calling them. This is great when you need to do reminder calls or have a simple message to leave. This is a phone app. The free version means there are ads, and even the paid version is less than $30 for the year.
Insight Timer: You may have heard how meditation can support you in all areas of your life. This is a free app with possibly thousands of meditations about any subject you can imagine. My favorites are the ones that help me sleep better.
There are a couple other tools I can’t live without, but don’t make the FREE list.
Sanebox: This is an email tool that uses my behavior with email to help determine what makes it into my inbox. It saves me a ton of time and is totally worth the annual subscription price of about $100.
Bonjoro: I have recently started using Bonjoro and am already reaping the benefits of communicating with contacts via video. It’s been a great way to introduce myself to new subscribers, or to save time in sending emails.