9 Powerful Marketing Tools Every Small Business Needs

There’s never been a better time to launch a small business. Social media, e-commerce platforms, and digital payment systems make connecting with your ideal customers easier and help your brand shine.

However, success doesn’t happen by luck alone—even the best products need smart strategies to stand out in a crowded market. Building trust, grabbing attention, and creating a loyal customer base requires the right marketing software, and that’s where this guide comes in. 

We’ll highlight the nine best marketing tools every small business needs to thrive. Leverage these cost-effective growth hacking tools to build your brand and make the most of your resources. 

Note: All brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.

1. A QR Code generation tool

QR Codes are the ultimate tool to connect your physical and digital marketing efforts. They offer a simple, user-friendly way for customers to access your website, landing pages, sign-up forms, and other online resources. With QR Codes, you can bridge the gap between offline interactions and online engagement, creating a smooth customer experience.

Small businesses have a valuable opportunity to enhance their marketing campaigns and fuel business growth with QR Codes. Here are a few standout ways to use these codes in your marketing efforts:

• Event promotions: Add a QR Code in email invitations to direct customers to an RSVP page or event details and streamline sign-ups.
  
  
• Direct mail campaigns: Include a QR Code on printed ads to guide potential customers to product pages instantly, making it easy for them to take action. 
  
  
• In-store displays: Place QR Codes on posters, signs, or table tents to encourage customers to explore your online store, leave a review, or sign up for your loyalty program.
  
  
• Product packaging: Enhance packaging with QR Codes that link to how-to guides, recipes, or extra product details, adding value and building engagement.
  
  
• Social media growth: Use QR Codes to give customers a direct link to your social media profiles and fuel more online engagement. 

QR Codes can also double as a powerful analytics tool. With Dynamic QR Codes, you can track key metrics like scan counts, times, locations, and even devices. This actionable data shows you how, when, and where customers engage with your campaigns.

The best tool for generating QR Codes: QR Code Generator PRO

QR Code Generator PRO makes it simple to create branded Dynamic QR Codes, while also providing insightful analytics and management tools—all within a user-friendly dashboard. 

Here’s an overview of the key features: 

• Customizable designs: Create QR Codes that are an extension of your brand. Add your logo, match your brand colors, and choose unique patterns or customizable frames to make your QR Codes eye-catching and professional.
  
  
• Versatile applications: QR Code Generator PRO adapts to a range of needs. Whether you’re linking to a landing page, social media profile, PDF, or video, this tool makes it simple to tailor QR Codes for various campaigns.
  
  
• Actionable insights: Real-time analytics take the guesswork out of your marketing efforts. The dashboard tracks actionable metrics, including scans, engagement times, and location data, helping you optimize campaigns, refine strategies, and maximize ROI.
  
  
• Dynamic QR Codes: Save on printing costs by updating QR Code destinations without creating new codes. This flexibility keeps campaigns cost-effective and always current. 

QR Code Generator PRO offers a wide range of pricing options to suit different business needs:

• Free Trial: Try all features with a 14-day free trial
  
  
• Starter: $9.99/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Advanced: $15.99/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Professional: $46.99/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Enterprise: Custom pricing tailored to your business needs

Other QR Code solutions to consider

• Canva (free plan available)
  
  
• Bitly
  
  
• Flowcode

2. A search engine optimization tool

Content marketing is an effective way to improve your website’s search rankings. You can build trust, increase organic traffic, and boost conversions by delivering valuable content relevant to your customers. 

The heart of successful content marketing is keyword research and optimization—using the right SEO keywords to ensure your ideal audience sees your content.

Here’s why a keyword research tool is so important:  

• Increased visibility: Targeted keywords improve your search result rankings, helping you attract the right audience.
  
  
• Audience-centric content: SEO tools reveal what your audience is searching for, helping you create content that resonates and engages.
  
  
• Optimized SEO: From headlines to meta descriptions, weaving strategic keywords into your content enhances your site’s relevance and SEO.

The best tool for SEO and content marketing: Ahrefs

With Ahrefs, you can easily perform advanced keyword research and find the best keywords to target based on factors like relevance, search volume, and competition. Ahrefs simplifies a complex process, ensuring your content is optimized, discoverable, and tailored to engage your target audience.

The feature-rich platform includes: 

• Site Explorer: Dive deep into your website’s performance by analyzing backlinks, organic search traffic, and the specific keywords driving traffic. 
  
  
• Competitor analysis: Gain valuable insights into what keywords your competitors are ranking for and uncover opportunities to get ahead.
  
  
• Keyword explorer: Pinpoint high-impact keywords based on relevance, search volume, and competition so your content ranks where it matters.

