Gone are the days of snail mail and newspaper ads. These days, marketing moves at the speed of light. And if you’re a bootstrapped small business or solopreneur, it can feel impossible to keep up. 

Thankfully, there are tons of low-cost (and free) tools on the market to help make your job a little easier – however, you’ve probably never heard of them. 

That’s why we’re taking some time in this article to shed some light on these relatively unknown but super powerful tools. 

The Basic Tools to Make Your Life Easier 

Before we jump into the unique tools you’ve probably never heard of, it’s important to touch base on a few tools you probably have heard about. 

These tools aren’t under-the-radar, but they will make your life much easier. 

• A CRM – A customer relationship management (CRM) platform stores and sorts your contacts and tracks pipelines and deals. It’s most commonly used for sales teams, but it can also be incredibly beneficial for marketing teams. The most popular CRM is Salesforce. However, an option like Copper CRM is ideal for smaller companies that use Google Workspace. If you don’t have room in your budget for a formal CRM, you can easily DIY one with Google Sheets and Docs. 

• An Email Marketing Tool – Email marketing tools are critical for sending mass marketing emails, regular newsletters, and more. There are several options on the market, but MailChimp and Constant Contact are two of the most popular ones to consider. 

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• A Social Media Management Tool – If you’re on social media, it can be tiring to remember to post and engage all the time. Having a social media management tool makes it easier to schedule, post, and engage on social media. Some popular options here include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Later. 

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• Google Analytics – Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks your marketing efforts through conversion. From website visitors and pageviews to where your visitors are coming from and more, Google Analytics lets you see your traffic and track conversions in real-time. 

Now that we’ve gone through the basics let’s chat about the tools you probably haven’t heard of before. 

5 Totally Free Tools You Need in Your Toolkit 

These five tools are powerhouse options that will help supercharge your marketing efforts without breaking the bank. 

1. Futurepedia.io  

The AI revolution is here. Since ChatGPT3 started making waves online in late 2022, the internet has been abuzz with what AI can do and how it will change the internet. But, for now, there are countless AI tools already on the market that can make your life a lot easier, and Futurepedia.io is where you can find all the latest AI tools. 

Futurepedia is an AI tools library that’s continually updated to help you find the AI tools you need to make your life a little easier (and more fun). They have both free and paid AI tools listed, so just be sure to keep an eye on the price tag as you search. 

2. PrepostSEO 

Creating a winning SEO strategy is essential to showing up in Google search results. However, SEO tools can be pretty costly (and intimidating). Prepost SEO is a free SEO website with over 95 tools to help you elevate your SEO and content creation. 

From a plagiarism checker and broken links checker to a domain authority checker, DNS records checker, and more, PrepostSEO has tons of tools to help you get your SEO strategy off the ground. 

3. Really Good Emails 

Emails are an essential part of any online marketing campaign. But let’s be honest. It can be challenging to develop compelling text and visuals week after week. This is where Really Good Emails comes in handy. 

Really Good Emails is a curated library full of email marketing examples to spark your inspiration. With a free and low-cost $9 per month plan, you can choose the best option for your budget and needs. 

4. Attentive’s “Text we love” resource

This tool is like Really Good Emails, except for SMS (or text) marketing. SMS marketing is a relatively newer form of marketing, so you may not be incorporating it into your strategy yet. 

However, if you are, the text we love resource page on Attentive’s website is sure to provide some inspiration. 

5. Built With 

Have you ever seen a competitor’s website and wondered what they’re doing to make their website look like it does? Or maybe you’re just curious about what tools they’re using on the backend to track their analytics and boost conversions. Either way, Built With can help. 

Built With is a tool that reveals everything a website uses to run. From the CMS to the tracking tools and more, Built With allows you to take a peek behind the curtain of your competitors and favorite websites around the web. 

5 Paid Tools to Consider 

The following five tools are some others you should consider, too. While they aren’t completely free, they are low-cost options that can dramatically improve your marketing efforts

1. Canva 

Canva is a powerful tool for creating beautiful images and graphics for all your social media, branding, and marketing needs – no photoshop skills required! With simple drag-and-drop functionality and thousands of layouts, you’ll be on your way to creating awe-inspiring brand graphics in no time. 

Also, Canva does have a free option. So, you can get started without paying anything. In fact, you may be able to use their free plan forever. However, you’ll want to upgrade to one of their paid plans to unlock all the features.  

2. Notifier.so 

Do you ever wish you could get a notification anytime someone talks about your product or service on social media? Notifier.so makes that possible. Simply choose your phrases, and get notifications anytime a person says that phrase on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, YouTube, and more.  

3. Lucky Orange 

Lucky Orange is like a Swiss army knife for marketers. It includes eight valuable tools for learning about your website and making sense of your online traffic. It includes the following tools:  

• Heat mapping
• User surveys
• Dashboard analytics
• Live chat box
• Video recording sessions
• Visitor profiles
• Conversion funnel analysis
• Pop up announcements 

And the best part? This tool has a free version. The next version up is only $14 per month. 

4. Grammarly 

We’re not all whizzes with words. However, marketing requires a lot of writing. From social media posts and emails to blog posts, ads, and more, to market efficiently, you have to know how to write. And Grammarly makes it easier to ensure you’re grammar is on point and mistake-free.  

Whether you write in Microsoft Word or stay in the post composer of your favorite social media, Grammarly works from wherever you write. It also offers a free plan for basic writing suggestions, and the premium plans are a steal, starting at $12 per month. 

5. Lumen5 

Videos are all the rage right now. From TikTok to personalized video emails, it seems everyone is constantly talking about the power of video marketing. However, making videos isn’t easy. That’s where lumen5 can help. 

Lumen5 is an online video creation tool that helps you automatically turn your existing content (like blog posts and Zoom calls) into captivating video content. It also offers a free plan to get started!

Start Using Tools to Powerup Your Online Marketing Efforts 

Marketing can feel impossible when you’re a small business owner or a solopreneur. So often, it can seem like the only way to get everything done is to be in dozens of places at once. However, thanks to technology, you don’t have to fragment yourself to make it all work. 

There’s a world of marketing tools out there that make it easier to get everything done – you just have to know where to look. These 10 tools should help give you an excellent place to start without blowing your budget.

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