Back to School for Business Owners: Marketing Tools and Resources for 2025

September, the air is crisp, the kids are back in school, and it’s the perfect time for you to hit the books (well, blogs and dashboards) and sharpen your marketing skills. Whether you’re a small business owner wearing ALL the hats, or you have a team helping you achieve your marketing goals, we have some tools and resources you should check out.

Think of this as your “back-to-school” starter pack — marketing tools and learning resources that will help you get to the top of the class this year.

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Marketing Tools for 2025

Check out these smart, intuitive tools to help you achieve your marketing goals in 2025. 

1. Canva – For Design 

Even if you don’t consider yourself creative, Canva makes you look like a pro. Use it to design everything from social posts to flyers, presentations, email graphics, and more. With its growing AI features and brand kit tools, it’s a non-negotiable in 2025.

Tip: Set up a Brand Kit in Canva to keep all your colors, fonts, and logos in one place to keep your posts looking consistent.

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2. MailChimp & MailerLite – Email Marketing

You’ve probably heard of MailChimp, this email marketing platform has been around for a while. Its user-friendly dashboard and subscriber management software makes it a familiar favorite for many. But if you are shopping around for an alternate email system, MailerLite might be an option. The tools are a bit more intuitive than MailChimp, although both offer automated email sequences, which can be a powerful tool for engaging with your audience. 

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3. Airtable, Hootsuite & Looker Studio – Plan, Schedule & Analyze Your Content

Airtable offers flexible spreadsheet/database hybrid for content planning, and project management. Create a customizable content calendar, and engage with up to 5 members of your team within the free subscription model.

Hootsuite is a familiar dashboard for managing, scheduling, and reporting on multiple channels on social media. Reports are easy to understand, and the platform is great for a small business owner managing content across META, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, Pinterest & WhatsApp. 

If you’re the kind of student who goes for extra credit, Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) might be exactly what you need. The platform can pull data from up to a dozen sources, and then combines them in an easy-to-modify, read, and share report with loads of customizable widgets and visualizations. 

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4. ChatGPT  – Your own personal AI Marketing Assistant

Stuck on what to write? Need ideas? Use ChatGPT to brainstorm, draft, and refine your content. Think of it as your inspiration. 

There’s no shame in using ChatGPT to outline blog posts, social captions, subject lines, or even SEO meta descriptions… just make sure to have a human have a second look at it before you hit “publish”.

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Blogs and Websites worth Bookmarking

Want to be at the top of your class? Bookmark these 4 websites, they’re a great place to start for business owners looking for insightful advice on marketing in 2025.

1. HubSpot Blog

Topics: Content marketing, SEO, social media, email marketing
HubSpot’s blog is the textbook of modern marketing — but fun. With easy-to-understand tutorials, free templates, and trend forecasts, it’s a favorite for both beginners and seasoned marketers.

2. Neil Patel’s Blog

Topics: SEO, traffic growth, digital strategy
If you want to rank on Google, Neil Patel has been shouting about it since before it was cool. His blog is full of actionable advice for getting found online.

3. Marketing Brew

Topics: Marketing trends, brand strategy, real-world case studies
A snappy, sassy daily newsletter for business owners who want to stay in the know without reading a novel. I never skip it!

You don’t need a degree in digital ads or a 10-person team to build a brand people love. With the right tools, a handful of trusted resources, and your own industry expertise, you’ve got everything you need to show up with confidence in 2025.