5 Great Apps for Small Business Marketing

There are lots of apps out there that can help with small business marketing. The tricky part is figuring out what’s useful for each part of your business. I had a conversation yesterday with a colleague about how it’s hard to imagine how I’d fall out of step with technological advances.

For my sake, I hope I don’t lose touch with technology because I depend on staying on top of trends for my job. Even today, I tend to revolve around a handful of apps. I get comfortable with what I use, but there are tons of powerful tools at my fingertips. The important thing I keep in mind is finding apps that do multiple things in one package.

The Desert Island Approach to Small Business Marketing

For a completely hypothetical situation, let’s say I was given a phone tomorrow and I had to perform small business marketing from that device, these are the five apps I would download to start. That’s the scenario that I’m basing this list on because I believe I could do many aspects of my job with just these five apps.

It wouldn’t be the most enjoyable experience, and I salute the kids who do all of their school work via a phone. So while the situation isn’t ideal, these five apps would still help me do small business marketing effectively.

One caveat I have to put on this is that not all of these apps can do what I need for free. Hootsuite is my outlier because it is such a powerful social media marketing service.

However, I did include an alternative called Buffer, which can be used for free. But the important thing to know is that all of these apps provide enough resources and tools for small business marketing.

Small Business Marketing Apps

Microsoft Office

Microsoft has put together a mobile application that competes well with Google’s suite of office applications. The Office App is a great choice for small business marketing with limited resources. The Office app lets users use mobile versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, along with forms, notes, and an ability to connect online storage accounts like Dropbox and OneDrive.

Unfortunately, those cloud storage integrations come at a cost of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Losing those features is a drawback, but being able to create documents on your phone is a big deal.

Adobe Spark Post

Not everyone is a master at design, and we would recommend giving us a call for your heavy-duty work. For the quick and dirty jobs, Adobe Spark is a top-notch graphics production app that helps you create wonderful graphics to sell your products or services.

With Adobe Spark, you can create a free account that lets you create graphics from the start with tools that can help you create graphics to work with nearly every major social network and various popular web-based formats. Plans start free, but you can get more features with paid plans. Additionally, Adobe Spark is rolled into the Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions.

Hootsuite

You need a social media presence. Hootsuite can be the one source that ties all of your accounts together. Imagine being able to schedule your posts on every platform and be able to listen to your customers without the clutter of a timeline. That’s the kind of powerful business-focused social marketing you get with Hootsuite.

The drawback is how none of that power comes to you for free. If you’re just starting out and want simple automation for your social media posts, Buffer works as a free alternative. Unfortunately, Buffer’s features are a bit limited with their free plan.

MailChimp

Email marketing is a must for businesses to foster relationships with their customers. MailChimp is a huge winner because it can scale to your business needs. If you’re a small business owner with a collection of 2,000 contacts or less, you can take advantage of a free plan to create beautiful emails and track contacts with powerful analytics tools.

Personally, I am a huge advocate for email marketing as long as it’s done the right way. With MailChimp, you can create a personal connection between your business and your customers. I’m hard-pressed to think of an alternative to MailChimp that includes such a bang for your buck (or lack of bucks).

OneNote

OneNote is one of the most solid note-taking apps you can download, and the best part is that you can use this powerful app completely free. A Microsoft account adds functionality, but you can create to-do lists, jot ideas, or draft marketing copy on-the-go. My favorite part of OneNote is that you can separate notes into different notebooks. I keep track of my clients with OneNote and can follow comprehensive lists of objectives and jobs within this app. Evernote, which is also a powerful organization tool, is a good alternative to OneNote.

Small Business Marketing at your fingertips

Small Business Marketing In Your Pocket

I hope you don’t find yourself in a situation like the one above where your only tool for small business marketing is a phone. However, if I had to quickly start marketing my business tomorrow from scratch, these are the apps I would use. These five apps are perfect for small business marketing of any experience level. They are intuitively designed and offer nearly every feature that would be available in the bigger desktop software. However, in a pinch, these apps work perfectly.

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