Free Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
Marketing has paved its way towards new levels throughout the years without limiting itself to a poster on a wall or a telemarketer’s phone call. New products position themselves among someone with relatable interests every second. Sometimes the consumers might not be aware of the fact that they are being directed to a product or a service while they engage in their usual day to day activities. This is how far the concept of marketing has been stretched to guide products to their final consumers. If you are a business owner looking for ways to promote your business on the internet, you have the chance to try a lot of tools for free.
Social Media
The digital arena fuels marketing with support from algorithms and unique tools. Businesses are always welcome to access these features to promote their products within the online space and beyond. Most of the promotional techniques used by online marketers involve expensive tools that provide great insights and functions to the promotional campaigns. But it also important to realize that similar tools are available for free. New startups with limited funding can always access these tools to launch their campaigns to large crowds online.
Social media itself is a powerful tool that can be utilized to build and promote a brand. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are designed using features that serve this purpose. As an online business, it is important to invest time to identify the potential of the free marketing tools presented to you by these platforms.
Facebook Page
When establishing your presence on Facebook, a Facebook Page can be considered as your work station. This is where your business communicates with its audience about its new launches and updates. The followers of your Facebook page can share your posts on their walls and also directly send them to their friends through Facebook Messenger.
The admin or an editor of a Facebook page can always view its reach. This reach depicts how many accounts see the page or a specific post has reached within the given time. The more accounts you can reach will help you to increase your brand awareness. A post can always be uploaded with an action button. This will help any interested user to engage with that post and interact with the page for more information.
Facebook Shop
The name “Facebook Shop” might give you a close idea about this new shopping experience. This mobile-first online tool allows you to create an online store on Facebook and Instagram at once. It helps you to stay connected with your clients through Whatsapp, Messenger, and Instagram Direct. With your Facebook Shop, you can choose from your items and that you wish to feature and merchandise with product collections to present your brand story to your audience in an attractive manner.
The tool is dedicated to supporting small businesses. Expected updates from this tool include collaborations with platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Channel Advisor. Live shopping features and loyalty programmes are also on their way.
Instagram Business Account
Unlike Facebook, Instagram is a youth-oriented platform. It admires colour based creativity. The platform with over one billion monthly users provides sound space for you to promote and carry out your business. According to last year’s statistics, 90% of Instagram users follow a business from their account.
A business account on Instagram is easy to create. It contains metrics about your post, story, and ad performance. Detailed information about your followers can also be viewed from your business account. This helps you to get insights into their interaction with your posts and stories. Your followers will also be able to reach you out through the contact number or the email address you add at the top of your profile. Having proper management over your direct messages can also increase your sales since it promotes more interaction between you and your customer.
Posting attractive content is always a key aspect that has to be followed when managing a business account on Instagram. The audience present on this platform mostly tends to engage with simple posts that contain less complicity. Therefore, keep things short and sweet on the gram.
YouTube Channel
Videos have more potential to grab the attention of an audience than a written description. As a new start-up, introducing your products and services will take some time. But with the right and attractive content, you can reach a relatively larger crowd within a short period if you promote your business through videos. YouTube is the best place for you to start.
Through a video, you get the space to showcase your business in a more personal way. There are various types of content you can post on your YouTube channel. This includes unboxing videos, product tutorials, workshops, etc.
Tools by Google
Google performs way beyond its services as a search engine. Not only it guides you to important information but it also provides digital marketing solutions by powering a lot of tools.
Google My Business (GMB)
The internet is initially not the friendliest playground for small businesses. It takes a while to adjust and position your brand since a lot of things happen every millisecond in this virtual space. As Google sits on one of the highest chairs on the internet, the kind giant offers help to small businesses to stand up on their own feet. While this is done in various ways, “Google My Business” is highlighted as one of the best tools presented by Google.
The free tool is designed to improve the search engine ranking of your business. It helps business owners to create profiles that contain key information such as the location, operating hours, websites, and the products and services offered by their business. Potential customers will find this information easy to digest since it appears on top of the search results along with additional data such as customer reviews. With GMB, the more customer reviews your business gets, it gets a higher chance to go up the rankings and make itself more visible on the search results. Therefore, keep up with the good service and increase the number of good reviews once your business is a part of GMB.
Google Merchant Center
Google Merchant Center is a platform dedicated to improving the sales numbers of your products. It manages the in-store and online search appearance of your product while presenting these products to a large audience who are looking to purchase products that you have to offer. The tool connects your products with the right customers.
This is not all that the platform does. Google Merchant Center also provides you with all the analytics of the performance of your products. This is an excellent tool for small businesses since the information gained from these insights will help you stack up against the competition and focus on your growth opportunities while saving a lot of time and money.
Google for Small Businesses
Marking itself as one of the best platforms for startups, “Google for Small Businesses” offers you a collection of tools that serve five main causes that can be followed in the exact given order. Starting with “Stand on Google with a Free Business Profile”, you are allowed to engage with your customers while making an appearance on Google Search and Google Maps. You can share new updates, enable virtual bookings, and showcase your products. You can provide your customers with ways to contact you such as your contact number, directions and website. Customers can also express themselves through reviews. As a business with an official presence on the Google search, you can reply to these reviews and engage with your customers.
The platform further extends itself by providing you with tools to enhance your digital presence with a website. A website is one of the best ways to showcase your products and services. If you don’t have a website, you can use the website builder tools suggested by the platform. Standard Bank, Skygarden, Shopify, and WIX are the famous service providers that have partnered up with the platform to help you build the most efficient online store.
Your website needs a web address. Since this is what your customers will be searching for, your domain name must be short, simple, and catchy. With Google for Small Businesses, you can search for a custom domain name and make sure that is available. If it is available, you can purchase it through “Google Domains”.
Another key aspect focused by the platform is “Building Customer Relationships”. The platform suggests that this should be done through video, email, and social media while providing you with links to guides that will assist you on how they can be utilized effectively.YouTube is identified as the most suitable platform for video marketing. It is easy to deliver your message to customers through a video since it involves personal actions and emotions. The YouTube Playbook presented to you by GSB will help you to achieve this task.
Email Marketing serves its audience who would check their emails daily and update themselves on certain matters based on what’s been delivered to their inbox. Social media finds itself in a very important position in the world of digital marketing. GSB provides you with guides for both these venues of digital marketing which you can follow to promote your business and improve your connections with customers.
GSB further encourages Google Ads and Smart Shopping Campaigns to help small businesses to reach customers. Google Ads specialize in improving website visits, phone calls or shop visits. You only have to pay for results such as ad clicks. Smart Shopping Campaigns help you to place your products in front of shoppers who are looking for those products. This can be done in collaboration with Shopify or WooCommerce according to GSB.
The platform also introduces you to Google Workspace if you wish to engage with your business anywhere with anyone. It is a collection of applications that include email, video conferencing, chat, calendar, documents, file storage, and more. With all these tools in one place, you can simply work from anywhere.
These are some of the free platforms that the internet has to offer. You can utilize them to the maximum when promoting your business. These platforms also comprise features that will help you add more value to your business. Such features and tools will continue to increase with platform updates. Therefore, always keep an eye out for new features when handling online marketing campaigns.
