It's already challenging enough to be an entrepreneur. And in this golden age of technology, with so many tools available, how does one even decide which ones to use? Here are 8 of the best free tools and resources that startups must take advantage of!
Hootsuite
Having a social media management tool is important for startups because managing three or more social media accounts is challenging and consumes time better spent on the more important aspects of the startup.
If your startup is lacking a social media management tool, Hootsuite is the way to go. With Hootsuite, you can personalize your dashboard where different social media pages are displayed and maintained to your preference.
By having a customizable dashboard, Hootsuite gives its social media managers a more unique and convenient way to manage multiple social media. Not only that, Hootsuite also gives you the ability to reply and react to comments across different social media directly through the platform itself.
Hootsuite is also compatible when it comes to integrating different applications together such as YouTube, Dropbox, Google, etc. With Hootsuite, up to 30 posts can be scheduled across multiple social media platforms as early as its free plan. However, Hootsuite is only free for 30 days. After that, certain charges will apply.
Later
Later offers an all-in-one social media managing platform catering to the top social networking sites on the internet.
The platform offers a range of tools to help users optimize their social media presence, including content planning calendars, visual planners, and analytics dashboards. Later also has other tools designed to help users grow their social media following and engagement.
Planning, analyzing, and publishing content has never been this easy. With a few clicks, businesses can save time and effort enabling you to focus more and grow your startup!
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a classic tool for analyzing one’s web traffic and is also great with other application integrations. With Google Analytics, people are able to tell whether or not a specific marketing business strategy is working in the startup. If not, they are able to quickly change their methods and await better results.
This helps startups create more improved and systematized digital marketing campaigns which generally provide an increase in conversion rate. Google Analytics is free to use so long as startups do not exceed a specific number of impressions a month.
Mailchimp
For startups who are email marketing intensive, or even startups in general, it’s always good to have a decent email marketing tool. Mailchimp offers one of the best email marketing platforms there is.
Mailchimp’s aesthetically pleasing user interface and user experience (UI/UX) make the platform among the top choices in email marketing tools for many businesses, not only startups. They send about 10,000 emails per second from their clients to their subscribers across the globe.
Among the many email marketing tools around, Mailchimp offers the best free version functionalities. Their “freemium” service accommodates up to 2,000 contacts.
More than it being free version friendly and template friendly, there is also an adequate amount of data analytics users are able to benefit from. These are growth trackers, number of opens, number of clicks, and other statistics in the reports tab. These are beneficial in keeping track of how the emails are performing after being sent to multiple contacts.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a content marketing tool that helps businesses look into the most searched topics on the internet. This is something that startups can maximize when planning marketing content, blog content, and other content ideas. They instantly give people raw search insights into almost every topic there is.
All around the globe, there are about 3 billion searches every day. AnswerThePublic’s systematic keyword search tool allows for an organized segmentation of content which enables you to be able to stay updated with the latest trends around the internet.
It is good to note, however, that AnswerThePublic’s free version only allows for a very limited number of keyword searches per day. Availing of their priced plans, of course, provides you with unlimited keyword searches and extra features.
Canva
Canva is an online graphic design tool that helps graphic designers, social media managers, or digital marketing professionals create publicity materials, social media posts, blog graphics, and even social media profile pictures and headers.
One of the primary reasons why Canva is among the top graphic design tools is because of its user-friendliness. It has beyond satisfactory UI/UX which makes its learning curve not too steep.
More than that, Canva also has a wide range of existing templates to use available for different social media or graphic design formats.
With Canva, it is easier to come up with aesthetically pleasing design materials for marketing your business. Canva has the capability of bringing out the artist in every user, allowing you to immediately create professional-looking posts and collaterals.
What’s even better is that users are able to make the most out of Canva in its free version, making it the optimal choice for every startup.
ClickUp
Task management tools are also a good way to keep track of each person’s project deliverables. As startups grow, teams also expand. The more employees there are, the more difficult it is to manage each person’s tasks and be updated with what they are currently working on. This is where ClickUp comes in handy.
ClickUp is among the leading task management tools. A great feature of ClickUp is that every aspect of its interface is almost entirely customizable. This is perfect for users who want to make it entirely their own. The usual statuses such as: “in-progress, in review, and done” can be combined with other user preferences like: “in-progress, in review, up for revisions, final checking finished.” This adds points to the organization. What’s better, color-coded statuses make it easy to track what’s going on with your team as a whole.
ClickUp’s notification feature allows all its users to be updated with regard to changes in tasks, news, and refinements to projects.
ClickUp’s free version already caters to most of the needs of startups, with their pricing plans being quite affordable even for medium and large-sized companies.
Coursera
Startup or not, employers and employees must constantly yearn for new knowledge that may help improve the way they do business. When looking for free online courses, Coursera is one of the best choices there is.
Coursera can help you and your team grow your skillset/s, earn certificates, and advance the way you perform through learning from top universities and organizations around the world.
By spending an ample amount of time in Coursera, you and/or your team are able to get certificates in copywriting, journalism, digital marketing, sales, and basically almost every aspect of entrepreneurship and basic education.
While there are free courses available, some courses require payments and subscriptions in order to enroll. However, what’s good about Coursera is that all courses can be done virtually! There is no need to attend these courses physically. A significant amount of time, money, and effort is saved because of this. This also allows employees to take courses while at work as deemed essential by your startup.
Conclusion
These are just some of the free tools that help startups maximize their productivity and business strategies early on. These tools being free assist startups in the best way they can while their funds and budget are tight-knit. Plans with prices can definitely be availed of in the future once these startups are able to scale up.
Do you have a favorite free tool that is not on the list? Share it with us!