Creative Tools

Effective marketing often requires compelling visuals. You don’t have to be a trained graphic designer to create visually pleasing visuals that communicate your company’s or product’s key messages. Here are some of my favorite creative tools for graphics and video:

1. Canva

I have to admit, I used to be quite dismissive of this platform. I started my career learning Adobe InDesign, a much more advanced tool for designing things like posters and graphics for social media posts. But when I started using Canva at one of the start-ups I worked at, my perspective changed drastically. Canva is no longer just a tool for “amateurs” who don’t know how to use professional graphic design programs like InDesign. Instead, Canva empowers marketers who have too much work on their plates to quickly and effectively create compelling graphics and even simple videos, freeing up time to focus on other tasks. Canva very quickly became my preferred tool for creating social media graphics due to the built-in templates, the ability to upload brand logos and colors so they are ready to use within the platform, and the endless supply of stock images easily accessible within the platform.

2. InDesign

As mentioned, this professional tier platform is the industry standard for creating static (non-video) marketing visuals, such as trade show banners, signs and posters, social media graphics, brochures, and more. For small businesses with more headcount or more particular brand requirements, this tool is a must-have. InDesign is still my preferred platform for building out anything that needs to be printed as it has more information around resolution and more ability to modify effects like gradients and shadows. Also, unlike Canva, Photoshop images can be uploaded into Canva to use in graphic designs, and any changes in the Photoshop document can be automatically updated in InDesign. This saves users the added step of converting any Photoshop documents into jpegs or pngs before uploading them. The same is true for any logos or illustrations created in a vector platform like Adobe Illustrator. You can start a 7-day free trial of InDesign here.

Project Management

3. Notion

Notion is my favorite project management tool. New users can start with a free plan and then upgrade to a paid plan once they’ve maxed out their storage space, or if they want to unlock additional features like unlimited AI usage. Notion lets users create a number of different organizational structures (i.e., tables, Gantt charts, Kan Ban boards, spreadsheets, calendars) all in one platform. The platform also allows you to toggle between different organizational views to see the same data in different ways. For instance, it might be useful to see a table view of the list and status of different social media posts. Then you can switch to the calendar view to easily see when each of the posts is scheduled to be published.

4. Trello

If your favorite project management style is with Kan Ban boards, then Trello is for you. This was the first project management tool I ever used, and it is incredibly easy to use.

5. Monday

I haven’t personally used Monday, but my colleagues are big fans. For more technical projects that require a lot of steps that happen in sequence, the Gantt chart view in Monday can be very helpful in planning and keeping teams updated on progress. Monday also has a free plan with limited storage that allows you to trial the platform before upgrading.

Website & SEO

6. Google Businesses

If new business relies heavily on people finding your physical location, such as retail or food service, then making sure your company information (including your website) is included in Google Business Profile is essential. It is free and easy to input the business’ information. Simply go here and follow the steps.

Analytics

7. Hootsuite

Since social media activity is free and easy and critical to many small companies’ success, finding ways to manage a content calendar and assess performance is essential. Hootsuite is my go-to recommendation for small businesses that need the ability to quickly schedule posts to go out on multiple social media platforms and need a one-stop-shop for all their social media analytics. The platform saves users time from having to manually post to each platform and manually look at the built-in analytics on each social media platform.

8. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free and relatively easy to get started with and provides countless ways to analyze website performance and user activity. If your company doesn’t already have Google Analytics set up, someone will need to “install” what’s known as the Google Analytics tag onto your company’s website. This tag allows the Google Analytics platform to collect data on website visitors, visitor activity, and visitor demographics. Depending on how your website is built, you might be able to install the tag yourself. However, in some cases you may need to contact a web developer to assist with the installation.

Media Monitoring

9. Google Alerts

Marketers don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to see what media sources are saying about your company or your competitors. Google Alerts is free and easy to set up and provides email alerts–at whatever frequency you choose–with a summary of the recent articles that have mentioned the key words you selected for tracking. You can track your company name, your competitors’ company names, product names, or even hot topics in your industry. Set up your first alert here.

Copywriting

10. ChatGPT

Last but certainly not least! In the age of artificial intelligence, this list can’t be complete without mentioning AI tools like ChatGPT. There are now a number of similar tools out there, and you can do a little research and experiment to figure out which one might work best for your needs. My favorite use of AI tools as a marketer is for copywriting, both for social media posts and for emails. Mastering the art of AI copywriting takes practice and a fair bit of trial and error to get something just right. There may be times where it is faster and easier to write something yourself, but sometimes it is helpful to get some thoughts down on paper with AI and then edit to make it right. You can also ask AI tools to provide an outline or a template, and then you can fill in the details yourself. The possibilities are endless, and AI tools are getting smarter everyday! ChatGPT and other AI tools typically have free access with the option to pay for a more advanced tier with special features.