The best marketing tools for small businesses in 2024
MailerLite team: Giannis, Frank and Mantas
You own a small business. You know online marketing is key for growing sales, but overwhelm hits when you think about how to start.
We’ve all been there. But as luck would have it, there are marketing tools for small businesses that can save the day. 😉
The right marketing tool helps you to complete tasks that have been labeled “one day” for far too long. They can help with every part of your marketing strategy, from planning campaigns, to launching your strategy and then analyzing the results.
In this article, we'll share 11 of the best small business marketing tools available!
Types of digital marketing, and how tools can help
Picking the right online marketing tools is easier when you know WHY to use them. Let’s start with a quick refresher on the types of digital marketing, how each one benefits your small business, and how tools can help. Or click here to jump right to the list of tools.
Social media marketing
Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn… the list goes on and on! While a handful of small business owners hit the lottery with overnight viral success, most of us find success by posting valuable content consistently and regularly.
Social media is a great way to increase visibility, reach new followers and understand your audience through engagement.
Schedule posts in advance across multiple platforms
Manage your content creation workflow
Automate publishing
Analyze performance and build reports
Manage commenting and replying
Email marketing
With an impressive ROI of 3,500%, email marketing should be part of your marketing strategy. And we’re not just saying that because we want you to try MailerLite. 💁♀️
The benefits of email marketing are that it’s effective, affordable and great for collecting leads from other marketing platforms. With email marketing campaigns, you can build personal relationships and reach people directly in their inbox. High engagement, low costs.
Create newsletters with visual tools
Send automated newsletters based on customer actions
Grow an audience with signup forms, pop-ups and landing pages
Send targeted messages based on segments or groups
Personalize messages to each user
Start email marketing with MailerLite
Join MailerLite today, an award-winning email marketing tool, recognized as the leading tool for small businesses by G2. Our free plan offers everything you need to grow your business with email.
SMS marketing
SMS marketing has become more popular, with small business owners using it to offer customer support, send reminders, increase brand awareness and drive sales.
In 2023, 86% of businesses used it to reach customers and over 90% reported this marketing strategy was successful. Like email marketing, get prior consent and comply with the laws, such as the TCPA. With relatively low investment costs, we recommend giving it a go!
Send automated SMS messages
Send mass messages to your audience
Build your contact list with forms
Personalize SMS message content
Send promo codes and links
Content marketing
You’re reading this guide because it (hopefully) helps you pick the best digital marketing software for your small business. That’s content marketing for ya.
Content marketing is the art of crafting valuable content such as blogs, guides, videos and infographics to grow traffic, build trust or establish authority within your industry. While playing the long game with this technique, it’s an essential part of your small business digital marketing strategy.
Create effective strategies
Find ideas for content
Optimize content based on your goals
Create designs for your content
Collaborate with your team
Manage projects
Online advertising
While it’s the costliest marketing method listed, it can bring the quickest results. When building an online presence from scratch, paid advertisements on Google or social media can get your brand or digital products in front of many new faces.
Make sure to analyze your demographics, so you can make an informed decision on whom to target and where. Then experiment with a small budget and optimize based on the results.
Analyze campaigns
Optimize ad performance
Identify campaign ideas
Create ad graphics and content
Find experts to help with each channel
The 11 small business marketing tools that have it all
Whether you’re a new entrepreneur or a seasoned small business owner, these 11 digital tools will help grow your business—each in a different marketing area. These tools were handpicked as best-in-class because they’re easy to learn, impactful and friendly-priced (or even free).
Google Trends: Discover trending topics
Google Trends shows what people are searching for, as well as historical search volumes for any topic.
With this market research, keyword research and SEO tool, you can filter on geographical location and language to get relevant results, which helps with search engine optimization and content creation planning.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Real-time metrics on Google search trends worldwide | Limited data |
| Powerful for creating relevant content | Mostly numbers without context |
| Easy to adjust time frames and create reports | Not great for low-searched keyword terms |
Price: Google Trends is a free small business marketing tool!
SparkToro: Understand your audience
SparkToro helps you understand where your target audience spends their time online, what they talk about and which influencers they follow. This market research tool is great for guiding your marketing strategy, planning content topics and doing influencer outreach.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Intuitive and straightforward UX | Not as reliable for non-English-speaking audiences |
| Detailed data on audience behavior | Plans start at $37.50 a month |
| Easily identify the best marketing channels and influencers |
Price: SparkToro’s free trial includes 5 monthly searches for a single user. Plans start at $50 per month or $450 billed annually ($37.50 a month). This includes up to 50 monthly searches.