Ahrefs offers four different pricing tiers:

• Lite: Starting at $129/month
  
  
• Standard: Starting at $249/month
  
  
• Advanced: Starting at $449/month
  
  
• Enterprise: Starting at $14,990/year

Other SEO and content marketing solutions to consider

• SemRush (free plan available)
  
  
• Google Analytics
  
  
• Moz

3. An email marketing automation tool

Email marketing is a powerful tool to nurture prospects and build long-term brand loyalty. In fact, 87% of brands consider email marketing an essential element for business success. However, for email marketing to truly stand out, personalization is key. 

Sending generic emails to your entire list won’t cut it. You need a tool to segment your audience by purchase history, preferences, location, and interests to drive meaningful engagement. 

The best tool for email marketing: Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an intuitive email marketing platform that streamlines creating, launching, and tracking email campaigns. With its user-friendly tools, small business owners can easily manage their email marketing efforts and drive meaningful engagement with their audiences. 

Mailchimp’s key features include:

• Email templates: Speed up the design process with various customizable templates that help you quickly create professional, eye-catching emails.
  
  
• Segmentation tools: Deliver personalized content by segmenting your email list based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. This ensures your messages are relevant to each recipient.
  
  
• Advanced reporting & analytics: Monitor the performance of your campaigns with detailed reporting tools. Track open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and more so you can refine your strategies for better results.

You can choose from the following plans based on your email volume and feature requirements: 

• Free
  
  
• Essentials: Starts at $13/month
  
  
• Standard: Starts at $20/month
  
  
• Premium: Starts at $350/month

Other email marketing platforms to consider

• Brevo (free plan available)
  
  
• Omnisend
  
  
• Klaviyo

4. A data analytics tool

Analyzing web traffic and ad campaign results is essential for optimizing your marketing efforts. You can assess campaign performance and identify what resonates with your audience by tracking key metrics like click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversions. 

The best tool for analytics: Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides seamless access to real-time data about traffic sources, visitor behavior, conversions, page views, and more. These insights help you understand how people interact with your site so you can optimize your online marketing efforts. 

Google Analytics offers plenty of powerful features, including: 

• Custom reports and dashboards: Create personalized views of the metrics that matter most to your business, making it easier to identify trends and take action quickly.
  
  
• Real-time visitor tracking: Monitor visitor behavior as it happens. This real-time feedback lets you tweak campaigns and site elements on the fly.
  
  
• Site content analysis: Prioritize content improvements and refine your strategy by analyzing which pages drive the most traffic and conversions.

Best of all, Google Analytics is completely free to use.

Other analytics solutions to consider

• Matamo
  
  
• Semrush Traffic Analytics
  
  
• Clicky

5. An SMS marketing tool

eCommerce SMS messages boast an impressive click rate of 11.19%. That’s over 10 times higher than email’s 1.11%. So if you want to encourage more people to engage with your brand, SMS is the way to go.

The best text marketing tool: Bitly

When it comes to SMS marketing, brevity is the name of the game. Bitly helps you turn your long, unwieldy URLs into compact, branded links, so you can keep your messages concise and impactful. 

These shortened links are easy to share, and with Bitly’s tracking capabilities, you can monitor the performance of each link and take a data-driven approach to optimize your SMS strategy.

There are tons of powerful features built into the Bitly platform, including: 

• Link shortening: Keep your SMS messages within character limits by shortening links, ensuring you make the most of your available space.
  
  
• Custom domains and back-halves: Customize your links with branded domains and descriptive back-halves to build trust and reliability with your customers.
  
  
• API for scalability: The Bitly API allows you to generate branded links programmatically and scale your SMS campaigns effortlessly.

Bitly offers several different pricing tiers to support businesses of all sizes:

• Free
  
  
• Core: $10/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Growth: $29/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Premium: $199/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Other SMS marketing solutions to consider

• SlickText (free plan available)
  
  
• Textmagic
  
  
• Omnisend

6. A CRM

Closing the deal with a potential customer takes patience, strategy, and careful relationship building. That’s where a customer relationship management (CRM) platform comes in. 

A good CRM helps you stay on top of every interaction, anticipate customer needs, and deliver tailored experiences that guide prospects toward becoming loyal customers.

The best CRM: Hubspot

HubSpot CRM is a powerful tool that simplifies sales processes and enhances customer relationship management. It provides a real-time, organized view of your sales funnel through a clean dashboard, allowing teams to automatically track interactions across various channels like email, social media, and calls.

The platform also comes with powerful tools and features like: 

• Automatic prospect tracking: Keep tabs on interactions with prospects across email, social media, and calls—no manual updates required.
  
