There are so many wonderful open source tools that help clients do a better job on their own marketing: from collaboration (Google Drive, custom calendars shared with clients on Google Calendar) and project management to content management on web sites, to photo creation and editing, to communication and sharing that help you do more of your own marketing.

First, let’s define open source: open source derived from a concept that the source code was available for developers to modify. Some of the first big web site platforms like Joomla and WordPress (or how about Mambo, before that) kicked this off in a big way by allowing millions of users to download and use – and EXTEND – their software. We take this for granted today – the sharing economy was built first by open source developers.

Here are the top seven resources we love for managing, creating and accelerating marketing. There are many within each of these categories that you can use; this list will get you started on managing your own marketing better.

  1. Strategic and tactical marketing planning: http://www.ehow.com/about_5492301_differences-planning-tactical-marketing-planning.html
  2. Collaboration and project management: Google Drive, Dropbox.com
  3. Photography / photo editing: http://pixlr.com/
  4. Web site platforms / content management systems: Top three: Drupal, Joomla, WordPress. Up and comers: SquareSpace
  5. Web site design / development – a different way to think about designing web sites is using style tiles instead of full-page mockups in the design process. http://styletil.es/
  6. Social media tools: the standard for management of all your social networks into one dashboard: hootsuite.com, great top 10 free list here at BrandWatch
  7. Metrics and measurement: Besides Google, go deeper with: http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/
  8. Graphic creation tools like Canva and Beacon.by. While our firm is staffed by designers, we also use these tools for clients on a budget.
  9. Your smartphone! Your best tool for quick graphics for use in PowerPoint presentations, company blog articles and even web site pages is your smartphone. The photo of pins above? That’s an iPhone7 photo taken for a client’s blog article. We crafted a new blog this morning, we needed four quick images, snapped this one with a smartphone and uploaded it to our blog, all before the coffee got cold. You can learn more about taking photos for your blog here.

Each of these tools enable you as a business marketer to control more of your own marketing. When you control your own marketing, you control the success of your organization, you own the product, the process and the result. In short, ownership of marketing equals success.

Want a few more ideas? How about 25 of them! Download this printable and hang it up above your desk. Create a month’s worth (or more) of great content for your audience:

25 Content Ideas for your blog and social media
25 Content Ideas for your blog and social media