How to Get Started With Digital Marketing

Sometimes I get caught up talking about all the technical aspects of search engine rankings and website design that I forget to cover the basics: how to get started with digital marketing. Early adapters are already well on their way and can digest the somewhat-technical information shared about the topic. However, business owners or marketers who have yet to take the online plunge probably have limited knowledge (not a bad thing at all, not all of us can be experts in everything).

Having recently met with a client who has high law/financial technical knowledge, he reminded me that sometimes we forget to talk in terms that anyone can understand. We immediately resort to technical jargon, industry specific abbreviations and concepts because we spend countless hours in our industries and professions. It is important to keep certain information understandable by anyone - not because they are not capable of understanding, but because they are most likely specialized in other professions and haven't been involved in what services you may offer (just like I myself would not be able to give you sound legal advice).

Hopefully this post will provide a high-level overview of the digital world and how it can be used to help your small business carve out a niche of its own.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing in short is the ability to make yourself visible to the right audience at the right time. Keep in mind that I used to word visible: because what everyone is trying to do is grab someone's attention. Every time you want to run a paid ad, come up on the first page of Google or have people interact with your social media post you are trying to captured a little bit of that attention. Hopefully it leads to an action being taken - but before that can happen you need to present. As you can see by the breakdown  below, the least amount of time is spent shopping online. The other 95% is what digital marketing is meant for: being active within the right community and interacting with users on their own terms:

Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-people-spend-their-time-online-infographic

The other part of digital marketing is context. Getting attention is good, getting attention at the right time is awesome. Imagine you are running a sponsored ad to sell a high-end camera to photographers but the target you are trying to reach is new & upcoming photographers. Perhaps it would be more effective to promote a blog post or ebook on how new photographers can get their business off the ground instead of trying to sell the camera immediately. Much easier said than done of course!

The different areas of digital marketing

Keep in mind that each of these areas can have an in-depth post of their own with detail specifics. This is just a brief overview - feel free to browse the blog for more information on each.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Marketing (SEM)

Usually the most confusing or hard to understand concepts for many small businesses. Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) refers to the "organic" or non-paid efforts that aim to get your web page(s) to the top of Google (or other major search engines) pages. These are the search results you see underneath the ads. Keep in mind that SEO professionals don't rank your entire website for key terms but individual pages.

Search Engine Marketing (or SEM) on the other hand refers to paid efforts that get your communications on search engines. These would be paid ads or display banners that you come across in search engines. To get this positioning you have to usually pay per click (charged every time someone clicks on the ad) or pay per impression (paid based on the amount of times the ad is seen). Positioning of your ad compared to competitors is dependent on bid amount (how much you're willing to pay for a click or impression) and the quality of the ad (if the search terms match, landing page relevancy, etc.).

Email Marketing

One of the earliest forms of digital communication, email is still regarded as the most effective tool to drive results with digital efforts. And that should not be a surprise to anyone - people can customize the amount of emails they receive and marketers can customize the messaging on a personal level. 

According to emailisnotdead.com article, 61% of consumers like to receive weekly promotional emails and 28% want them even more frequently.

By following recently introduced CASL regulations, small businesses can communicate on a personal level with the customer. As you can see by the statistic above - majority of people prefer to receive email. When you have a customer who is willingly receiving communications it increases the possibility of an action being taken.

Social Media

Probably the most recognized marketing tactic - social media has grown into a huge tool for small businesses. With the introduction of sponsored ads, analytics tools and company pages majority of today's popular social media networks are developing their networks with companies in mind. Not just users.

There are two things to keep in mind with social media as it relates to business purposes:

1. Your business does not need to have a presence on every single social media network. Do some research, evaluate your resources and target the networks that make most sense.
2. Don't just post promotions or sales. It's called a social network for a reason. Post helpful, useful or interactive content that users will find engaging. Also, don't just post all the time - put in the effort to interact and respond to comments to show that you are truly an active member of the online community.

Content Marketing

The hottest topic of late has to be content marketing. It has been used as a buzzword far too often that majority, if not all, small business owners have heard of it. Content marketing plays a big role in the other areas as well: it can be shared using email or social media, it plays a big role in search engine rankings as it is more likely to get shared than corporate web pages, etc.

