Grow your Web Presence with these Free Marketing and Branding Tools
How well you brand and promote your real estate business heavily influences your rate of growth and success rate. When you are competing against established players with resources in place this can be a daunting job. Even if you are just starting out and operating on a small budget there are ways to compete however. If you are willing to put in some sweat equity and don’t shy away from do-it-yourself tools you can level the playing field. Here’s a look at 15 free marketing and branding tools that you can leverage to establish and grow your web presence.
Automate Your Social Media Posts
Later
One of the most popular and effective ways to promote any business is through social media. Granted you do it well. In order to stand out from all of the other social media contend that is being pushed you need to make sure your copy and design is attention grabbing. Creating engaging content is time consuming and so is the management of your various social media accounts and publishing the content. To make this process as efficient as possible try a free tool like Later. This solution lets you link your social media accounts and schedule and automate your posts.
Pricing: Free starter plan (1 social set and 30 posts per profile/month) + Paid options
Social Media Design
Spark
Spark by Adobe is a free social media design application. If you don’t have an eye for design or the budget to higher a graphic designer this is the solution for you. Whether you need a Facebook post, YouTube channel art, or Instagram image you can design it with a few clicks. Choose a template, add your content and branding, customize and download instantly. As you design different posts for your real estate business be sure to be consistent in the design style across all your social media posts.
Pricing: Free starter plan (access to thousands of free images, icons and designs) + Paid options
Design Printable Business Cards
Business Cards
Not all of your promotion will be done online. A beautifully designed business card still goes a long way when making your rounds at local networking events or meeting with a client. Business Cards is a browser based design application that you can use to create free printable business cards. The process is easy, choose a template you like and then add your contact details such as phone number, email, social media handles, etc. Any of the templates can be fully customized before downloading in high-resolution format.
Pricing: Completely free
Automate Your Email Campaigns
Sender
Colleting emails of potential and existing clients is highly encouraged. The email route allows you to build trust and credibility over time. A well-thought-out email drip campaign can turn lukewarm leads into buyers. Once you have curated your email list use a free email sending solution like Sender. This service let’s you automate your email campaigns with ease. On top of that you also get interesting data into how your readers engage with your email blasts.
Pricing: Free starter plan (up to 2,500 subscribers/month) + Paid options
Design Promotional Materials With Ease
Crello
Your marketing efforts are only as good as your brand assets. If your promotional material is poorly designed it won’t resonate with your target audience. Whether you need posters, flyers, banner ads, brochures or anything else graphic design related give Crello a try. This free graphic design solution is intuitive to use and powered by a nice database of templates. You can save any of your designs for easy access later on or download right away once you’re happy with your artwork. The files are accessible in web and print ready format.
Pricing: Free starter plan (10,000+graphic and animated templates) + Paid options
Make Stunning Presentations
Visme
We have all sat through a presentation that was supported by poorly designed slides. There are many mistakes presenters make when putting together their pitch decks, from cramming too much data onto a slide, using strange fonts, unpleasant color schemes, etc. You don’t want your presentation slides to distract, rather support your points. Use a free presentation maker like Visme to put together beautiful slides in minutes. Choose a template, import your content and then add your logo and brand colors.
Pricing: Free starter plan (up to 5 projects) + Paid options
Create Professional Looking Videos
Biteable
With the popularity of video sharing websites and live stream features like Facebook Live you should consider creating promotional videos for your real estate business. Creating professionally shot videos used to be expensive and not an option for smaller businesses. Luckily there are free promotional video makers like Biteable available these days. Choose what type of video you want to create, whether it’s an explainer video, demo, promotional shot, etc. Any of their clips can be fully customized to include your content and branding. Once you are happy with your video you can save and publish across your favorite video sharing platforms.
Pricing: Free starter plan (single user and watermark exports) + Paid options
Blog Title Generator
FatJoe
Blogging is another popular way of promoting a real estate business. Not only can it drive organic traffic to your site but it also allows you to establish yourself as a leader in your field. Coming up with interesting blog topics, writing the content, publishing and then promoting it is time consuming. Try to find efficient ways to handle all of those aspects. To speed up your brain storming session for blog titles use a tool like FatJoe. This blog title generator is easy to use. Enter a topic keyword, click generate and watch the title suggestions come in. This should help you get the creative juices going.
Pricing: Completely free
Create Surveys
Google Surveys
As entrepreneurs we often assume we know exactly what out target audience wants. We might have a good idea but why not fact checks ourselves. Instead of guessing start using a survey tool to gather their answers in an efficient way. Whether you are debating your brand colors, product pricing or additional service ideas, send out a survey and get unbiased feedback from the people who matter most – your customers. Google Survey is free to set up and publish to your existing contact list. There is a fee if you want to scale your survey and gather feedback from the general public.
Pricing: Completely free (to create survey) – there’s a fee to gather responses
Live Chat Bot for Your Website
Tawk
One of the most important metrics to track is your conversion rate. You can drive all of the traffic in the world to your real estate website but if nobody signs up or purchases your service then your efforts are wasted. Tawk is a live website chat bot that you can use to communicate with visitors. This is a great feature as it allows you to answer any of their questions as they browse your website. This application is easy to install, simply copy and paste a small code snippet. In addition to the chat function you’ll also get helpful insight into data and chat log history.
Pricing: Completely free
Create Infographics
Pik to Chart
If you are looking for a creative way to get some exposure for your brand you may want to consider creating an infographic. If you have some interesting data on real estate you can present it in a beautifully designed infographic and push it so that it hopefully goes viral. Creating an infographic from scratch is difficult even for experience designers however. Use a free infographic maker like Pik to Chart. Browse their database to find a suitable template, add your data and content and then incorporate your branding. Be sure to include your website link and other data directly in the infographic for added exposure.
Pricing: Free starter plan (up to 5 active visuals) + Paid options
High-Resolution Photography
Burst
Your designs are only as good as the images you use. With the right image you can quickly elevate any design, whether that’s your home page header, presentation or social media post. Bust offers a large database of free and professionally shot images. The images are well organized so you can browse by category or search by keyword. Once you find a photo you like you can download it in high-resolution format and you’re free to use it for your commercial as well as personal projects. To add consistency to your brand asset make sure you stick to images that have a similar look and feel.
Pricing: Completely free
Generate Beautiful Color Palettes for Your Designs for Free
Designs
When it comes to branding color choice is one of the most important decisions. Once you find the right core color the trick is to find nice complementary accent colors that you can use across all of your marketing material. Instead of guessing what works use a free color matcher tool like Designs. You can automatically generate beautiful color palettes or use their color wheel to find complementary, analogous, monochromatic and other color combinations that are guaranteed to work together.
Pricing: Completely free
Icons for Your Designs
Flat Icon
A quick way to elevate your designs is through the use of icons. Not only do professionally designed icons enhance your design but it allows you to highlight important areas of your content. Flat icons offers millions of icons that are available for download in EPS, SVG, Base and PNG format. It’s recommend to find only one or two sets and to use those exclusively across all of your marketing material. This is a nice way to give your branding items more consistency visually.
Pricing: Completely free
Get Notified When You Are Mentioned Online
Google Alerts
The point of all of your marketing efforts is to raise your profile in the industry. Building brand recognition takes time but with the use of the free tools listed in this article you can do it without breaking the bank. As you build your brand it’s important to monitor brand mentions. How are people talking about your business and where? Use a free tool like Google Alerts to be notified whenever your brand name is mention on the web. Staying on top of these mentions will allow you to track and steer the conversation if necessary.
Pricing: Completely free
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