Attracting new customers, engaging them, and letting them know of your startup's existence has never been this easy. It's because the market today is saturated with online marketing tools like never before. The only challenge you'll face is finding the right ones to use. Here is our list of the ten best online marketing tools perfect for small businesses and startups.
1. Canva
It's a known fact that graphic design provides a multitude of benefits for businesses. For startups, this can be a considerable challenge as inexpensive graphic design can be difficult to find. This is where Canva comes in.
Canva is a platform that lets you craft visual assets such as logos, newsletters, digital ads, and more for free. While it offers paid plans, you can get by with just its forever-free plan. In addition, it is user-friendly, making it ideal for startups that are yet to afford a graphic designer for their team.
2. ClickUp
A versatile project management tool, ClickUp, is proven effective as an online marketing tool. It can create and organize campaign tasks, collaborate with your team, store and manage marketing documents, monitor the time spent on your marketing efforts, and many other features. It also has tools for scheduling content creation, planning and tracking social media posts and creating email marketing campaigns, among other things.
ClickUp also integrates with many marketing tools, such as CRM systems and analytics tools, to simplify your marketing processes. It has a forever free plan and three premium ones if you want to upgrade and enjoy more of its features.
3. Twilio
A cloud communication platform, Twilio, is an excellent tool for online marketing. It enables startups and businesses to build, buy, and integrate communication capabilities into their software applications. It gives you a comprehensive set of APIs and tools to send and receive SMS, MMS, voice, and video calls. It lets you send targeted text messages to your customers for promotions, reminders, and other notifications.
Twilio offers simple and flexible pricing options. Its "pay-as-you-go" plan is ideal for startups because it won't lock you into a big contract. You only pay for what you use, and you get discounts as your usage grows.
4. Pexels
An online library of stock images, Pexels offers a vast collection of high-quality photos for various purposes. You can use these images for your website, blogs, or social media posts without having to pay huge amounts. It's like having a professional photographer at your disposal.
All images on Pexels are free to use and download, even for commercial use. They are curated to ensure they meet high-quality standards. The diverse collection covers a wide range of styles, subjects, and themes.
5. Grammarly
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to boost your brand's online presence. However, careful consideration and planning are required to make this endeavor successful. For this, you need an online tool that can help you craft error-free content. This is why Grammarly is essential in every startup's content marketing efforts.
Grammarly checks your written content for wrong spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It also checks for plagiarism to ensure that your content is always uniquely yours. While it has a free plan that would suffice for your content, you can upgrade it to a premium one with pricing that starts at $12 per month if billed annually.
6. Google Analytics
A powerful tool that gives you valuable insights into your marketing efforts, Google Analytics tracks website traffic and user behavior. It can help you understand your audience better, which will allow you to craft campaigns that are relevant to them. It enables you to identify your target audience, measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, and analyze your website's performance.
Google Analytics can also help you optimize your website for higher search engine rankings and integrate with other Google tools such as Google Ads and Google Search Console. All these can help you craft data-driven marketing strategies. Best of all, it's free to use.
7. Unbounce
Primarily a landing page builder, Unbounce can also help you market your startup online. You can use it to create high-converting landing pages. It has a drag-and-drop build feature, making it an excellent option for non-technical users. It also has pre-built templates if you need to get started quickly.
Unbounce also offers conversion optimization tools such as heatmaps and scroll maps to help you understand how your site visitors interact with your landing pages. Explore it with its 14-day free trial and then upgrade to its basic plan, Build, for just $99 per month.
8. ChatGPT
Another free yet valuable online marketing tool is ChatGPT. It is a large language model that generates human-like text, understands and responds to prompts, and provides information. It can help you write blog posts, create engaging social media posts, write compelling product descriptions, and draft personalized email campaigns, among many others.
ChatGPT can also help you with your customer support tasks. You can use it to develop chatbots, generate automated email responses, and provide timely and helpful information 24/7. It can also help you with market research and customer feedback analysis. It is free to use, but if you want to do more with it, you can opt for a paid plan, which costs $20 per month.
9. MailChimp
A popular email marketing platform, MailChimp can help you create and send professional emails. It offers a wide range of customizable templates to help you design engaging emails. It enables you to segment your audience and target a specific group of your subscribers with tailored content. It also tracks and monitors open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics to measure your campaign's effectiveness.
While MailChimp focuses on email marketing, it also offers other features. You can use it to design landing pages, grow your email list, and make data-driven decisions. It has two plans, and pricing starts at $20 per month.
10. WordStream Free Keyword Tool
Another popular online marketing tool, WordStream Free Keyword Tool, helps you find relevant keywords for your website or online marketing campaigns. It suggests relevant keywords and gives keyword difficulty, search volume, and ad group ideas. It also offers additional features such as keyword clustering and competitor analysis.
WordStream Free Keyword Tool is user-friendly, accurate, and fast. It can also give you long-tail, negative, meta, and many other types of keywords.