Hardest part about content marketing is making it relevant. You want to create a blog post, ebook, video - whatever that piece of content may be - that is going to engage users in a way that evokes an action. That action can be for them to share it with their own network/community, to fill out a form, download a report, etc.

The best content usually evokes emotion in users, making them feel a deeper connection with your brand: bring out a happy feeling, helping resolve a task faster, solving a difficult problem, connecting them closer with others, etc.

Analytics

The main difference between traditional and digital marketing efforts is the ability to track and evaluate campaigns. Big data is big business now; there numerous companies dedicated to providing analytics solutions that can track anything from your paid advertisement clicks to website interactions.

The most common tools that small businesses use are the ones that are free: Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, etc. Majority of online networks come with some sort of reporting ability. Be sure to set goals before you start and associate those goals with tangible performance indicators (or stats). This will help you measure how well something is work (or not). That way you can be ready to tweak your efforts to make sure you are getting the most out of your marketing.

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This is just a brief list of online marketing areas that are most common - there are plenty of other ways to engage an audience online. We've put together a list of emerging concepts for 2016 & beyond that you can take a look at here.

Where to Begin

This depends on where your small business currently stands with its online presence.

On Your Own

If you've got the time and a can-do attitude; there are plenty of resources, tools and solutions to help you automate digital marketing and do it all on your own. Keep in mind that certain things might be easier than others: sharing a Facebook post on a company page is much easier than researching a good key term to rank every single page of your website. As is editing all the different elements of those pages requires technical knowledge.

Doing things yourself may be more cost effective but remember that efforts, when done incorrectly, can have a negative effect on your business. If you're unsure of how to do something always do research, find step-by-step guides or consult someone who can steer you in the right direction.

Hiring or Outsourcing

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things to learn you can always find someone (whether hiring or outsourcing) to do it on your behalf. Sometimes it might be better for business owners to focus on what their expertise are and let professionals handle the marketing side. After all, many business utilize outside accountants, graphic designers and other service providers. In the same way a digital marketing professional or company can be utilized to help build an online presence.

Not all freelancers or companies will be right for you. Digital marketing services can be pricey, and majority of small businesses don't have the budget to outsource ALL digital efforts. At the same time, be wary of any company or professional guaranteeing you instant success. Much like other functions, digital marketing takes time and on-going work in order to yield positive results.

Helpful Resources

Regardless of where you stand, below are some of the posts we've put together that can help make your efforts a little bit easier:

• Outsourcing vs. In-House digital marketing
• How to tell your small business story
• Should you hire an employee or a freelancer
• FREE online marketing tools for small businesses
• Differences between promoting & engaging

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Hope that was helpful! If I've missed something or you'd like to add more, the comment section is a good place to do so.

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Unknown Tuesday, July 05, 2016  

Does Your Small Business Need a Blog?

As a small business owner or marketer you've probably heard the term "content is king" many times by now. And one of the best ways to create and share all sorts of visual, textual, and animated content where visitors can be engaged is via blogging. As a matter of fact many industry-leading marketing brands constantly highlight why blogging is important for business.

But with the huge surge in corporate blogging and content generation, does your small business really need a blog? Is it going to make a big difference? The answer is still overwhelmingly YES.

Here is why:

It Is Cost Effective

Creating a blog is fairly cost effective. Using blogging platforms such as the premium service from Wordpress would cost you $99 USD (there is a free version as well) on a yearly basis and that service basically allows for an integration of multitude of features:

• custom domain name
• combined blog and website in one place
• various plug-ins to help optimize for SEO, writing and editing
• easy to use interface
• responsive template designs so you don't have to start from scratch

With that being said, to produce engaging content you will still need to include visuals, videos and other features which may require time or financial investment. Luckily we put together a list of free online marketing tools to help keep things on budget!

Doing the actual writing or content creation itself will take some of your time, but once you get into the groove it becomes much smoother (and much more fun). Biggest investments will be learning and time.

Long-Term Lead Generation Tool

Blogging is not just a means of connecting to your audience on a more personal level, it is a fantastic lead generation tool. While timeliness (context is just as important as content) is a key component of capturing leads, according to HubSpot research 70% of traffic to their blogs each month come from posts that were published in the previous months and about 90% of the leads generated on their blog came from blog posts published in previous months.

