Having worked in both the private and public sectors, I can attest that budgets are tight wherever you go and whatever the size of the organisation. Marketing can get expensive and for most companies there has to be a limit to the budget, if there is a marketing budget at all. As a digital marketer, I’m always looking for ways to stretch the budget as far as it will go and achieve an ROI that keeps my boss happy.

Luckily, there are loads of helpful tools and resources out there, including social media schedulers, podcasts, video-editing software, blogs, and much more. With mobile DJs now grappling with a second year without their usual events, saving money on your marketing will be essential when it comes to getting back out there and shouting about your business. I hope some of these free tools and resources can help.

Before we get into it, I should also point out that I have used – and in many cases continue to use – all of the tools and resources mentioned below. The Digital Marketing Podcast has made me a better marketer, Google’s fantastic free tools have saved me both time and money, and Canva has got me out of a tight spot on a number of occasions. But more on these below.

With a little creativity, you can use these free marketing tools and resources to help grow your business without spending big.

1. Hootsuite

Managing your social media can feel like a full-time job sometimes, especially if you branch out to include more channels in your marketing mix. If you’re looking to ramp up your social media output and start generating more leads, a social media dashboard like Hootsuite can do a lot of the heavy lifting.

I’ve been using Hootsuite since 2017 and, while it may not be perfect, you’ll do well to find a better free social media scheduler. The main draw is the calendar, which lets you create and schedule posts for all the common social media platforms. The calendar also provides an auto-schedule feature, if you’re not sure when best to post, and a basic image editor that allows you to resize and crop photos to the correct social media specs. Meanwhile, you can monitor your comments, mentions and messages from the ‘Streams’ section, allowing you to keep an eye on all your social accounts from one dashboard. You get some basic analytics and the ability to run reports, too. Not bad for free...

Hootsuite

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the first of three Google tools on this list, though it would’ve been easy to include more. GA earns its place not just by sheer power and vitality, but by its scalability. If you want to deep-dive into your web analytics, you can. Equally, if you’re just getting started and you simply need to know how many people are visiting your site, where they’re coming from and what pages they view, Google Analytics is your friend. Are your clients finding you via Google search or social media? This is the kind of question Google Analytics can answer.

Patience, and a willingness to spend some time playing around, are key to success. The dashboard may seem daunting at first, but you’ll soon get to grips with the main reports: Audience, Acquisition, Behaviour, and Conversions (essentially, who’s visiting, where they arrive from, what they do on your site, and whether they complete any specific goals). Once you realise how powerful this tool is, you may find that your inquisitive streak takes over, as you strive to understand more about your audience and what makes them tick.

Google Analytics

3. Canva

Not many small businesses can afford to employ a graphic designer, so when it comes to creating artwork and assets for web and social media, it’s often left up to non-designers to pull something out the bag. Canva is a free design platform that provides a library of templates, shapes, illustrations, fonts, icons and stock images, making it easy to create effective images and animations. You can also upload and save your logo, brand colours, images and video content, ensuring that the assets you create are always on-brand.

In my opinion, there is no app that can replace the talent, creativity and intelligence of a good designer, but Canva allows us mere mortals to unleash our inner-designer when we need to. Thanks to the mobile app, you can even make artwork on the fly, though you’ll want to use the full in-browser version for best results.

Canva

4. Google Trends

This helpful tool from Google tracks online trends, providing a real-time overview of what’s trending as well as allowing you to look back at trends over a