Everyone loves gadgets, but today’s marketer has a wide array of creative tools to choose from to help them slay the promotional dragon. Mail Dog’s suite of online marketing tools definitely falls in to this category since it’s got permission email, online video, RSS publishing, webpage publishing and forms and surveys all bundled into the solution, but there’s a ton more cool tools out there that even we use on a daily basis to get the job done.

Where to find images for your email newsletter? Need a quick place to edit an image on the fly? Have a side project that you need an easy and free website built? Maybe you just want to find out where to get more industry stats for your next monthly meeting. Are you just overwhelmed with your work load and need a way to manage your sticky notes? Hark! Help is here.

So in the spirit of sharing and collaboration amongst peers, we thought it would be helpful to create a list of all these digital doodads so our right-brained compadres could check out a few new tools to help them in their busy work day.

Check out the veritable smorgasbord of digital delectables to brighten your day and enjoy the (ever-growing) Quintessential List of Online Marketing Gizmos You Must Know!

Stock Image Libraries:

Some Free and Some Paid (all affordable)

• Istockphoto – Buy using credits
• Stock.xchng – Free with registration
• Dreamstime – Buy using credits
• Veer – Buy using credits, some free offerings
• Shutterstock – Buy via subscription or block of images
• Bigstock – Buy using credits
• Free Stock Images – Aggregate site featuring free photo providers. Requires registration.
• Vecteezy – Free vector art with registration
• Flasheezy – Free flash files and tutorials with registration
• Template Monster – Website templates, flash templates, web templates for download

Online Photo Editing Sites:

All Free with Some Registration Required

• Pixlr – Edit, adjust and filter your images. No registration. Firefox and Chrome add-ons available.
• Picnik – “Auto-fix”; rotate; crop; resize; exposure correction; color correction; sharpen; red-eye correction
• PhotoShop Express - Requires free registration; 2 GB storage; crop; rotate; resize; auto correct; exposure correction; red-eye removal; retouching; saturation; white balance; sharpen; color correction; various other effects
• Rsizr – For quick cropping and resizing
• Aviary Phoenix Image Editor – From basic image retouching to complex effects
• FotoFlexer – Crop; resize; rotate; flip; hue/saturation/lightness; contrast; various Photoshop-like effects
• LunaPic – Similar to Microsoft Paint; crop; scale; rotate; more
• Splashup – Requires registration; resize; crop; layers; flip; sharpen; blur; color effects; special effects
• Pic Resize – Resize; crop; rotate; brightness/contrast; conversion; other effects
• Snipshot – Resize; crop; enhancement features; exposure, contrast, saturation, hue and sharpness correction; rotate; grayscale. Paid pro version for raw files and face detection.
• 72photos – Store, manage and edit images online

Stock Font Foundries:

Some Free and Some Paid

• Dafont – Mostly free
• MyFonts – Mostly paid but affordable
• Fonts.com – Mostly paid
• Urban Fonts – Lots of free fonts
• 1001Fonts.com – Name says it all
• House Industries – Expensive, but worth every penny

Online Creative Tools:

Assorted online tools for right-brained, creative folks

• RGB Color Selector – Easily find the hex numbers for custom colors
• ColorPic – Free eyedropper tool to grab colors from your website or logo
• Color Schemer – Find various color schemes to match your logo or website
• Color Scheme Designer – More color schemes to inspire your creative juices
• Bittbox – Tutorials, free plugins, tips, tricks and more
• Kuler – Color schemes and importable themes for great color combinations
• Pixie/Nattyware – A color picking utility made especially for webmasters and designers – not web-based

Online File Conversion & Editing:

Tools to help convert or edit a file on the run

• Zamzar – Online file conversion, covering a wide range of different image, document, music, video and compression formats
• Free File Converter | Online – Convert Document, Image, Audio and Video Files from one format to another – Free File Convert.
• OpenItOnline – Open and edit all kinds of files online. Handy if you don’t have your machine and software available.

