DOTC: Free or Cheap Business Tools (Part 2)

Over in Part 1, I gush about all the free stuff by Google, mostly.  I didn't even mention the Google Apps for mobile devices, which I'm also a huge fan of (I'm starting to use Google Keep and I like it!)

Now let's examine other great free (or cheap) tools you should check out for your business.

MARKETING TOOLS:

There's lots out there, and all of the social media services have free apps and can be used via your PC browser, so I'm going to focus just on the ones I think highly of.

Kid, that ten bucks will pay
 for two months of Google Apps.

I've mentioned HootSuite before.  I can't stress enough how easy I think it is to use to manage your social media channels.  It's hard to find any tool at this price (which for less than five accounts is nothing) that does better.  However, you might try BufferApp - like HootSuite, it has free and paid versions also.

For email marketing, MailChimp is well known as the best free tool around.  You don't have to pay tons of money out of pocket especially if you are sending one newsletter a month.  It also has a free and paid version.

For customer relationship management, try Zoho CRM. It's limited to three users in the free version, but for most of you, that should work fine.  Bonus is that there's no software to install - run it via your browser, or any browser, from anywhere.

I always recommend to my clients that they get professional help with web sites and SEO.  That being said, it's very easy to set up a free web site (starting with a blog) on Wordpress or Blogger.  Both offer to help you buy a unique URL and have templates that are very easy to use.

The folks over at Small Business CEO have done an excellent job of collecting a ton of white papers on a variety of topics.  Again, all free! Small Business CEO: Free Small Business Tools

Need images for blogs, social media and other marketing purposes?  My go-to site is Morguefile.  Lots of images, completely free, no attribution required.  I used Morguefile for the image on this very post.

Finally, if you're looking for a good news reader, use Feedly.  I use it to subscribe to lots of marketing and small business blogs.  I then share that content via my social media channels.  It's also a great general education resource.

OTHER BUSINESS TOOLS:

Apache offers a free productivity suite called Open Office.  It's been around a long time and has been a competitor to Microsoft Office for years.  While I prefer Google's offering, this is a very good alternative to Office, with a ton of apps for your business.

Alternate (or additional) to Google Drive for cloud storage is Dropbox and Box.  However, if you have an Amazon account, you also have some cloud storage there. Learn more here: Amazon Cloud.  And of course, for Apple users, there's always iCloud.

For basic accounting - can't afford QuickBooks?  Try Freshbooks.  They have a free version as well as paid services.

For notes, to-do's and planning, lots of people swear by Evernote.  It's free and you can use it on multiple platforms.

You can have calls completely free (video chats too) using Skype.  It's also a great chat tool.

So what do you you think?  Did I miss anything important?  Let me know!