Marketing Resources for very small Businesses
While we specialize in marketing for small, growing businesses--we do recognize that there are VERY small companies that need marketing, but just don't have the resources to work with a consultant.
Start by determining exactly what you need each tool to do. Then look for tools that do only that and nothing more. You don’t want to pay for cool things that you will never use or make marketing more complex than it needs to be. Then compare price, eliminate everything that doesn’t offer a free trial and decide on a tool. Here are some suggestions:
Simple Content Creation
ChatGPT: there is a free version that isn’t very robust. For $20/month with no obligation, it will do just about everything you ask it to do. It’s like having an expert assistant 24/7.Here are some ideas:
· Always be as specific as possible about everything, i.e. not just “create some content about laptops”, but “create content about cost-effective laptops for a webpage and leave space for 2-3 graphics.” So, if an assistant was doing this for you and you were not happy with the results, you would go back and ask for specific corrections, you can do the same with ChatGPT.
· With the $20/month version, you can add attachments to requests. For example, you can say “How can I make this data sheet clearer?” or “Please rewrite the attached to attract more buyers.”
· You can ask ChatGPT to review your website and provide feedback, i.e “Let me know what you think of the following website: www.xxxxx”
· You can ask ChatGPT to rewrite content from other websites that you really like.
· You can take a video transcription, pop it into ChatGPT and ask to format it into paragraphs and even create an article out of it.
ChatGPT is a VERY intuitive tool created and managed by OpenHPC/Open.ai, which has been around a long time. They have an excellent reputation for continually optimizing everything they create.
Like your best know-it-all friend, ChatGPT nearly always has an answer and it’s usually right, but not always, so review and fact-check everything.
Tool: ChatGPT
Website: www.chatgpt.com
Cost: $20/month
Video Transcription for a Video or Webinar that isn’t Hosted on a Site
There are a lot of tools that will be able to create a transcription if the video is hosted on a site like Zoom or YouTube, but there is only one site, I know of, that will create a transcription with a URL to the video.
Tool: Sonix.ai:
Website: www.sonix.ai
Cost: $10 per 1 hour recording.
Lead ID
Despite what they promise (and what they cost), nearly all website visitor ID tools do the same thing: identify the company that was on your website and note which pages they visited. Each one of these visitor ID tools has a proprietary algorithm they use to identify, what they think are, quality leads. VisitorQueue tends to identify more leads than some of the other tools in this price range. Another option is LeadFeeder, which is less costly, but misses good leads.
Tool: VisitorQueue
Website: https://www.visitorqueue.com/
Cost: $49 for single month or $39/month with an annual commitment
Search Optimization (in addition to Google Analytics)
If you are paying for Google Ads, which if you are a very small business, you probably aren't, you will get much of this info free. If not, Mangools is a good alternative that's easy to use and will give you quite a bit of traffic-driving data.
Tool: Mangools
Website: https://mangools.com/
Cost: $37/month
Social Media Poster
There are tools like HubSpot, HootSuite, and Sprout Social that offer social posting tools. For the functionality they offer, I would say that it’s not worth the price if you, like most companies your size, will not post more than 1x/week.
Website Usability
It's eye-opening to see exactly how users are navigating the individual pages on your website. It's not just fun, it's very useful for designing and optimizing pages. There are a number of good tools that do this, most are not expensive, but Microsoft Clarity is free. That said, you will be able to get information on more visitors with StatCounter.
Tool: Microsoft Clarity
Website: https://clarity.microsoft.com/
Cost: Free
Tool: StatCounter
Website: https://statcounter.com/
Cost: $18/month
Basic email tools are generally not expensive. For a very small business, there are really 2 choices that I know of: MailChimp and Constant Contact. Most people opt for MailChimp since it is slightly less expensive. However, MailChimp is more complex to use than Constant Contact and creating emails is more time-consuming. Constant Contact is more intuitive and will give you the metrics you need, along with recommendations for follow up. Another thing I like about Constant Contact is their customer support.
Tool: Constant Contact
Website: https://www.constantcontact.com/
Cost: $35/month for up to 2,500 contacts and unlimited emails—they will probably negotiate the price. .
Creating Email Lists
If you find your self with a very thin prospect list, Hunter.io is an incredibly robust tool that will actually create a list of prospects that fit your criteria and it will then provide contacts and emails. This is a tool that you would never need more than 1 month at a time every few months. In theory, you could create an excellent email list with 100+ contacts during the free trial period.
Tool: Hunter.io
Website: www.hunter.io
Free trial, then $49/month.
Free Stock Graphics
Also consider Google Images. But be sure to click on “Tools>Usage Rights>Creative Commons Licenses”.
In the end...
Someone needs to manage all this. If you are talented and motivated or you have an admin that is, this shouldn't be a problem. However, what tends to happen is that once the initial enthusiasm has passed, even these simple marketing activities get sidelined. Marketing success is dependent on consistency--over years, not weeks. What you don't want to happen is a flurry of activity followed by a void. Anyone that goes to your social media platforms and sees a few posts and then nothing or that goes to your website and sees that your last blog post was six months ago, is going to think your business is not doing well. Better to hold off on marketing until you have reason to believe your efforts will be consistent.
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