Canva: Create professional visuals
Canva helps turn anyone on your team into a graphic designer. With endless templates and in-built visual elements, this design tool lets you easily create social media posts, brand logos, posters and other marketing visuals—even if you’ve never designed anything before!
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Extensive design library and templates | Limited options compared to Adobe Photoshop |
| Easy to design professional-looking graphics | Many cool features are behind a paywall |
| AI features such as background removal | Mobile app is difficult and at times buggy |
| Can be used collaboratively with a team | Widely used: your designs will likely not be unique |
| Download or post visuals directly to social media platforms | |
| Add your brand kit (logo, colors, fonts, etc.) |
Price: Canva has a generous free plan. Many useful features for small businesses require Canva Pro, which costs $15 a month or $120 a year. You can also get a 30-day free trial.
Upwork: Hire marketing professionals
Many small business founders run the show solo or with only a few team members. With limited time, knowledge and resources, Upwork is a heaven-sent. You can hire freelancers from around the world to help with marketing tasks like website design, coding, and copywriting!
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Large pool of international freelancers with different skills | Need to vet freelancers, quality ranges greatly |
| Freelancers for long and short-term projects | Service fees keep increasing |
| Ability to add screening questions | Upwork takes a cut of transactions |
| Secure payments through Upwork | Not ideal for finding full-time candidates |
Price: Posting a job or project as a small business is free. But, Upwork charges a contract initiation fee of up to $14.95 and a 5% client marketplace fee on payments made to freelancers. You can also pay $29.99 to feature your job post and boost its visibility.
Buffer: Automate social media content
When building a social media following, you have to post a LOT! Buffer helps you streamline this task. This social media marketing tool lets you schedule posts, shorten links, analyze performance and manage multiple accounts. Their AI tool even helps you generate social posts!
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Easily write and schedule social media posts | Limited features in the free version |
| Manage multiple social accounts at once | Some post formats not supported |
| Detailed analytics for each post |
Price: Buffer’s free plan includes planning and publishing tools, a landing page builder and an AI assistant. The higher tiers (Essentials, Team and Agency) start at $5 monthly or $60 yearly for one social channel. The Essentials plan comes with analytics reports.
MailerLite: Grow your email list
MailerLite offers an entire suite of easy-to-use email marketing features that make growing your business a breeze. You can send campaigns, automate emails, sell with e-commerce plugins, build landing pages, collect emails with forms and pop-ups and more.
With 24/7 support, endless how-to articles and 3 email builders, this is a great email marketing platform for small business owners in each growth phase.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers | Thorough approval process |
| Intuitive interface | Up to 30 days of support in free plan |
| Advanced features anyone can use | |
| 30% discount for nonprofits |
Price: Get a free plan to send 12,000 emails to 1,000 subscribers. MailerLite’s paid plans start at $9 monthly or $108 yearly. You’ll get unlimited monthly emails and unlock features like auto-resend campaigns, dynamic email blocks and multivariate testing.
Ready to try MailerLite for free?
Sign up and explore our free features including drag & drop editors, rich-text email editor, pop-ups, automation and more. You also get access to our paid features for 30 days! No credit card required!
Oppizi: Distribute flyers and leaflets
Oppizi is one of the few marketing solutions that allows you to create flyer campaigns that can be tracked, optimized and scaled.
Using location data targeting, you can reach new audiences in locations worldwide by delivering flyers to their homes or by distributing flyers in your chosen area.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Detailed tracking and distribution reports | Limited to physical distribution |
| Geo-targeting to reach specific areas | Costs vary on the distribution area and volume |
| Campaign creation support |
HubSpot CRM: Nurture customer relationships
Manage the entire sales pipeline with HubSpot’s straightforward and visual dashboard. This digital marketing platform lets you track leads and customers at different stages and then roll out effective marketing strategies.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Comprehensive free plan | Paid plans can get pricey |
| Customizable and scalable as you grow | Annual commitment for paid plans |
| Powerful yet user-friendly | Free plan doesn’t include customer support |
Price: Enjoy unlimited data and up to a million contacts in HubSpot's free plan. Paid plans start at $20 a month.
SlickText: Send targeted SMS messages
SlickText allows you to build relationships through personalized text messages that drive action. Send mass messages and nurture contacts with one-on-one conversations using surveys, text-to-win contests, loyalty reward programs and more cool SMS marketing features.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Very easy to use, even for beginners | Free trial only lasts 14 days |
| Many integrations with other marketing tools | Paid plans quickly add up |
| Friendly and helpful support team | Automated workflows first unlocked at $139 a month |
Price: SlickText offers a two-week free trial, after which plans start at $29 per month for 500 texts. This plan includes unlimited contacts, picture messaging and live chat support.