If you put in a thorough effort to do proper research, create engaging visuals and reach your audience in the right way, previously published blog posts can be a fantastic lead generation tool.

Creates Storytelling & Networking Opportunities

If by now you are not aware of storytelling, take a look at our recent post covering the improtance of creating a brand personality. Basically, storytelling does not fall under marketing or ads, it is simply a way to evoke imagination within your audience. They should not be focused on your brand, they should be focused on your reader. Done right blog can be a huge storytelling venue where the reader engages with your content on a deeper level beyond just becoming a customer.

Such storytelling capabilities and/or useful blog posts can usually lead to networking opportunities. Readers can engage you directly in the comment section, become brand ambassadors (sharing your content on the regular) or even connect for potential guest blogging possibilities. A great example of this would be this exact blog post. I have made a reference to the HubSpot blog and stats numerous times because I regularly consume their content that I frequently share. They publish useful information all the time!

Increases PR Outreach Possibilities

Some posts can spread like wildfire. Unexpected company announcements, emotion provoking videos or very helpful, in-depth guides quickly spread all over social media. Similarly to the networking point above, imagine one of your blog posts getting shared by an industry thought leader or a major news outlet?

While this is the ideal scenario it is much harder to achieve. Content within the blog post usually has to be very informative, ground breaking or engage the intended audience in a way that no one has yet done. No easy task, but not impossible either.

Contributes to SEO Efforts

Blogs are a fantastic way to improve your Google rankings. Why? Well, your corporate website (you know the one with the about us, history, products, etc.) probably does not have many pages. On top of that they probably aren't updated too often. This is where a blog comes in handy: you can research topics that are of interest to your audience (who would of thought there would be something more interesting than reading an "about us" page?) and create a visual, interactive story that they will WANT to engage with and most likely share.

What do you think is more likely to get shared? Your website home-page or a kick-ass blog they read on their phone while waiting for dinner? If you take a look at your own personal social media feeds they are more likely to be filled with videos and blog posts than corporate web pages.

Create buyer personas, research content and get creative! Blogs allow for more indexed pages and a broader search ranking. Imagine how many different terms you can focus on with blogs compared to just your website.

Uncovers Audience Insights

Not only does each blog post have some sort of call to action feature, but a blog usually consists of multiple topics and themes. Tracking, measuring and analyzing user behaviour and content consumption of your visitors can help shed light on future content focus. Perhaps your audience members prefer long articles full of how-to steps as opposed to listicles (listed points, such as 10 Ways to Do Such and Such).

Using this data to drive better content will help increase engagement, performance and even lead generation. Set clear goals you want to achieve with your blog and evaluate as you keep publishing content.

If you're on the fence about starting a small business blog, do it! Blogs are still a very useful tool to connect with your audience. 

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Unknown Monday, May 02, 2016  

What is Your Small Business Story? Learn How to Establish Brand Personality

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Brand Personality, What Is It?

We often hear the phrase "Brand Personality" thrown around by marketing gurus - but what really is it? Is it meant for big brands using agencies? How can small business create one? All great questions.

Simply put, brand personality is how your business and the associated products or services, are perceived, consumed and engaged with by the general public. Notice that I did not just say "customers"? Because your brand personality spans beyond customers and becomes a reality of all audience members aware of it, whether they use it or not.

The way you build your brand personality can influence the type of customers your small business attracts. With the advancement of technology for business purposes, brand personalities have shifted more towards emotional connections, personal interactions and deep engagement between the brand (business) and user (customer).

Remember the PC vs. Mac personality commercials?

According to one of the biggest "rockstars" of branding in our day and age, Seth Godin, every brand is a story. It cues emotions, expectations, social situations and induces our own inner memories with the brand/product in question. Below is a great two sentence summary which illustrates brand personality:

More than ever, we express ourselves with what we buy and how we use what we buy. Extensions of our personality, totems of our selves, reminders of who we are or would like to be. - Seth Godin

 

Our Own Brand Personality Prelude

I will share with you a brief background story on NR Digital Branding itself - somewhat of an intro (not meant to be self boasting) into this blog post. If you've browsed around our social media profiles and links you may have noticed the term "nemki" come up quite a bit. As a matter of fact my Twitter handle is @nemki, one of my more recognizable nicknames to those that do know me (interestingly, nemki also refers to a mythological thunder-bird creature in the Anishinaabe native language). It was the first ever email I used for gaming, forums, chat services, Yahoo GeoCities website builder (first ever web design dabbling!), and it marks the spark of my "digital" life from the late 90s/early 2000s.

