Marketing

Bookmark this Page: 31 Invaluable Free Marketing Resources

By Flying Hippo

A toolbox is only as good as the tools inside of it. And in front of you right now is a computer (or tablet or phone or smartwatch)—the only tool out there with all the world’s information on it. Are you using it to the best of your abilities?

Here are our favorite free marketing resources. While we may not use each of them every day, they’re nice to have in the toolbox. We think you’ll like them too.

Tools:

• Soovle — Looking to target your product or service to a new audience? Trying to find a new niche to enter? Just want to get in the heads of people who find you online? Type in your search and see what search engines say. It’s a search engine for search engines.

• GA Checker — GA Checker is a neat little tool that rummages through your site and checks to see if Google Analytics, Universal Analytics or AdWords tracking code is installed correctly. Don’t embarrass yourself by reporting incorrect data. Make sure your whole site is being tracked.

• HTML Edit — If you want to test out a snippet of code but don’t want to make it live on a site, try out HTML Edit. It’s a tiny sandbox for trying your HTML code so you don’t accidentally break something important.

• Down for Everyone — Is your Internet connection being fussy…or is it the site you’re trying to visit that’s having problems? Find out here in one click.

• Census.gov — Good inbound marketers take into consideration demographics when doing research on personas. Well, what better source of demographic info than the U.S. Census?

• Wolfram Alpha — Bridging the gap between Google and Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine that excels in calculation, comparison and complex queries. Need to know the population, size and demographics of three different counties? Bada-bing.

• A Thesaurus and a rhyming — Ok, this one’s a little obvious, but they’re also wildly underutilized. Have a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary handy to help write winning, witty copy.

• Google Alerts — Set up a Google Alert for the name of your company and it’ll send you an email every time you’re mentioned! (At Flying Hippo, we get an email every time pictures of baby hippos are published. We regret nothing.)

• Google Trends — Trends gives you an overview of what particular search queries have been popular in past years and months. Use it to determine potential keywords, search spikes in certain months, or to finally determine which Full House cast member is most popular.

• MOZ Open Site Explorer — Open Site Explorer is a great tool that helps you discover recent links to your site, page authority and more. Use this to make your site better and build your search rank.

• Trello — Have a complex project that could use some organization? Of course you do—you’re an online marketer. Trello breaks down difficult tasks and can also delegate them to different people on your team.

• Evernote — Take notes, anywhere. With Evernote, you can write a blog post on your phone in the doctor’s office and get back to it when you’re in the office on your desktop.

• IFTTT — By harnessing the power of open APIs, IFTTT uses “recipes” to let different web apps talk to each other. Check out our blog post on IFTTT for more about this awesome tool for marketers.

• Quora — Quora is a question-and-answer based social network where questions are created and answered by users. If you’re looking for in-depth conversation about marketing (or any other topic), look no further.

• POP — Have an idea for the next cool app but don’t know how to code? Use POP to transform pen-and-pencil sketches into functional wireframes for an iPhone or Android app.

News:

• MOZ — Famous for its Whiteboard Friday videos (a must-watch for anyone interested in online marketing), MOZ is a great source for SEO and content marketing info for pros and novices alike.

• HubSpot — Sure, HubSpot is the lingua franca for inbound marketing, no matter what field you’re marketing to. And it’s a mighty powerful piece of marketing software (it’s what we use here at the Hippo). But they also take their own medicine and offer up oodles of great inbound marketing information. Highly recommended.

• Unbounce — Unbounce offers easy-to-make landing pages. Accordingly, their blog is largely about landing pages, conversions, A/B testing and that sort of thing.

• Content Marketing Institute — Serving as a think-tank and consortium of smart marketing folks, the Content Marketing Institute blog tackles SEO, digital content and design, building your audience, industry news and way more.

• Brian Solis — As the author of books such as “The End of Business as Usual” and “Engage,” Solis has carved a place for himself in the online marketing and analytics world. His blog articles are a must-read.

• Adverblog — This is a great place to go for some creative advertising and marketing ideas.

• Adweek — A hugely influential news source for everyone in the ad industry, Adweek has a great online presence. It’s our favorite place to go for the latest, coolest ads and news from around the industry.

• Mashable — With the latest, best news in social media and tech, Mashable is the place to go.

• Seth Godin — File this one under “esoteric inspiration.” Full of pithy quips that take a little while to digest, Seth Godin is a legend in marketing, and might be even better at inspiring marketers to do better.

• Convince and Convert — A a group of digital marketing consultants, Convince and Convert share the love with ebooks, blogs, podcasts and more.

• Reddit.com/r/marketing — The marketing subreddit, www.reddit.com/r/marketing/, is the best place to ask questions, commiserate, hone your skills and learn from marketers everywhere.

Podcasts:

• Duct Tape Marketing — Since 2005, Duct Tape Marketing has been a great resource. It features weekly audio interviews with authors, thought leaders and creative entrepreneurs with awesome takeaways.

• StartUp — This one’s a little out of left field, but still very relevant. StartUp covers, in real-time, a podcast publishing company. Take notes on how they market themselves—you’ll learn a lot.

• Marketing Over Coffee — Marketing Over Coffee is an internet radio program (podcast) that covers both classic and new marketing. With new episodes every Thursday, it’s a nice little ritual to get into over coffee.

• Ted Talks — Seemingly infinite amounts of keynote speeches about marketing and just about everything else under the sun. It’s like attending the best, most inspiring conference ever.

• The HubCast — Juicy, in-depth information about the minutiae of HubSpot. Not for the average marketer, but there’s some great info in there.