For businesses of any size today, optimising your online presence is extremely important. This is because most of your customers will first interact with your brand online first. But maintaining a strong online presence without a large team is not easy – that’s where marketing tools come in.
Particularly for small businesses and SMEs, it can be time-consuming to research online for the best topics to create content about, then search for the right images or videos, then schedule your posts on various platforms, and finally to perform the required SEO to ensure that your brand and website can be easily found online.
Even if you’re aware that there are tools you can use to make your life easier for most of these tasks, the sheer abundance of options can make it overwhelming to choose the right ones that will truly enhance your marketing efforts.
Here, we’re going to take you through our 5 favourite tools that definitely make a huge impact – and what’s more, many of these are totally free to use!
Let’s dive in!
Top 5 marketing tools for SMEs
Buzzsumo
What it’s most useful for: Unlocking content insights and trending topics
One of the key elements of successful marketing is creating compelling content that resonates with your target audience. Buzzsumo is a great tool that allows you to discover the most popular content across various platforms.
You can use it to uncover trending topics, analyse competitors’ content, and identify influencers who can amplify your brand. All you need to do is enter a topic and the tool will generate the most relevant insights that you can mine to create content for your brand.
Is it free or paid?
The tool is not free, but it is definitely worth it for the amount of value it provides. You can see the pricing plans on the screenshot below. Visit the BuzzSumo site here to explore further.
InVideo
What it’s most useful for: Creating engaging videos in minutes
Video marketing has become an essential component of any SME’s marketing strategy. However, producing professional-quality videos can be time-consuming and costly.
Enter InVideo. This user-friendly tool enables you to create stunning videos with ease. From promotional videos to social media snippets, InVideo provides a vast library of templates, stock footage, and customisable elements.
Is it free or paid?
There is a free version, but the exported videos will come with a small watermark. If you want to remove this, then you need to go for the paid plans, which are not very expensive – especially if you need to create a lot of promotional videos for your brand each month.
You can visit the site here.
Buffer
What it’s most useful for: Scheduling social media posts on different platforms
Maintaining an active and engaging presence on social media platforms is crucial for SMEs. Buffer is a game-changing tool that simplifies this entire process.
Using this tool, you can schedule and publish your posts across multiple social media accounts, all from one convenient dashboard. With paid plans, you can even unlock a host of analytics and other features.
Is it free or paid?
The free version allows you to post to up to 3 accounts. If you want more, or need complex analytics, then you need to go for the paid tiers, which are not that expensive to begin with.
You can learn more about Buffer here.
Unsplash
What it’s most useful for: Access thousands of royalty-free images
Visual content is a powerful tool in capturing your audience’s attention. However, sourcing high-quality images that align with your brand can be a challenge. Unsplash solves this problem by offering a vast collection of royalty-free images that you can use for free.
Whether you need images for your website, blog, or social media posts, this tool has you covered. All you need to do is enter a search term, topic, or keyword, and you will find hundreds if not thousands of related images on Unsplash.
Is it free or paid?
Technically, it’s all free. Recently the platform launched a paid version called Unsplash+, which gives you access to exclusive images and premium features. However, for most purposes, the free version itself should suffice.
Check it out for yourself here.
Yoast
What it’s most useful for: SEO for your website
Improving your website’s search engine visibility is vital for driving organic traffic. Yoast is a comprehensive SEO plugin for various kinds of CMSes that simplifies the process of optimising your website.
If you think this works only on WordPress, think again – Yoast can be used with Shopify, TYPO3, Drupal and so much more. The team can even help you configure it to your platform of choice provided certain conditions are met.
Using this tool, you can optimise your content for target keywords, analyse readability, and receive valuable suggestions to improve your website’s SEO.
Is it free or paid?
There is a free version, which is sufficient for starting purposes. Hwoever, if you want to unlock the more powerful features of this plugin, then you need to go for the paid version, which, again, considering its use, is not so expensive for an annual package.
Visit the Yoast website to learn more here.
What tools will you use for your marketing?
Above, we’ve listed the 5 most supercool tools that we believe can help you take your marketing game to new heights. From content insights to video creation, social media management, stunning imagery, and website optimisation, these will give you all the necessary resources to thrive in the digital world.
Which one are you most excited about trying? Which one(s) are you already using? Let us know!
And of course, if there’s an amazing tool you know of that we haven’t written about, send us a message and we’ll be happy to write another follow-up blog on this topic!
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