Survey Creation Tools:

Online form and survey creation tools

• Survey Monkey – Free to paid version to create and manage online surveys and analytics
• Zoomerang – Free to paid version to create and manage online surveys and analytics
• Wufoo – Free to paid version to create and manage online forms and surveys
• Mail Dog – Integrated form and survey publisher in the ProPlus plan

Email Marketing Blog Sites:

Where to get the latest news on industry buzz

• TheEmailGuide – The eMail Guide is the search engine for eMail marketing, complete with its own blog listing everything you need to know about email marketing and more.
• Email Marketing Report – Great site that is full of links, all of which have the goal of making you better and more effective and successful at email marketing. Also offers solid industry commentary, including intelligent discussions of the relationship between email and twitter marketing.
• DMA Email Marketing Blog – Great commentary to go along with the industry news and new developments. Bloggers are members of the Direct Marketing Association UK.
• Email Marketing Journal – Offers tips and longer articles on the theory and practice of email marketing. The blog is written daily by Nick Stamoulis and others at Brick Marketing.
• Email Marketing Blog – Written by Ross Kramer and several frequent guest bloggers, this blog bills itself as “Email Marketing News & Strategies for Smart Marketers,” and that’s exactly what it delivers.
• Adventures in Email Marketing – Written by Anna Billstrom since 1999, this blog is her observations and thoughts and advancements in the email marketing world, plus social media.
• The Email Marketing Water Cooler – Daily email marketing industry updates from the folks at Return Path, the leading deliverability experts.
• Deliverability – Written by a rotating cast of industry experts, this blog is great for a survey of perspective on the email marketing industry.
• Mail Dog: DOGMATA- Blog devoted to online marketing and permission email devotees featuring all the latest buzz in the industry

Email Industry Statistics:

When you need the numbers to support the trends

• EmailStatCenter.com – If it’s statistics you want, always start with EmailStatCenter.com, a clearinghouse for email metrics
• Email Marketing Reports – A collection of stats and information on the popularity of different webmail services and email in general.
• Marketing Sherpa – Resource that publishes useful news, case studies, and best practices data about internet and integrated marketing.
• MarketingProfs – One source for online marketing resources, marketing articles, online seminars, case studies, conferences and events for Marketing Professionals.

Web Publishing Tools:

Easy to use website, blog and webpage publishing

• Squarespace – Build a website. Start a blog.
• Weebly – Free website and blog engine
• ExpressionEngine – The designer’s choice for content management system (CMS) app
• Blogger – A free blogging tool for web designers
• PublicSquare – User-friendly web publishing
• WordPress – The No.1 best blog management tool
• Mail Dog – Jump or landing page publisher, one-click RSS publisher, unlimited image and document hosting

Remote Access, Storage, Backup and File Transfer:

Get a little geeky, but make it painless

• Carbonite – Easy automatic backups
• Backblaze – Mirrored automatic backups (does external drives too – we love that!)
• You Send It – Send up to 2GB online
• Filemail.com – Send over 2GB online
• Box – Share, store and retrieve files online
• TechInline – Remote Desktop
• GoToMyPc – Remote computer access for Window and Mac (despite the name) – We are addicted!

Web-Based Time and Project Management Tools:

Centralized systems to keep your lists tidy

• SlimTimer – Tools to help you manage and track your work.
• Tick – A Start/Stop little timer that tracks jobs on a main web interface
• FourteenDayz – Timetracking application for tracking your budgets-Free version available and free iphone app version available
• Action Method – Great online project management system-basic
• Proposal Kit- Manage projects, clients, and deadlines
• Ta-Da Lists – Proposal and contract management tools
• Writeboard – Free to-do list application that can be shared with the world
• Wridea – Web-based text documents that you save and share with others so you can collaborate and compare
• Toodledo – Organize and improve ideas to share your ideas with friends and clients
• MonkeyOn – A web based to-do list with iphone app also available
• Remember The Milk – A list application that sends task and job reminders to people. To-do, task, and reminder program with iphone version available