But why is it being used for business purposes?
Well I believe this to be the start of my digital passion and everything that has happened since, including the inception of NR Digital Branding. It is the personality that has developed over years that led to this career path and personal/professional involvement in the digital landscape. Additionally the story associates the level of commitment NRDB has to always providing the best digital experience for all customers, local audience and online community due to that passion. The same way that many Canadian small business have a story of their own; stories of passion, dedication and branding. What makes your business unique and how that uniqueness weaves into the service and/or product you provide as well as the customers that make it all worth-while.

Brand personality is a way for the customer to resonate with your business, to make a full emotional connection.

 

Why Tell Your Story?

Canada (more-so than other countries) is strongly established by small businesses. Imagine that within your local area you have a pizza store, down the street from the store is another local pizzeria store. Both of you sell gourmet pizzas, wings, bread-sticks, dipping sauces, provide a delivery service, etc.

Well, which one should a newcomer chose? Why would a customer come back?

Sure special promotions, deals and holiday specials can help you meet short-term goals, but they can do the same for the pizza shop down the road. What about the loyal customer who wants to keep coming back?

This is where your story or small business uniqueness (the personality) can play a crucial role.

What makes a pizzeria gourmet? Usually some sort of "secret" or "home-made" sauce. Maybe your pizzeria bakes using a stone oven, or uses an old family recipe from Italy. Perhaps it has an unmatched dinning experience in the pizzeria itself which draws a regular nightly crowd. It is something that differentiates you from ALL other pizzerias (regardless of location). While they too can have a specialty sauce or unique toppings, it does not taste quite the same as yours. The same would apply to their loyal customers: they would prefer that sauce over yours and that is what allows your business to differentiate itself.

Think of grandma's home-made pie; you can buy a pre-cooked one and bake it until its ready but it just doesn't have the same aroma, taste and goodness to it. Why can't your home-made gourmet pizzeria live up to that name? Especially if it has a special secret sauce that makes it delicious! Maybe even elicit a similar response to the one in the image below (we do not recommend you try this at home!):

I reference a pizzeria as an example but this applies to all industries and types of small business organizations. If your small business has a great story to tell and can make the customer a part of that story, it will create a foundation for long-term relationship between brand, perception and customer.

How To Tell Your Story

There was an article published on Forbes a couple of years ago, right at the "rise" of content marketing that brought a point which is very important to this practice to this day:

Brand stories are not marketing materials. They are not ads, and they are not sales pitches. Brand stories should be told with the brand persona and the writer’s personality at center stage. Boring stories won’t attract and retain readers, but stories brimming with personality can. - Susan Gunelius, Forbes

The first thing that comes to mind of storytelling is the traditional list of sequential milestones. For example:

• established in 1977
• incorporated 1980
• introduced new menu 1989

Not that there is anything wrong with a historical timeline of the company but there has to be a little more oomph to it than that. Here are a couple of things you should keep in mind:

1. Make it Customer-Centric

Stories always involve characters, and what better way to resonate with your customers than to make them the main character of your story? While this sounds hard, it is not impossible. Think about some of the most recent "big brand" campaigns that were centered around the customer:

• Lays chips flavour challenge where users submit flavour ideas and the company sells the most popular selections for a limited time
• Coca-Cola putting names on soda cans/bottles to make coke buying about the person, not necessarily the drink itself

Does your business have to go as far as that? Of course not, it would be great if it did or could but there are plenty of other ways to incorporate customers into the brand. Do you have customer testimonials framed all over the store space? Challenges that result in publicly celebrated certificates or rewards for customers if they accomplish such feats (who can handle the pizzeria's legendary slice challenge)? Is part of the menu a result of customer suggestions? How did it solve a problem for the customer (solving plan-less dinner nights for a long, long time)? Is the topping selection fully based on customer input? Etc.

2. Participate Locally

Majority of small businesses are tied to a location (or more than one). Whether you have a storefront or work from an office (or from home), all businesses have somewhere they belong. It is imperative to be involved in your community to some extent.

