There’s not a marketer on the planet who prefer to pay for something when they can get it free. Free marketing tools are getting better and better – with developers often making money on the ad slots they provide in and around the site or on the tools themselves.
If you’re watching pennies, or just like to get a good bargain from time to time, consider these five free tools for marketers that you may need for this year.
1.) CamStudio for Video Screen Capture Marketing – http://camstudio.org/
Camtasia can be pricey ($299) when you’re just starting out. But luckily for you, there’s an open source project called CamStudio that allows you to make an endless number of screen capture videos for free!
Pair your version of CamStudio with some free audio recording software at http://www.audioflash.org/ and you can create very professional videos to help you generate interest in your products and services.
2.) GIMP for Graphic Creations – www.gimp.org
Photoshop is often very hard for some non-tech savvy individuals to learn. And when you spend money on a tool like PhotoShop, you want to have the shortest learning curve possible.
Now you can take your time and use GIMP instead. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and you can use it for free, along with their thorough documentation, to make call to action buttons, minisite graphics, ads and more.
3.) WIX – Free Flash Website Design Tool – http://www.wix.com/
Flash sites are so expensive when you’re searching for a company or professional freelance individual to create one for you from scratch. With WIX, you can customize a template or make your own.
With a WIX site, you’ll have drawbacks, such as WIX ads being placed on your domain – and the domain won’t be your own dot com moniker, but you can upgrade when you have the money to invest in it and remove ads and use your own domain.
4.) WordPress – Free Blog Software http://wordpress.org/
Chances are you’ve heard of this one before, but some people still think they have to pay for a WordPress blog. Not true. You can either host a WordPress blog on their dot org site, or install it free on a domain that you own. As most marketers already know, WordPress is loved by Google if you utilize it right by posting relevant content on a regular basis.
5.) MailChimp – Free Autoresponder Tool – http://www.mailchimp.com/
This tool is great for those with no list or a very small list to begin with. You can use MailChimp for free to store up to 2000 contacts and send out up to 10,000 emails per month.
