The $0 Marketing Stack: Free Options to Popular Paid Services and Tools.
What tools do you use to get your online marketing work done?
Can you do all the same work of a digital marketer, and do it for free?
Is it possible to have all these great tools without paying a cent?
The list of tools you use—often referred to as a marketing stack—probably covers a variety of different uses and needs, everything from social media marketing to content to email and lots more.
Everyone should know about all of these. Honestly, as a business, we can get buried in SAAS (Software As A Service) fees. At one point, we had $22,000 a month in credit card fees of SAAS, and it was out of control. At this point, we invested resources to start locating all the free stuff; like these websites and tools. We are infinitely grateful for all the amazing companies out there that offer such value for so little.
For a quick overview, here are the tools that Kevin Lee and our added efforts found that seemed to be great, free options for some popular paid services.
Buffer ~ social post management
Canva ~ design tool
Google Analytics ~ SEO tool
Hotjar ~ website heatmaps and behavioral analytics tool
Simply Measured ~ social analytics platform
Open Site Explorer ~ SEO link research
Charles ~ web debugging
HubSpot Email Marketing and HubSpot CRM ~ email marketing tool
WordPress ~ website tools
Crowdfire ~ social media management tool
Medium ~ social publishing platform
Wistia ~ video + podcast platform
SumoMe ~ website visitor analytics
Segment Open ~ open source analytics
Peek ~ Linux animated GIF creator
Google Scholar ~ broadly search for scholarly literature
Google Trends ~ marketing & keyword research
Blog Topic Generator ~ it is what it says
Content Idea Generator ~ it is what it says
Readability ~ content scoring
Hemingway ~ highlights lengthy, complex sentences and common errors
Onpage Optimization Tool ~ Free SEO Tool
After the Deadline ~ language checking server
Free Logo Design Online
Save Publishing ~ desktop publishing software
Followerwonk ~ Twitter analytics
Latest.is ~ small utility app for the Mac
Tweriod ~ Twitter tool
Must Be Present ~ presentation software
Conversation Score ~ Conversation Intelligence Software
Wolfram Alpha Facebook report ~ analyze Facebook data
LikeAlyzer ~ free analysis tool
Fanpage Karma ~ Facebook analytics and monitoring
Facebook Page Barometer ~ benchmark your Facebook page
Quicksprout ~ find best tools, software, and services
Website Grader ~ it is what it says
SharedCount ~ API tool
Newsle ~ email newsletter tools
Rapportive ~ email contacts discovery tool
MentionMapp ~ Twitter tool that helps discover hot topics, key hashtags, and trending stories
Down For Everyone Or Just Me? ~ ping tracer
Vista Print ~ print design tool
Adobe Spark ~ custom design tool
Wix - website deveopment tool
Looka Brand Kits ~ logo design
...and this is just the tip of the iceberg. So, don't settle for paid when you might be able to get freeware.