“Take this pill, and watch your migraine disappear in ten minutes!”

As a marketer, I’ve created a lot of digital graphics throughout my career. However, it wasn’t until recently that I started looking into creating GIFs. For some reason, I’d always assumed creating custom animated graphics would be a time-consuming process that required a skill set I simply didn’t have.

Free and paid tools for small businesses save time, streamline operations, and, importantly, save money.

From my experience running a small business, I know it doesn’t always feel productive to invest time and money into a new tool, but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Even the most creative people know the most innovative projects get done when you work as a team. However, working as a team can be difficult without the right tools to streamline and organize your workflows while keeping everyone informed.

I’m an inclusive marketing consultant and the founder of Thompson Media Group. A former client of mine recently forwarded me an email he’d received from a market insights company he’s subscribed to. The insights the company had included in this particular email was about “The Top 5 Ranked TV Sitcoms in U.S. History” according to consumers. My client’s message to me was one of disbelief at the results, writing, “According to who?”. He couldn’t believe a representative base of respondents came up with the very homogenous top 5 list.