Having collaborated with dozens of small business thus far, it is evident that majority of them are involved in their community. From local hockey team sponsorships, food drives to having a group of team members run a charity marathon. In all instances the organization and it's employees were doing this to help those in need or support their community.

However, few had actually mentioned their involvement anywhere. This type of local engagement can have a huge part in building up your brand's DNA both internally (employees) and externally (customers). You do not need to have fancy press releases or news stories written in the local newspaper (although it wouldn't hurt) each and every time. You simply need to snap a photo, share it with others, include it in your messaging and get your employees to participate in the share culture. You will be amazed at how engaged your brand will become.

Interestingly, according to a blog published on American Express small business blog the more local small business prosper the more they give back:

It’s not just about the economy: Research shows that vibrant local business communities lead to more charitable giving in a community and more walkable neighborhoods with unique character, according to Michael H. Shuman, an economist and author who specializes in community economics. - Kelly Spors

3. Be Genuine

"Corporate speak" as I refer to it is better left off the web and anything facing the customer really. In order to establish any sort of personality your brand has to establish a voice of it's own. Some brands have experimented with using slang terminology to resonate with their community, others simply tell it as is. Other use fun, interactive storyboards to guide the reader on a journey. Remember us mentioning the corporate timeline above? We'll take a look at Moz's timeline and how they made it fun, interactive and personal (use of their mascot and employee photos - see screenshot below).

One of my personal favourites is a local brewery here in Ontario: Steam Whistle Brewing. They cover everything about the brand: from the founder's original dreams long before the brewery became what it is today to the reason they chose that specific name, check it out here. Nothing fancy, but it gives meaning to the beer for all lovers of local brews.

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So, now that we've covered the basics of brand storytelling do you know what is your business' brand personality? If you're not sure, are you going to work on one?

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Unknown Monday, January 04, 2016  

Small Business Email Marketing Checklist [PDF]

Email marketing for small business is awesome, really really awesome! Done right it can lead to many positives in business growth, customer retention and lead generation.

In order to efficiently tap into all of these benefits, it is necessary to properly build each and every email marketing campaign to meet email spam regulations, focus on set goals and measure results. If you've ever had trouble keeping tracking of all of these things; fret no more! Below is a downloadable (and interactive) PDF checklist to ensure you cover all of the important details of every email campaign:

What does this PDF cover?

• CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) requirements
• Technical email features
• Design guidelines for optimal performance
• Landing page features that lead to more leads

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Unknown Thursday, July 02, 2015  

FREE Online Marketing Tools for Small Business Organizations

We usually talk about all of the different online marketing tactics, strategies, services, etc. But what if, as a small business owner, you're somewhat familiar with these efforts and are looking to do majority of the work yourself? Luckily we have decided to do the hard work of researching resources for you and share some great FREE online marketing tools for small business:

Learning Tools: eBooks & Digital Guides

Expand your knowledge and familiarity of digital marketing efforts with the following learning tools:

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Title: Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization
Author: Moz
Overview: Whether you know nothing about SEO or are simply looking to build upon your knowledge, this interactive guide is the perfect starting point.

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Title: Beginner's Guide to Social Media
Author: Moz
Overview: Similar resource as for the above SEO guide, Moz does a fantastic job outlining how social media can benefit business digital marketing performance. Great starting point for anyone looks to transition from just posting updates to strategizing their social media efforts.

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Title: Definitive Guide to Engaging Email Marketing
Author: Marketo
Overview: One of the leading marketing automation providers, Marketo publishes amazing resouces. Including this guide on email marketing: going beyond just sending promotions and tracking open rates. Learn how to really implement a robust email program.

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Title: Definitive Guide to Engaging Content Marketing
Author: Marketo
Overview: Similar resource as for the above email guide, the engaging content marketing guide shows how to publish online content that will reach the right people in the right way. Develop "personas" of your readers and schedule your updates using an editorial calendar: everything you need to get started with content marketing.

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Title: Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Marketing
Author: PPC Hero
Overview: Not an eBook or whitepaper, but an in-depth blog post/web page on all the details you need to know in order to get started with your first PPC campaign.

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Title: Social Media Meta Tags Guide
Author: Moz
Overview: Meta data is huge, as is semantic search, and Cyrus Shepard from Moz shares an easy-to-follow guide on how to setup social meta data for your website. Brilliant!

