There was once a huge barrier to entry to the marketing world, as only the experts knew which strategies and tools were out there to prepare for successful launch.
Fast forward to today and things have flipped. We now have the opposite problem. There are thousands and thousands of pieces of software that can help you build, launch, and grow your company.
There are even companies, out there, like Siftery, that are designed to help you discover the tools you need for your business.
So what competitive advantage do experienced, “expert” marketers have today?
The ability to filter.
Marketers and growth people make hundreds of choices every single day. Design Ads. Tweet. Write a blog post. Launch a new campaign. Email. Another email. The list goes on and on.
The challenge: figuring out how to best spend your time. Which tools to use and which strategies to invest in? And in this world of software overload, it can be really challenging to know which tools you should and should not use.
The key is to filter the signal from the noise. To find the good tools and not waste time and money on the ones that do not fit with your model.
Having launched my fair share of products, some of which have tens of thousands of users and have been featured on the likes of CNN and Forbes, I have been able to play around with hundreds of dev, design, marketing, sales, and support tools.
I put together a list of only the very best — FREE software that you should use for your next Product Launch!
Organization
Trello — Manage your projects collaboratively using cards and boards!
Airtable — Dynamic and easy to access databases
Typeform — Forms that are easy to use and customize
Zapier — Automate over 500 Apps in a few Clicks
Slack — The easiest way to communicate among your team
Marketing / Sales
CrazyEgg — See your website through your customers’ eyes
Mailchimp — Easy to use email marketing
Clearbit — Business Intelligence APIs
Drift — Live chat & more for your website
Hunter — Find email addresses in seconds
Design
Carrd — Make a website in seconds
Figma — Design collaboratively!
Font Fit — Figure out if your fonts look good together
Unsplash — Free. Do whatever you want images
Coolors — Find unique color schemes!
In the game of startups, you will do whatever you can to get your edge. Even then, you may still fail. But hopefully, you can leverage my learnings and use these tools to get a leg up.
