Free and Discounted Tools to Support Intelligent Inbound During COVID-19

During these uncertain times, it’s inspiring to see so many businesses opening their virtual doors a bit wider to help support healthcare professionals, educators, and families whose lives have been significantly impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. 

Generosity has not been limited to those on the front lines. In fact, we’re seeing free and discounted tools and trainings to support marketing, sales, and service professionals who are practicing Intelligent Inbound^® and might need an extra boost to keep their teams engaged, support demand generation initiatives, and enable sales and service professionals to better meet the needs of their customers. 

This list is in no way comprehensive, but here are some of our team’s recommendations for the most valuable offers available to sales, marketing, and customer success professionals today.

Free and Discounted Technology Tools

HubSpot

Co-Founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah were among the first to extend a generous offer to the SMB market, and right now their meetings, quotes, e-signature, and 1:1 video creation tools are completely free for 90 days from activation. 

In addition, HubSpot is suspending marketing email send limits for Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise customers and increasing limits on calling to 2,000 minutes/month for Starter and Professional customers of Sales Hub and Service Hub. 

Moreover, to support small businesses through this uncertain time, HubSpot is reducing the cost of its Starter Growth Suite from $112.50 USD/month to $50 USD/month.

Ubersuggest

Wait, can something be “more free”? Why yes, it can. Ubersuggest always had a free offering, but now more features are available at the free level, including full access to historical data, keyword generation and analysis, and increased content ideas. 

Marketers can use Ubersuggest to better understand the SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing strategies their competitors are using. The more you know, the better equipped you’ll be to gain an edge in the market.

Krisp

Intelligent Inbound sales is all about understanding your audience and meeting them where they are in the Buyer’s Journey. This involves consultative, 1:1 communication. Whether you’re in sales or customer success, it’s important you and your audience have each other’s complete attention, which can be tricky if you’ve suddenly been thrust into remote work life. That’s why we love Krisp: It’s an AI-powered filter that virtually eliminates background noise during phone calls. 

For the next six months, Krisp has introduced a new free tier that provides users with up to 120 minutes per week of free noise cancellation. Also, Krisp Pro and Teams are 30 percent off.

By the way, all students, teachers, hospitals, and government workers worldwide get unlimited Krisp for free. 

Lifesize

Video conferencing rapidly jumped from a mostly externally facing activity to a way of life for internal and external communication. Lifesize is a video and audio telecommunications company that provides high-definition video conferencing endpoints and accessories, touchscreen conference room phones, and a cloud-based video collaboration platform. 

For the next six months, Lifesize is offering unlimited enterprise-grade video conferencing with no time limits to anyone who needs it—any company or organization in more than 100 countries. 

Vidyard

We were already super-fans of Vidyard’s free video messaging app—unlimited video capture, hosting, and sharing—that helps sales and customer success professionals better engage prospects and customers. So you can imagine our excitement when they recently announced Vidyard for Internal Communications to help remote workers stay connected with each other and easily record, secure, and share private videos from their web browser and email app. 

This new internal communications tool is 100 percent free through June 30, 2020. 

PandaDoc

Every sales representative likes a signed contract, and those signatures are even easier to capture with PandaDoc’s new Free eSign plan. This latest free offering gives companies unlimited document uploads, unlimited eSignatures, and payment processing options (credit card, PayPal, or ACH payment) for unlimited users. Contract signatures are safe, secure, and legally binding. 

Otter.ai

For all of those times your AI-powered audio transcription tool failed to accurately transcribe your latest webinar, podcast, or other marketing video, there’s Otter.ai. The Otter Voice Meeting Notes app uses proprietary artificial intelligence to generate shareable, searchable, rich notes in real time that combine audio, transcription, speaker identification, inline photos, and key phrases. Hello, time savings! 

The great news? Otter.ai is offering two free months of its enterprise offering, Otter for Teams, to support employees who are working remotely. Up to 10 people per company can sign up for Otter for Teams before May 1, 2020 using code COVID19OTTER. 

Have we mentioned that it works? It really, really works.

Breezy

For those of you in industries hiring to meet coronavirus-related demand—everything from shipping to online learning and telehealth—Breezy HR is here to help. Breezy’s video assessments and live video interviewing capabilities are available free of charge to any and all businesses for at least 60 days. 

Free and Discounted Education and Training

Ahrefs

Although Ahrefs is widely known for its website analysis toolsets (e.g., backlink checkers, SEO reports, mentions tracker, and domain comparisons), it also has a strong academy. If you’ve been thinking about embracing an Intelligent Inbound marketing strategy but you’re not sure where to start, consider checking out this free Ahrefs Academy “Blogging for Business” course. It normally costs $799, but for now it’s a wallet-friendly $0. 

Moz

Moz is one of the leaders in search engine optimization (SEO) technology and local search management, and SEO education has always been an important aspect of its mission. Courses typically range from $50-$300, but now through May 31, 2020, Moz Academy is giving all of its trainings away for free. So, if you’ve been meaning to learn how to conduct a technical SEO site audit, optimize key pages, or generate valuable backlinks, now’s a great time to up your SEO game. 

Do you know of a free or discounted tool or educational resource that would be valuable to Intelligent Inbound marketing, sales, and service professionals? Email us at marketing@smartbugmedia.com or shoot us a note on Twitter @SmartBugMedia.