Trello: Manage projects and todos
Project management might not be the first thing on your list as a small business owner, but it can help you stay on top of all your marketing efforts!
Trello offers boards, lists and cards to help teams or individuals organize their tasks and projects. This will give you a clear overview of what needs to be done, who’s working on what and how a project progresses.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to use and intuitive interface | Up to 10 users per free workspace |
| Real-time, clear team collaboration | Not great for complex, large-scale projects |
| Integrates with tools like Zapier, Asana, etc. | Limited features |
Price: Individuals and small teams are often set with Trello's free plan, which includes unlimited cards and storage, up to 10 boards and 2-factor authentication. If you need to scale or collaborate, pricing starts at $6 monthly or $60 yearly per user.
Google Workspace: Collaborate and boost productivity
Google Workspace hosts all the tools, including Sheets, Docs, Meet and Slides, you need to make great marketing happen. Since it’s cloud-based, you can access information from anywhere and collaborate in real-time. No more sending emails with attachments back and forth!
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Access everything from anywhere | Free trial only lasts 14 days |
| Real-time collaboration and easy file sharing | Not as advanced as Microsoft Office |
| All essential startup tools under one roof | Internet required for full functionality |
| Free for nonprofits | Heightened security risk |
Price: There are free 14-day trials available for Google's Starter, Standard and Business Plus plans. Paid plans start at $6 per month per user, with a one-year commitment. The Business Starter plan includes a business email, 100 video meetings and 3 GB pooled storage.
Google Analytics: Discover growth potential
Google Analytics gives detailed insights into what’s happening on your website or app. Track real-time activity, performance, conversion rates, growth and more useful data, then generate custom reports you or your marketing team can use to optimize your marketing.
| 🙂 Pros | 😣 Cons |
|---|---|
| Free for most small businesses | The interface can be complex at first |
| Reports and dashboard are customizable | Data not always as accurate |
| Comprehensive data reports | Limited customer support |
Price: Google’s analytics tools are free to use! You can upgrade to their premium 360 plan, but many small businesses won’t need this.
Checklist: Evaluate and pick the right marketing platform
Some of the marketing tools listed might be perfect for your small business needs. For others, you might want to explore what else is out there. This checklist helps you evaluate different marketing platforms:
✓ Does this tool do what I need it to do? Or do they offer custom solutions for my needs?
✓ Can this tool scale as my small business grows?
✓ How often are new features and updates released?
✓ Is it easy to use for myself and my team? If not, are there training resources?
✓ Are the analytics or reports easy to understand and work with?
✓ How easy is it to reach support and via which channels? Was the experience positive?
✓ Does this marketing tool integrate with my existing systems?
✓ How is the performance? (uptime, technical issues, speed, etc.)
✓ Does it meet my security standards? (secure login, data encryption, etc.)
✓ Does the tool comply with data protection regulations?
✓ What does this marketing tool cost (incl. additional and hidden costs)?
✓ Are there discounts available? (yearly subscription, for nonprofits, etc.)
✓ Is there a free demo or trial version to test?
✓ What’s the reputation of the company?
Creating a framework to market your small business
Having the right small business marketing software in your toolkit is only one part of the equation. The other part is to create a strategy for your marketing efforts.
Open your notes and answer:
What is the marketing budget for each quarter and this year?
How much time and resources are there available? Who will do what?
What’s the timeline for wanting (or needing) to see results?
Where does our target audience hang out? Specific platforms?
What marketing channels do competitors use? Can I find clues on how effective it is?
How much do I know about the channel I chose, do I need help?
Thinking deeply about each question will help you plan a highly effective marketing strategy!
With the right tools, marketing becomes a breeze
Hopefully, this article showed you that marketing isn’t all that overwhelming after all. There are many affordable digital marketing tools to help you succeed and lighten the workload.
Use a platform like MailerLite to build an engaged community through automated email workflows or schedule social content weeks ahead with Buffer. Even with limited resources, you can get a lot done. That’s the power of small business marketing tools.
So, block an hour in your agenda and get started. You’ve got this! 🙌
P.S. What are your “can’t live without” marketing tools for small businesses? Add them in the comments, we (and other readers) are excited to hear!
I'm Megan, a freelance copywriter who's been crafting content for SaaS and online shops for… more than a decade (time flies!). Most days, you'll find me writing away in cozy cafés all around the world while listening to 90s R&B (Maxwell, mostly).