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Social Media Management

Posting to multiple profiles can be time-consuming, as can tracking engagement, so here are some tools to help you manage it all:

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Title: Social Mention
Overview: Looking for to find niche keywords and topics around your services on social media? Look no further, social search helps you find blogs, images, updates and many other content types directly related to your search term. Best of all? It also calculates involvement of the topics (high vs. low) and similar suggestions.

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Title: Yoono
Overview: Yoono is a great app for both mobile and desktop devices that lets you not only monitor your social media profiles but allows you to share directly from the app to your profiles. While limited in the social network support the main players are available: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.

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Title: Hootsuite
Overview: While subscription based services allow you to experience the full capabilities of Hootsuite, they still offer a basic free version which allows you to connect up to 3 social media profiles and gives access to limited analytics reports. Great option if your business is within that 3 profile range.

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Title: Buffer
Overview: Similar service to Hootsuite, to enjoy full benefits it does require a paid subscription. However as a free service, users can add 1 account from each of the following networks and share updates to multiple accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn. Use this if you need just a bare minimum scheduling service.

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Title: SumAll
Overview: SumAll is a business-oriented analytics service for social media efforts. While it too has premium features, the free service does a great job of providing in-depth information to help measure and guide your social media marketing. If you're looking to get a little more involved with social media reporting beyond what each network offers individually this is a good starting point.

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Title: Check Usernames
Overview: Creating new social media profiles or company pages? This tool allows you to search virtually all of the social networks on the web before you decide on the username of your pages. Do the research for ALL social networks before creating the first page name only to find out that another social network does not have it available.

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Search Engine Optimization

A lot of paid SEO services tools available as we all know, but here are some great free options:

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Title: Google Keyword Planner Tool
Overview: Although this tool is meant to research keywords and topics for AdWords (PPC) campaign it can be useful for finding general keyword volumes. Best part? You can narrow down keyword focus down to regional location, including a specific city. This way you will know exactly how many times a keyword gets searched within the general area of where your business operates.

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Title: WordStream Free Keyword Tools
Overview: WordStream offers a few free tools for researching keywords including niche finder and keyword grouper to help you find a more narrow focus, while getting a variety of relevant topics all in one. This tools is fantastic if you're small business specializes in a unique field or service.

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Title: Keyword Tool
Overview: Using Google's Autocomplete, this tool gives you suggestions as you type your keyword ideas. If you're doing researching or just looking to see what types of topics are trending around certain keywords this tool could be useful.

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Title: SEO Book Rank Checker
Overview: Are you currently searching the keyword and scrolling through pages (assuming you're not ranked on the first page) to find on what page your rankings fall? Well do so no more, use this free rank checker tool by simply typing in your web page link and the keyword you're trying to rank for. Voila!

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Title: Schema Mark-Up Generator
Overview: If you're really ambitious and would like to introduce semantic search features to your online efforts then this tool will make the code part a breeze. Simply select what type of semantic mark-up you would like to do and the program generates the code with all the necessary information. Quick and easy.

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Title: Link Building Query Generator
Overview: Getting links back to your content, posts and pages is cruical for search engine rankings, but not so easy to accomplish. This tool will help you find relevant communities and websites which could be potential link targets. If you're a bit iffy about link building and why it's important, check out the "Beginner's Guide to SEO" in the Learning Tools section above.

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Email Marketing Tools

Aside from paid email marketing services such as Mail Chimp or Constant Contact, these tools can help you run effective campaigns:

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Title: ReachMail
Overview: Up to a 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails a month under the free account, ReachMail is a great option for small businesses sending occasional monthly emails. Custom email templates, list segmentation and many other options available as well.

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Title: TargetHero
Overview: Up to a 5,000 contacts and unlimited monthly emails, the free version of TargetHero goes a step above ReachMail and provides a great option for small businesses sending more frequent email communications. It also comes with as many useful features as ReachMail.

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Title: Premailer
Overview: If you're a small business trying to do email on your own, the most likely case is that you've put together a pre-designed HTML/CSS template. If you've done some edits of your own but are unsure if the code is all clean, this tool will make sure that the code behind the email is clean as possible. Note: minimal to none coding knowledge required!

