How can you automate and streamline your marketing tasks for free or cheap?

1 Use email marketing software

Email marketing is one of the most powerful and affordable ways to reach and engage your audience, build trust, and drive sales. But it can also be tedious and complex to set up and run your email campaigns manually. That's why you need to use email marketing software that can automate and simplify your email marketing tasks. For example, you can use Mailchimp, a free or low-cost email marketing platform, to create and send beautiful newsletters, set up automated email sequences, segment your audience, track your performance, and more.

2 Create a content calendar

Content is the backbone of your marketing strategy, as it helps you attract, educate, and convert your prospects and customers. But creating and publishing content regularly can be challenging and overwhelming, especially if you don't have a clear plan or schedule. That's why you need to create a content calendar, a tool that helps you organize and manage your content creation and distribution process. You can use a simple spreadsheet or a free online tool like Trello to create your content calendar, where you can plan your content topics, formats, deadlines, channels, and goals.

3 Automate your social media posts

Social media is another essential channel for your marketing, as it helps you increase your brand awareness, connect with your audience, and drive traffic to your website. But it can also be time-consuming and distracting to post and monitor your social media accounts manually. That's why you need to automate your social media posts, using tools that can help you schedule and publish your posts across different platforms, optimize your posting times, and analyze your performance. For example, you can use Buffer, a free or low-cost social media management tool, to automate your social media posts, saving you time and hassle.

4 Set up Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free tool that allows you to monitor the web for any mentions of your brand, products, competitors, keywords, or topics that are relevant to your marketing. By setting up Google Alerts, you can keep track of what's happening in your industry, identify opportunities and threats, and respond to feedback and questions. For example, you can set up Google Alerts for your brand name, your product names, your competitors' names, your target keywords, or any industry trends or news that interest you.

5 Use Zapier to connect your apps

Zapier is a tool that allows you to connect and automate different apps and services that you use for your marketing, without any coding required. By using Zapier, you can create workflows or "zaps" that can trigger actions based on certain events or conditions. For example, you can use Zapier to automatically add new email subscribers to your CRM, send a welcome email to new customers, post your blog updates to your social media accounts, or create tasks in your project management tool.

6 Test and optimize your landing pages

Landing pages are web pages that are designed to capture your visitors' attention and persuade them to take a specific action, such as signing up for your newsletter, downloading your ebook, or buying your product. But not all landing pages are created equal, and some may perform better than others. That's why you need to test and optimize your landing pages, using tools that can help you create and compare different versions of your landing pages, measure their effectiveness, and improve their conversion rates. For example, you can use Google Optimize, a free tool that allows you to run experiments on your landing pages, such as changing the headline, the image, the copy, or the call-to-action.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?