3 Top Free Digital Marketing Templates for Businesses

You know you need a marketing strategy, but how to track it? Where can you get clean, professional marketing emails? And what about eye-catching images for Instagram?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated when you’re tackling your business’ marketing. Ask full-time marketers. One study found these folks report feeling stressed 3.84 days a week!

A major solution to this issue? Templates. They give you a starting point — simple, clean, out-the-box solutions. Better still, many are entirely free.

Zoe Marketing & Communications can help. In this blog, we tap into our 15+ years of digital marketing experience to boil it down to three of the best, including:

• Trello’s marketing planning template
• Mailchimp’s email templates
• Canva’s social media templates

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Using this simple array of free templates, you’ll be on your way to streamlining your marketing, whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started.

1. Trello’s marketing planning templates

Projects, workflows and tasks are three constant pieces of your marketing puzzle. And project management software is an essential tool to keep it all organized.

Trello stands out for its simplicity and ease of use. Its templates feature an overall “board” filled with “cards.” Each card shows a piece of your process. You can quickly move those cards from one “stage” to another, making it a snap to visualize the status of your projects.

Here are direct links to some of its most handy marketing planning templates:

• Marketing Overview: Helps run streamlined marketing meetings
• Blog Content Schedule: Dives work into clear writing, editing and publishing tasks
• Annual Email Marketing Calendar: Shows what’s coming up and doubles as an archive
• Social Media Marketing Board: Has cards for resources, ideas, to-dos, “doings” and more

You’ll first need to create a Trello account for your team (there’s a free version). Trello also offers plenty of resources to learn more about what it can offer. A few other good-to-knows:

• It’s customizable. You can create or omit cards, plus add due dates, attach files and assign people to tasks. And, of course, it integrates with other tools.
• It’s collaborative. Tag team members, leave comments and have chats within cards.
• It’s visual. You can see your content pipeline, for instance. Or identify the progress or bottlenecks of your projects.
• It’s user-friendly. The interface is intuitive, and the learning curve is small. (At Zoe we use both Trello and ClickUp; Trello is more straightforward and excellent if you’re starting out.)

2. Mailchimp’s email templates

You’ll need a reliable email platform, and plenty of good ones exist. (For a deeper dive, see our comparison of Mailchimp and Constant Contact.) Mailchimp stands out for having a free plan with solid templates that let you create professional-looking emails — minus design skills.

You can even customize the templates with not only content but your own branding elements. Build up your campaigns using two options: 

1. The “New Builder”: This option, in its Beta form, uses AI to help optimize content and boost engagement. It currently features 67 templates covering an array of angles, from styles (bold, minimal, natural) to types (surveys, welcome, regular newsletters).
2. The “Classic Builder”: This more stripped-down version has nine “basic” layouts offering a variety of column configurations, plus 5 featured plug-and-play templates, including:
   • Selling products
   • Making an announcement
   • Sharing a story
   • Following up
   • Educating

Each includes clear areas for images and text, along with in-template instructions. You can drag and drop more elements as needed. Other things worth noting:

• It’s mobile responsive. Like most email platforms, Mailchimp ensures your emails display well on all devices. That helps maximize engagement and clicks.
• It’s easy to tailor. You can create and save templates with your company’s logos, colors and content — even on the free plan. That’s crucial for brand identity and consistency.
• Its campaigns are simple. Pre-designed layouts and placeholders for text and images allow for quick campaign and workflow creation.
• It tracks data. The free Mailchimp includes basic analytics to follow trends, optimize campaigns and create reports.

One caveat: If you have more than 500 contacts, you must move to a paid plan. On the plus side, that unlocks 100+ more templates.

3. Canva’s social media templates

After you determine which social media sites are a good fit for your business, it’s time to create plenty of content to feed those feeds. That’s where a tool like Canva is indispensable.

This platform makes professional, eye-popping design easy for those without graphic design chops. Its free version packs in, by our count, 1.2 million social media templates alone. Use them as jumping-off points to create:

1. Instagram posts, stories and reels
2. Facebook posts, covers, ads and videos
3. TikTok videos
4. LinkedIn video ads
5. YouTube videos
6. Twitter posts

Canva also has animated options, feed ad videos and an extra section of Instagram Stories. You’ll also be able to access 1 million+ graphics and photos, not to mention AI-powered tools.

Some key benefits of using this tool:

• It’s visually appealing. Social media is about grabbing eyes. And with so many options, Canva makes this job a lot less work. 
• It’s simple to tweak. If you find a design you love that doesn’t quite fit your brand aesthetic, adjust it. You can add your own text, images, company colors and more. This creates a consistent feel across all your social channels.
• It saves time and costs. Create professional images fast and without the extra costs of a pro designers or premium templates.
• It offers a lot more. Canva also makes docs, whiteboards, presentations, videos, print items, websites, flyers, QR codes and more.

Next steps for creating successful digital marketing templates

In the whirlwind of marketing, templates are time savers, cost cutters — even life savers. And, with free resources like Trello, Mailchimp and Canva, you can customize, organize and track your company’s efforts and success.

Rather have someone handle the process for you? Talk to us. Zoe Marketing & Communications has experience with hundreds of metro Detroit and Chicago clients.

Or, if you’re still digging into your marketing options and goals, learn more about: 

• 4 top free digital marketing learning resources for businesses
• How digital marketing helps you achieve your business goals