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Title: Email View
Overview: Contactology provides a basic free version of their "Email View" tool which basically allows you to paste your email template into the empty box, select the email client your recipients use and you will be able to see exactly how the email will appear across Outlook, GMail, Yahoo!, etc. !

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Title: Email Spam Test
Overview: How can you be 99.99% sure that your email won't land in the spam folder? One thing that can help is using an online spam checker such as this one to see which areas of your message may be considered as spam. If there are any spam results, simply edit your design and message before sending and ensure safe inbox delivery.

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Title: Subject Line Checker
Overview: Subject lines are crucial in email getting opened, so make sure that your subject shows up properly is effective and compatible across various email clients. This tool provides you with all of those abilities, FREE of charge.

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Design Utilities

Contract freelancers that help with custom small business graphic design are always available, but what if you need something put together quick? Here is a list of potential tools to help you out:

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Title: Colour Conversion
Overview: Do you have a hard time translating the true colour of your brand online? That may be due to the conversion from RGB (red, green, blue) to HEX (hexadecimal). You can just put in your RGB code (or vice versa) and get the exact HEX code put out by the web page. Neat for easily converting colours in multichannel design efforts.

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Title: 1001 Fonts
Overview: If you're sick and tired of using Arial or Comic Sans for your design take a look at 1001fonts. Exactly as the name suggests it has thousands of fonts available for download - so make sure you grab something that coincides with your messages and spruce up the copy in your communications!

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Title: Vecteezy
Overview: FREE vector images - aside from stock photography this is a fantastic way to get high-quality icons, illustrations and images that can be sized to any extent without losing their quality. While Vecteezy has a paid area, there are plenty of free vector images available for use.

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Title: Canva
Overview: Backed by Guy Kawasaki, the business guru, this free online tool allows anyone to become a designer. No really, that is their actual slogan - easy features and plenty of resources allow even the least creative person to put together fabulous layouts.

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Title: DrawPlus
Overview: Don't have the budget for Adobe's Creative Suite (it is not cheap by any means)? Fret not, DesignPlus is the perfect alternative which allows for photo manipulation, drawings, editing and much more. Perfect software for both design and the budget!

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Ready-to-Use Templates

Don't have time to put together a reporting template in excel? Need to put together an infographic? Have a peek at the FREE templates below, there might be something of use:

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Title: Hubspot Marketing Tools
Overview: Hubspot does an amazing job giving away freebies for marketers and adventourous small business owners looking to DiY with some of their marketing. The amount of FREE templates and resources would be too great to list here - so I will just link back to their Resource Hub for you to poke around. It has everything from infographic templates to web reporting excel documents. Enjoy!

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Title: Social Media Icons
Overview: Over 100+ free social media icons with a variety of styles, colours and designs. Find the perfect fit for your online presence and simply plug-and-play!

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Title: Web Buttons
Overview: Over 2000+ free web buttons that can be used for a call-to-action, guiding users or simply making your webpages slightly more visual. These are in PSD (Photoshop) format so ensure you have the right software to open the files.

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Title: Landing Pages
Overview: Landing pages are a major factor in web visitors converting to a certain action (purchasing, filling out a form, etc.) and having the right layout/message is critical. Take these 15+ fully responsive landing pages as a fantastic starting point for customizing your landing page.

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Title: Social Media Tactical Plan
Overview: You've got a plan for social media, but how to execute it? This action-filled plan is more than helpful in getting the most out of your social media efforts. It has action plans for all of the major social networks including KPI measurements (key performance indicators) so that you can analyze your performance as you go along.

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Title: Quarterly Marketing Planning Customizable Template
Overview: Another fantastic template from Marketo - this one helps you plan out your marketing for each quarter, and the PowerPoint document comes equipped with customizable features. Just plug in your numbers and information to let the template do all the work for you.

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Title: Responsive Wordpress Themes
Overview: Building a blog or website is no easy task, but if you find a template you like it can be much easier. Take a look at these fully responsive Wordpress options for the casual blogger or a full-service e-commerce website! Your future website may just be a click away.

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Phew - that took some time to put together! I hope that there is at least one new, helpful resource for your small business in one of the above categories. If you're feeling charitable, is there a free tool that you would like to share which did not make it on this list?

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Unknown Monday, February 09, 2015