Make your marketing efforts easier with simple and free tools.
Digital marketing is hot!
Why are more and more entrepreneurs turning to marketing? Because unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing offers more measurable results:
You can quickly see how much reach, interaction, and engagement you have with your (potential) customers.
It's easy to determine how many sales stem from your marketing efforts.
You can quickly tell whether a specific communication strategy has an impact or not.
š This makes marketing more enjoyable.
The digitalisation of marketing comes with a surge of new apps and tools. Many of these tools have one goal: to make your life easier.
Do you feel a bit lost among the vast array of marketing tools?
To address specific challenges you might face as an entrepreneur, I highlight user-friendly tools to help you find your way.
The focus is on the free versions of these tools, which can get you quite far. After all, marketing can be easy and affordable.
Stay organised
Suddenly, when you're not focused on your business, you get a burst of inspiration for your content. And you don't want to forget that brilliant idea - creating content is already a challenge in itself.
Then there's the added challenge of working towards your marketing objectives. This often can't be done in one, two, or three steps.
To keep track of all your marketing goals and creative ideas, you could organise them in an Excel file. But these handy apps are even more user-friendly and can be used right on your smartphone.
Notion
I'm not going to beat around the bush about this one, Notion is my all time favourite all-in-one project management tool. The intuitive and user-friendly interface makes it so easy to make up tables, pages, to do lists, overviews,ā¦ The views and filter options are endless, switching from a table to a calendar to a Kanban board or Gantt chart in a heartbeat. It's so easy to use with drag and drop options, it's like writing your own project management website (luckily without having to write any code).
What's the added value of Notion?
The ability to organising your data with dynamic sorting options, with filters such as dates, owners, status,ā¦ whatever you put in, is such a benefit. A plus is that you have the option to add a filter either only for yourself or save it for any team member.
Inviting co-workers and guests on your workspace is super easy and affordable, most is even free. In addition, every member can have it's own view, which makes this tool accessible to everyone, whether you like tables, charts, calender views or Kanbans.
If you want to make some pages public or downloadable, there are a lot of features to support this as well. It is one of the reasons a lot of entrepreneurs use it even to sell their products online. Yes, like me :)
There are a lot of integrations with tools as Zapier, Google Workspace, Miro, Clickup, Slack, Zoom,ā¦ You can even add Notion to your Calendar so you have all your tasks and deadlines in one overview.
Make it beautiful
As an entrepreneur, you might have a lot of talents, but graphic design isn't always one of them. Fortunately, there are tons of free templates and websites full of inspiration. This way, you can bring out your inner creativity and create content that aligns with your branding.
āIf it does not sell, it is not creative.āĀ Ā
-Ā David Ogilvy
Canva
If you've never heard of Canva, you might have been living under a rock. Canva has become the go-to free tool for creating all kinds of graphic designs:
Social media posts and stories
Social media videos (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, etc.)
Brochures and flyers
Photo cards
Presentations
Business cards
And more...
Canva is incredibly versatile and uses a simple drag-and-drop system. Even if you're not tech-savvy, you can still create impressive designs. Canva is perfect for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to create engaging visual content without needing advanced design skills.
What makes Canva so special?
An abundance of templates and designs to choose from.
Millions of free photos available for your projects.
Insane AI options where you can just describe what design or image you want.
You can easily collaborate on designs with your team.
These features make Canva a top choice for entrepreneurs and small businesses seeking user-friendly tools to create stunning visual content without a high learning curve.
Other free tools you might find useful alongside Canva are Go Daddy Studio, Planoly, and Mojo.
Plan your social media posts
No, you don't have to post on social media every day. However, if you want to maintain high reach and engagement, it's recommended to post content at regular intervals. Consistency helps keep your audience engaged and ensures that your brand stays top-of-mind.
You might not always have the time (or the inclination, let's be honest) to post on social media. That's why I highly recommend scheduling your posts in advance. This way, you can create and schedule your social media content in just a few hours, giving you peace of mind for the rest of the week. This frees up more time for you to focus on your clients.
Business Manager
With Facebook's Business Manager, you can manage social media posts for both Facebook and Instagram.
Business Manager lets you:
Schedule all your posts and stories in advance. The calendar view provides a clear overview of your planned content.
Manage interactions like comments and messages on both Facebook and Instagram from a single page.
Gain insights into your audience, trends, and the performance of your social media accounts.
What's extra handy about Business Manager?
You can assign different text to the same post on Instagram and Facebook. This is especially useful for Instagram, where URLs in captions aren't clickable.
If you need to make changes, scheduled posts can be easily edited without having to start over.
You can manage all your accounts without having to switch between them.
These features make Business Manager a versatile and flexible tool for managing your social media marketing efficiently.
My golden tip
Try out the tools and see which ones suit you best. Since they're free, you can experiment to find the one that meets your specific needs. Every entrepreneur has different requirements, so there's a good chance you'll discover at least one tool that makes marketing easier for you.
Do you have specific questions about these tools? Feel free to email me with your queries!
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