Small business owners usually work with small budgets, which is why anytime there is a free resource to help you grow or manage your business, you should jump on it! In this article, we will provide three resources that will help you create a website and share articles with your customers, customize a business plan and market your services to clients.
WordPress
If you don’t yet have a website for your company, you are missing out on a lot of business. Not only does having an online presence allow you to sell your goods online, a website can help you advertise your business and help customers find and get to know your brand even if you don’t want to incorporate e-commerce as a selling strategy.
You may not have the budget to hire a web developer and designer; however, no business owner can make excuses for not creating a website when a free resources for this goal is available. WordPress is a tool to help both novice and experienced online users create a site for their business needs. It offers a multitude of options; beginners can choose from customizable templates to create their site, while experts can build a site using code.
WordPress allows owners to connect to clients by publishing articles and blogs, optimizing them with images and keywords, email them to subscribers and automatically post them to social media. Plus, this platform has thousands of different free and paid add-ons that allow them to accept online payments, prepare items to be shipped, analyze their website traffic and much more!
Enloop
Every successful achievement resulted from a solid plan, and any organization needs a business plan in order to grow and thrive. The problem is that not many small business owners have the knowhow to create a professional business plan, which can prevent them from getting a business or investment loan nor from following a roadmap to meet their goals.
Enloop helps business owners analyze their current business practices, set objectives and determine actionable steps to reach those goals. It will provide a blueprint for setting budgets, hire new employees and figuring out marketing budgets for each goal.
This is a free resource that allows users to create business plans with their AutoWriteTM feature that generates text for each section in 16 languages. You can invite your partners to view your text, edit it and suggest changes, while the program automatically saves all updates in the cloud. Once you and your team finish your plan, Enloop will grade your firm’s forecasted performance to let you know whether you’re on the right track.
MailChimp
If you’re not marketing your small business, you are not growing. Fortunately, there is a free resource that helps business owners market their small business completely free or with a limited budget.
MailChimp lets you send out up to 12,000 marketing emails to up to 2,000 subscribers every year. This system is easy to use, even for beginners, and integrates with WordPress so you can lead your audience straight to your website.
You can create email campaigns, customize them with content and design and choose to whom and when they will be sent out. To tailor campaigns to your customers, you can design A/B Split Campaigns, which let you test which subject lines, content and times work best for your audience.
These three free small business resources all have paid options that may be advantageous for your company. If you need help to afford these services, turn to IOU Financial! We are committed to providing small business loans in as little as 48 hours.
Looking for other free resources? Check out our Business Budget Smart Sheet.