  
• AI-generated recommendations: Receive real-time insights that guide you on the best actions to move prospects down the sales funnel.
  
  
• Lead generation tools: Nurture and grow your database with built-in tools for generating and managing leads.

Best of all, you can get started with Hubspot’s CRM for free. While the free version has limited features, it’s a pretty comprehensive solution for smaller teams. And if you need access to the full Smart CRM, it’s included free with the purchase of any premium Hubspot product.

Other CRMs to consider

• Monday CRM
  
  
• Zoho CRM
  
  
• Pipedrive

7. A graphic design tool

Creating eye-catching professional designs is key to making your marketing materials stand out. But as a small business owner, this can feel like a daunting task—especially if you don’t have a background in graphic design. 

The good news? With the right design tools, you can craft polished, on-brand visuals without having advanced design skills or hiring a dedicated designer.

The best design tool: Canva

With Canva, small business owners can easily create beautiful graphics and designs using an extensive library of templates and intuitive drag-and-drop tools. This platform empowers users to design anything and everything: social media posts, email campaigns, videos, and more. 

Canva gives you access to: 

• An extensive template library: Use over 100 million templates, stock photos, videos, audio, and graphics to bring your ideas to life.
  
  
• AI-powered tools: Harness the power of AI to create professional-looking designs effortlessly.
  
  
• Collaboration tools: Work seamlessly with your team to create, edit, and finalize designs together.

Canva is incredibly affordable and offers three plans to choose from: 

• Canva Free
  
  
• Canva Pro: $120/year for one user
  
  
• Canva Teams: $100/year/user (minimum of 3 users)
  
  
• Canva Enterprise: Custom quotes based on your business needs

Other design solutions to consider

• Snappa (free plan available)
  
  
• Visme
  
  
• Adobe Express

8. A project management tool

Running multiple marketing campaigns at once means juggling many moving pieces—content creation, scheduling, communication, and tracking results. Without the right system in place, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks. 

This is where a project management tool comes in handy, acting as your team’s central hub to stay organized, collaborate, and execute campaigns.

The best project management tool: Jira

The Jira platform was initially developed for IT and software development teams that worked in Agile sprints. However, its flexibility and advanced features make it a great choice for managing marketing projects as well. 

Use Jira to take advantage of: 

• Customizable reports: Track project progress and performance with tailored reports highlighting key metrics and milestones.
  
  
• Flexible workflows: Break down complex projects into smaller, more manageable tasks, ensuring every team member knows their responsibilities.
  
  
• Automation rules: Set up automations to handle repetitive tasks, such as notifications and task assignments, so you and your team can focus on the big picture.

To sweeten the deal even further, Jira is one of the most affordable project management tools on the market, with four cost-effective plans:

• Free
  
  
• Standard: $7.53/user/month
  
  
• Premium: $13.53/user/month
  
  
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Other project management solutions to consider

• Trello (free plan available)
  
  
• Asana
  
  
• Notion

9. Social media marketing platform

Social media can be a gold mine for small business owners looking to reach new customers. However, creating, scheduling, and publishing social media posts that drive engagement is easier said than done. That’s why every small business needs a good social media marketing tool to lighten the load. 

The best social media marketing tool: Buffer

Buffer is a user-friendly social media management tool that streamlines content scheduling, performance tracking, and engagement management.

The platform’s top features include:

• Content scheduling: Use the dashboard to schedule and manage posts across multiple social media platforms, ensuring consistent content delivery.
  
  
• Post-performance analytics: Gain detailed insights into your posts’ performance to refine your strategy and optimize content.
  
  
• Unified engagement: Save time and improve the customer experience by responding to all comments and messages from a single dashboard.

Buffer has four pricing tiers to choose from:

• Free
  
  
• Essentials: $5/month (billed annually)
  
  
• Team: $10/month (billed annually)

Other social media solutions to consider

• Hootsuite
  
  
• SproutSocial
  
  
• Loomly 

Boost your marketing efforts with QR Code Generator PRO

The right tools can take your small business marketing efforts to the next level. There are plenty of powerful options to help you reach new customers and grow your business, and this list is an excellent place to start.

Looking for maximum ROI on a minimal budget? Start by enhancing your small business marketing campaigns with QR Codes. 

With QR Code Generator PRO, you can create custom, branded QR Codes and use them across all your digital and print marketing materials. Plus, the platform offers a user-friendly dashboard to manage all your codes and detailed analytics for valuable insights into customer behavior.

Sign up for QR Code Generator PRO today to see how QR Codes can empower your small business marketing!