Budget-Minded Tools to Strengthen Your Marketing, Social Media, and Community Outreach
Be competitive with “no or low cost” tools to strengthen your organization’s brand and presence in the community. There is simply no reason non-profit and government organizations can’t have a solid marketing and social media online presence using the latest tools for website, brand, photo, video, email marketing, social media, and data management – without breaking the budget!
No-Cost Website/Web Presence –Create a Free Website:
- Wordress.com (free-themes and plugins expand capabilities allow you to easily build a site)
- WordPress.org (I love WordPress and use it for this self-hosted site, which means I pay a monthly fee to host the site)
- Blogger
- Facebook.com: – be sure and set your Page username; you will have a unique URL/domain name to use in marketing (i.e. Facebook.com/PawsTexas); set your page username here.
- Weebly
- RescueGroups.org
Website Hosting:
- If you use any of the free web services above, you will not need hosting
- If you want a website with additional capabilities, I like WordPress.org as a CMS platform and Hostgator for hosting. There are others to choose from, but these are the ones I’ve personally used.
Brand/Image – Logo and Promotion Graphic Design – Sources for Finding Free or Low Cost Design Assistance:
- Ask your social media network for someone to donate a design
- Local high school, college, or university graphic design students
- Fiverr (low cost design starting at just $5!)
- 99 Designs (set your price, choose from designs submitted for a low cost design):
- Be original; do not infringe on other logos that are protected by intellectual property laws and do not use without permission
Email Marketing:
- RescueGroups.org Email Marketing
- MailChimp (Free up to 2,000 subscribers/12,000 monthly emails)
- Campaign Monitor
- Constant Contact
- GetResponse
- StreamSend
Pet Data Management:
Open Source (free) Software:
- Open Office (open-source alternative to Microsoft Office)
- GNU Cash (accounting software)
Open Source (free) Photo Editing Programs:
- GIMP (GIMP is a free Photoshop alternate)
- Picasa: (easily make pet photo collages to network more than one pet at a time or several photos of one animal)
Open Source (free) Draw Program:
Open Source (free) Video Editing Software:
Video Hosting Providers (free) – Videos help communicate pet personality online!
Google Products: Google offers a variety of (free) products that streamline operational efficiencies:
- Gmail Features (access from computer or on the go, ‘canned’ response, discussion threads, signatures, etc.)
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs
- Google Voice
- Google Plus
You can help defray the costs I incur for The Homeless Pet Project (annual hosting, email list send, new video production, etc.) with the purchase of a T-shirt from The Ultimutt Life shop (click here)! There are more than 100 original designs, t-shirts, hoodies, and bags available in a variety of colors to choose from! Subscribe to my email lists by clicking here and submit a story to Pawsitively Texas here.
