Marketing Tools

During my days as a marketing consultant, I often stumble across killer tools and services – many of them free – that I wonder how I was able to call myself a sapient marketing entity without. The internet is constantly enabling people to do things faster, bigger and most importantly, easier, meaning that you can do way more by/for yourself than you think.

The following is a carefully curated list of online tools and marketing resources that I can personally recommend as truly invaluable for any small business or entrepreneur. This is intended to be a living document, so I’ll add/edit as my experiences dictate. In the meantime, by mixing and matching the tools and services listed below, you can easily put together a marketing infrastructure for your business that rivals the capabilities of some corporate behemoths – enjoy!

|| Blogging || Data Capture & Surveys || Ecommerce^UPDATED || Email Service Providers || Mobile Apps || Productivity^UPDATED || Search Engine Optimization || Tracking & Monitoring Tools || Video/Screen-Sharing^UPDATED || Website/Design Templates ||

Blogging

• Blogger – Fantastic web-based (meaning you don’t need your own hosting server) blogging service
• WordPress.com – The web-based version of the incredibly popular WordPress web publishing platform. Not to be confused with WordPress.org, which is for people looking to host their own site
• Tweetdeck – Yes, Twitter still counts as blogging in my book. Tweetdeck helps you parse out the digital firehose into meaningful streams from which you can sip the sweet info-nectar at will.
• Hubspot Blog Grader – Yes, they’re trying to sell you their services, but Hubspot’s suite of free grading tools don’t skimp on the great advice as to what you can do to improve your rankings – definitely worth a look.

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Data Capture & Surveys

• Wufoo – Create excellent online forms for capturing almost any kind of data you can think of – all within an easy drag & drop interface
• SurveyMonkey – Set up an online survey in minutes – ideal for collecting data for analyzing your customer base

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Ecommerce

• Shopify – Literally lets you set up your own hosted ecommerce store in minutes. Easy management interface, low-priced and very customizable.
• Paypal – Transfer money and accept payments quickly and securely with just an email address. Widely regarded as the gold standard in online transactions.
• Square^NEW – Awesome application that allows you to process credit card payments with your iPhone, iPad or Android device, and even better – customers sign the screen with their finger (too cool). You can apply to get the cute little card reader for free, too!

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Email Service Providers

• CampaignMonitor – One of the best email service providers out there, period
• MailChimp – Another excellent email marketing platform. Plus, MailChimp has possibly the most fun user interface ever.
• Constant Contact – A solid email marketing platform that gives you plenty of room for growth
• Spam Meltdown – The sister site to the wonderful Design Meltdown webdesign repository, Spam Meltdown performs the same invaluable task with HTML emails.

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Mobile Apps

• Google Reader – Ok, not strictly a mobile app, but the mobile version of Google’s RSS reader is so slickly implemented and easy to use that you won’t care.
• Google Calendar – Keep your appointments on the go.
• Remember The Milk – Handy to-do list application with prioritization, automatic reminders and more.
• ShopSavvy – Make sure you’re not overpaying for office supplies with this little app that turns your phone into a web-enabled barcode scanner that sniffs out nearby deals for you!
• Mofuse – A drag & drop tool for building mobile versions of your websites. Dead simple to use, and rock-solid compatibility across almost any handset you care to think of. I literally had a test version of a client’s mobile website up in 15 minutes!

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Productivity

• Google Docs – Storing documents on one computer is so over. You can do just about anything Office can do with this suite of productivity tools.
• Freshbooks – Time tracking, invoicing, project management and more.
• Down For Everyone Or Just Me – Before you berate your IT guy/website host for the website being down again, perform a sanity check to see if this is the case for the rest of the world, or if your foot nudged the ethernet cable again…
• pic resize – Quit waiting for Photoshop to open (or worse, waiting for IT to install it for you). Upload your pic, resize it, download it – done.
• Jing – Quite possibly the most useful screenshot tool out there – perfect for when words don’t do it justice.
• Dropbox – A brilliant tool that lets you sync files across multiple computers, and share with others when collaborating. Bye-bye remembering which thumbdrive you saved the big presentation on!
• Slideshare – A favorite of conferences everywhere, Slideshare lets you publicize your presentation slides by making them viewable and shareable by all
• Doodle.com – Simple and flexible little polling tool that’s perfect for organizing groups, e.g. determining the best day to hold an event, decide which movie to see, and basically any other situation where you’d normally just send out a group email and struggle with responses. You don’t even have to sign up to use it!
• Skitch^NEW – Another excellent screenshot tool, with (I think) better sharing capabilities than Jing.

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Search Engine Optimization

• FeedTheBot.com Image SEO tool – Optimize your images for search engines with this free analyzer
• Google Insights for Search – Find the most popular and trending keywords for your next blog post!
• Hubspot Website Grader – One of Hubspot’s more robust free offerings, the Website Grader crawls your site in minutes, and offers up simple tips that can significantly improve your search engine rankings

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Tracking & Monitoring Tools

• Google Analytics – Widely regarded as the benchmark in web analytics for most small/medium businesses
• Flowtown – Merges your customers’ email addresses with your social media followers’ accounts, allowing insanely useful insights into your customers’s behavior and online hangouts
• Swix – Wonderful tool that gives you a simple, intuitive social media dashboard, so you can track your audience’s growth and activity
• Klout^UPDATED – Spookily accurate Twitter profile analysis tool that looks at your activity and gauges your influence, then gives you tips on what you need to work on. UPDATE Oct 2010: Now factors your Facebook activity into your influence score

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Video/Screen-sharing

• Qik – Stream video from your smartphone directly to the web. No fuss, no muss, just instant broadcasting – perfect for when you just have to get something out there
• uStream – Broadcast to the masses from a webcam (and more recently, from your smartphone too). Excellent integration with Twitter, so you can be interacting with your audience in real time, too
• Skype – Voice and video chat with anyone in the world, anytime. Bonus: really low international calling rates, plus you can call other Skype users for absolutely free!
• Yuuguu – Handy-dandy little screen-sharing tool – perfect for product demos and collaboration. Update Feb 2011 No longer free, but still a great tool
• Jaycut – Upload, and edit video right in your browser, for free! This amazing tool lets you do almost anything you need, from editing footage, to fancy transitions, adding title slides and credits, and even basic green/bluescreening
• Join.Me^NEW – Excellent, free and lightweight screensharing tool – has replaced Yuuguu as my go-to for client presentations.

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Website Design/Templates

• ThemeForest – Purchase professionally-designed and highly customizable website, WordPress and other content publishing templates for less than the cost of, well, many things.
• Templatic – Great resource for some killer WordPress themes
• Bundlehunt – Just launched, Bundlehunt gives you a limited time to purchase well over $1,200′s-worth of top-of-the-line design resources and online services, for the happy number of $49. Move fast!
• Design Meltdown – Since 2005 Patrick McNeil has been steadily curating one of the most useful repositories of website design on the web. If you’re wondering about what the best practices are for almost any kind of web design, you’ll find great examples here.
• Ashford – One of the most flexible and easy-to-customize WordPress themes I’ve encountered. Tried and tested with a number of my own clients.
• Mockingbird^UPDATED – Build website mockups and share them online. No more Powerpoint, no more Visio or Photoshop. Just you, your ideas, and the blank page. In other words: total bliss for only $9 a month… Update Oct 2010: The beta period has been extended, so this incredible tool is still FREE – go get it!

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Any tools or services you think deserve inclusion? Suggest your faves in the comments, and I’ll give ‘em a whirl.