Free tools for designing and marketing your ideas

Want to make big things, but running short on your budget? Try out these free tools to make your project more attractive for users.

Online collaboration and idea development

Use Google Drive apps for teamwork (free alternative to Word, Excel, PowerPoint apps), that enable real-time online collaboration

Evernote is a great tool for brainstorming, collecting and advancing your ideas on the go.

Wunderlist helps you make to-do lists for projects and share it with team-mates.

Try different keywords related to your idea and find inspiration on Pinterest.

Google Forms is an easy tool for making online surveys to find out what your customers really want.

Agreeing on suitable time for meeting or event is easy with Doodle.

To manage your project tasks, use Trello.

Unless your team-members are on Facebook Messenger or other widely used instant messaging platform, try out Slack for team communication.

Design to impress

Photo editing and making posters:

  • Canva – simple drag and drop tool for making beautiful posters for social media.
  • GIMP – free alternative to Photoshop.
  • Inkscape – free alternative to Adobe Illustrator (vector graphics for logos, banners etc).
  • Photoshop Express – simplified free version of Photoshop for light photo editing.
  • Slidescarnival – free PowerPoint templates for slides.
  • Slidesgo – free PowerPoint and Google slides templates for slides.

Pixabay, Pexels, Freeimages and Unsplash – free image banks. A lot of stock photos you can use in your projects and advertisements totally for free.

Video

Free video editing software:

  • HitFilm 4 Express, free version provides nice functionality for editing full HD videos (paid options for extra effects)
  • Shotcut – video editing software that should work with both Windows, Mac and Linux
  • For a beginner edit: Story Remix – Windows 10 “Photos” app has built-in abilities for trimming music, combining videos and adding text & background music.
  • iMovie for Mac users.
  • Blender for 3D animations.

Search youtube for instructional videos on how to use these programs. Actually most smartphones enable simple video trimming, editing and uploading on the go. So for a very simple social media video you might not even need a special desktop software.

Youtube Video Editor lets you combine different video clips, add music and share on youtube.

Youtube Sound Library – free music for Youtube videos.

Facebook Sound Collection – free music for Facebook videos.

Screencastify – Google Chrome browser plugin that lets you record 10 minutes of screencast.

Marketing and websites

For homepage and blogging:

  • Facebook fanpage – easiest place to start if your clients are on Facebook.
  • Tumblr – simple blog platform for sharing pictures and ideas.
  • Launchrock – lead pages for getting first contacts.
  • Blogspot and WordPress – for homepage and blog creation.
  • Udemy and Teachable – platform for creating and managing online courses.

Extra tools for blogging:

  • TinyJPG – makes image size smaller, but keeps the quality of your photos. Smaller image files help to load your website faster and Google search also prefers pages that load faster.

Great software for building and managing e-mail list:

  • MailChimp (up to 2000 contacts for free).
  • Smaily (up to 2000 contacts for free).