Free and User-Friendly Marketing Tools

Canva

Canva is a photo editing, print/digital marketing creation site. You can make flyers, invitations, Instagram posts, Pinterest posts, Facebook cover photos, and so much more.

Prior to Canva, I was using PicMonkey. I loved PicMonkey, but now they charge to use it. Canva has now grown on me because it seems to do a lot more than PicMonkey. There are some features that are not free, but I have been able to find just want I need with the free resources. I’ve used this to make flyers for open houses and advertising in my real estate business. My favorite part definitely has to be the fonts!

Pinterest

Pretty sure most people know what Pinterest is, but maybe don’t realize what else it entails. You can actually make your Pinterest a business account. Pinterest will even provide you with analytics such as which pins are getting the most traffic and how many clicks came from your assigned website if you linked it. There are a lot of bloggers out there who claim most of their income is generated by Pinterest pins. Creating pins is super easy and is a great way to market your business.

I actually use Canva (noted above) to create pins. Typically the longer vertical style pins get better activity, so keep that in mind. When I create a pin, I literally go to the Pinterest homepage and use a similar template, text combo, or color scheme as another pin that is doing well. Then upload the pin to a board on your Pinterest, link it to your website, YouTube, blog, etc.

Hoot Suite

Hoot Suite is a website/app that allows you to schedule social media posts in advance. For Twitter, it will post at the scheduled time for you without any other action on your part. For Instagram posts, you have to have the app on your device because once the time comes, a notification will come up telling you to post. The app directly takes you to your IG page with the picture you selected earlier and it will copy the text you included to your clipboard. So all you do is paste it in the caption area, and publish it.

I currently use Hoot Suite for Instagram posts and sometimes for Twitter. Even though you have to do some work for the IG posts, it is still so much easier than doing the post from my phone. One, it helps me be consistent with posting. I’m working on posting every Monday and Wednesday on IG (tends to have higher traffic at specific times on those days). Hoot Suite allows me to set these posts up in advance so I don’t have to remember during the week. The app will remind me and everything is there! Secondly, I love it because I honestly HATE typing hashtags up on my phone. If you are trying to reach a big audience, then you are probably using multiple hashtags. Typing it up on a computer is so much easier and quicker for me.

TailWind

TailWind is a website/app that allows you to schedule Pinterest posts. You can have TailWind do the generic times that they have already preset or you can pick your own times. When that time comes around, that photo or pin will be posted to the board you selected for it. When you are on a website that has images or pins, you can actually hover over it and the TailWind logo will come up. You simply click the logo to add it to the schedule. The TailWind logo button can also be added to your browser’s tool bar for a simple click that will show all the images available on that site you can pin. There is a paid version if you’d like more features such as being able to schedule unlimited pins and measuring your pin success.

So you don’t need to be a tech geek in order to be successful with marketing. These four sites are very user-friendly. Plus, you can always play around and explore to see the different things you can do or create on the sites.

Do you have any tools or resources you use to market your business?