Before you jump up and write off your website for marketing, lets quickly look at 3 things a website should for your business.

1. It should be a Virtual office/store/staff to answer questions about you
2. It should be a shopfront / till point to make money
3. It should reach out to find more customers using the content you add

That sounds like something every business SHOULD want, but it’s not in everyone’s reality to achieve. If you are one of the following types of business, you could get away without a website;

Small – home services

Let’s be honest, who views the website of a local plumber or electrician before calling them?

I thought so. Have a Google business listing so you can at least turn up in searches, and maybe a Facebook page for people to recommend you.

Local restaurants or bakeries (superettes included)

The biggest selling point for food is high-quality photographs. It’s not like you need to educate people on why they NEED your product. An Instagram account and Facebook would do wonders here. Lots of pics of enticing yumminess and details on specials or events will do well. Also, a google business listing for sure.

Also Read: Content ideas for any business

Local personalities or performers

In the “old” days (ie the early 2000s) the internet was a quirky place. The website for the Smashing pumpkins had amazing effects that would follow the mouse wherever you moved. Other than that there was no reason to be on it.

You can literally contain all your information on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Even Twitter if that’s where your audience is. There is very little need to set up a whole website for yourself.

The exception here is if you are blogging, although you might find other publications to regularly publish your work and earn some bucks from it. They’ll probably even create a page on their site to showcase you and your work.

If you only serve your local community.

You don’t need an app to sell Magwenya at the taxi rank. You could be an estate agent, a mechanic, a convenience store, or even a car dealer. If you only serve a small market, a website might be overkill for your needs.

There are plenty of 3^rd party sites to advertise on that could generate more business with less effort than a website would. Keeping up a website could prove to be a marketing burden that just gets in your way.

In these cases you’re better off putting your marketing budget into channels that have more impact on your bottom line, as opposed to trying to impress people with a website that nobody looks at.

Having a website means you need to maintain it AND spend on advertising to get traffic to the website. If your website is not part of the sales cycle, that is a waste of money.

If you want to learn some unique social media strategies that can help you grow, with or without a website, give us a follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, or subscribe to our newsletter.

You can read about our social media services here.

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That said, there are some times when it is well worth it to spend a little extra on a tool that helps you make money. But, if you are still small and need some help, these companies have got your back with an awesome free tool.

There is no order to this list, but I can assure you that I have used all of these and they are 100% free for the basic functions.

Media Creation

In order to advertise, you need to be able to create slick media. This is not just for print ads, but social media as well as email or Whatsapp campaigns.

Canva

Canva is free and has loads of free templates for all social channels, print designs, and even animated posts. It is easy to use and can make your content look like it has a professional touch. https://www.canva.com/

Stock Images

Pixabay and Pexels are my go-to for free images. Pexels also has some stock videos for you to use. I currently pay a subscription for Adobe stock. After a while, you start to see other advertisers use the same free stock images and I prefer my content to be different. These 2 are great for free images and videos.

Video editor

While on the topic, I use iMovie on the iPhone to edit and create video content. There is a debate still going between Android and iOS, but for a content creator, iPhone has amazing tools on board that allow you to create 4K video with no subscriptions and no watermarks. Even a slideshow video with music will take seconds and look amazing. Here is a sample from a few photos and videos on my phone. (If you’re on a budget, get an older iPhone with larger storage capacity)

Video Messages

Soapbox is a Chrome add-on that allows you to record yourself and your screen simultaneously to send a personalised video presentation. I use it all the time and it is amazing.

Social Media tools

There are a few scheduling and posting tools available. Facebook’s Creator Studio is an excellent tool to manage Facebook and Instagram pages. You can find it on the Facebook page menu.

For other social channels, I use Buffer. It can post to multiple channels and you can schedule pretty far in advance. For LinkedIn content, it doesn’t keep the same aspect ratio for your images so you need to plan your media carefully. It will also shorten links automatically for you.

Website tools

The best website tool I suggest for any business is Google Analytics. If you don’t have any tracking installed you are missing out on a wealth of information to improve your business.

URL Builder

If you have analytics you can use UTM codes in your links to track the campaigns. Google has a good one here.

Website Chat

A website chat is an amazing way to encourage people to contact you while on the site. Often people get lost (or lazy) and don’t want to look through the site for what they want. Using a chat function means they can ask the question with ease.

Tawk is a live chat that you can respond by using an app on your phone or with your browser.

Facebook has a chat function that links to Facebook Messenger. I have used Google’s Dialogflow to build an automated chatbot within Facebook Messenger. This is definitely for the advanced user.

CRM Tools

Without a doubt, Hubspot is my go-to for CRM. The free functions are so useful with add-ons for Gmail, Outlook and Google Chrome. They also can extract lead data from Facebook and LinkedIn lead ads and add them directly to your CRM.

I use Mailchimp for my bulk emails. Under the free package, you get enough functionality to maintain a good list for emails. I pay a small fee per month for the basic package and have automation campaigns, and a free website and domain. The website function is quite limited though. I stick to WordPress for my customers.

Zapier helps me move my contacts instantly from Hubspot to Mailchimp. This means I can automate campaigns from Facebook to Hubspot, to Mailchimp and initiate a series of emails without touching a thing. (I love technology)

I’ve also recently started using Calendly to schedule meetings. I’m new to this one so if there is a better tool on the market let me know.

Whatsapp Business is almost exactly like private Whatsapp but you can have an automated response and template responses for frequently asked questions. You can also get a link for people to message you instantly. Click here to send me a Whatsapp and try for yourself.

Get help

You might not always have time to manage these marketing efforts and that’s where I come in. You can visit my website here, to see the services that can help grow your business.

Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to get information and tips like this direct to your inbox.

The post Best Free Marketing Tools -Tested appeared first on mediaholic marketing.

Whats in it for them?

Remember that Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snap Chat, etc are all in it for the advertising money. This is why they favour content that is posted natively to their platform. Every piece of content you post keeps eyes on their app or website.

This can work for you and is a great brand awareness tool. However, I’m here to tell you about something that works even better.

Also read: Digital Performance Analysed: YouTube vs Facebook vs LinkedIn

Who owns what?

The worst problem with Social Media is who owns the database you are marketing to? It’s not you. They create algorithms that limit how many of your followers see your content.

A 2014 study by Ogilvy showed that reach was between 2-6% of the followers.

Email is all yours

The email database you collect is yours to manage and interact with. With a good email campaign you can get an open rate of over 50%. Utilising drip campaigns you can increase that to 60-70% of the list opening your email.

As long as you focus on providing value, and don’t annoy your audience, your list will remain intact. Social media and other display marketing methods online can help you grow your email list.

Social media has it’s place in marketing, but email will be a huge driver of engagement and business.

The post Forget Social Media- This is WAY more Effective Marketing appeared first on mediaholic marketing.