Advertising is the means by which a business makes itself known to all who have the potential of becoming customers and also how to retain them as the business continues to reach more potential customers. Advertising  is  an expensive exercise that could prove vital in determining whether your startup venture succeeds or fails but this needs not stop you from executing your ideas  for as long as you are determined there exists a way in which you can get started. Considering startups are solely ran by their owners, the duties can prove overwhelming but there is a way they can be automated to give you an opportunity to focus on what is important at that prevailing moment. Here are tools that I found quite useful with zero budget and easy to use:

1. Buffer-this tool enables you to schedule your content onto your preferred social media platforms that you have integrated in your profile. Buffer has a free plan that includes scheduling posts on a weekly basis. With this tool you can centrally manage your preferred social media platforms at minimal or zero costs and is also a very easy tool to use and would highly recommend it.

2. Mailchimp-this tool has grown to accommodate many functionalities but I will dwell on the most basic ones. The first major functionality that Mailchimp will accord you are landing pages that you can use to grow your subscriber list based on specific preferences that you present to them. This functionality also minimizes the difficulties prospecting web visitors have trying to navigate your website. Mailchimp’s winning point is email marketing using the list of gathered subscribers or imported contacts. Other functionalities have grown to include abandoned carts and Facebook ads.

3. Google Tag Manager-this is a tool from Google that could prove very useful in coming up with a unified customer profile. Google tag manager, at no costs will provide you with a platform with which you can track analytics using Google analytics, get alerts when new customers register on your website, for my case I made use of Hubspot and track the customer’s navigation journey for which mixpanel proved to be very relevant in addition to many other functionalities.

4. Canva-for those not good in graphic design and wanting to create some convincing content with good infographics then Canva is the tool you need to use. It has customizations that have been tailored for specific social media platform such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and many more. Canva also contains pre-loaded designs where one chooses from to design their images and well classified designs that correspond to different content types ranging from ads, blogs, posters and many more. Definitely worth trying.

5. McAfee web antivirus- this tool will not only safeguard your website from phishing attacks but also presents a trust badge on your website which goes a long way in acquiring the much needed trust from your prospective clients along with security. McAfee also contains a review collecting mechanism that you can use to obtain feedback.

The list can grow longer in addition to other alternatives not mentioned. Feel free to research and suggest the alternatives. The intention of this article was to motivate you in getting started with little or no budget. The paid plans for these tools will let your brand get the recognition it deserves, but will also let you use their platforms at no costs.