If there’s one thing every small business owner is short on, it’s time. You have all these wonderful ideas for expanding your business, but you just can’t make them happen. Luckily for you, modern-day small business owners have plenty of digital tools at their disposal. These can help with everything from making a sale to organizing a team of employees. Keep reading to learn how these services can positively impact your own business.
They Boost Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is extremely important for increasing revenue and improving your business’s reputation. If you’re wondering how to develop a loyal and trusting consumer base, start by setting up Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a free service that will notify you when your business is being talked about online so that you can get involved in the conversation. This is a great way to encourage positive comments from shoppers and respond quickly to negative feedback. Not only will this can help you manage the reputation of your business, but it will also encourage customers to return and recommend your business to others as well.
They Streamline Your Team
Keeping your business operating smoothly takes a lot of your attention. Fortunately, software and online tools can make everything more organized. Trello is a popular project management service that can help everyone on your team stay on top of their responsibilities. Small business owners may also be interested in Deputy for managing employee schedules and assigning tasks to staff. Google Drive is a great way to share files while Google Docs can make document collaboration much more manageable. Finally, Slack is commonly used to improve the ease of communication between team members, especially when people are working remotely.
They Improve Your Marketing Game
Digital marketing includes everything from promotional emails to social media posts. Compared to traditional marketing methods like radio, television, billboards, and flyers, digital marketing is much more affordable. Small businesses can enjoy greater payoffs for their marketing efforts with the help of atomization tools. For example, Hootsuite is an awesome tool for scheduling a variety of social media posts in advance. Similarly, content research tools, like BuzzSumo, can help you learn what kinds of marketing content will perform best with your target audience. If you’re getting your feet wet in the wonderful world of email marketing — and you should be — MailChimp provides an easy way to set up and automate this process.
They Organize Your Analytics
According to Forbes, successful business owners understand the importance of tracking everything, from sales numbers to website analytics. This data will tell you where to spend your marketing budget to influence the greatest number of people or how customers behave on your website so you can encourage more sales. Consider setting up an online store on Shopify for built-in site analytics. Alternatively, you can set up Google Analytics on any website to access information about your visitors, your most popular pages, and where your website traffic is coming from. To keep track of your advertising and create super-targeted audiences for your content, Facebook Business is a useful tool — just be aware it's a bit complicated to set up.
They Help You Get Paid
Specialized software can help you get paid and keep track of your financial records to make tax season much easier. Both QuickBooks and Freshbooks are great for sending customized invoices to your clients and receiving payment straight to your bank account. If you’re looking for something free, Wave gives you access to many of the same features, but you will have to pay to set up employee payroll or credit card processing. Check out this article by DIYMarkets for more useful payment tools that can help streamline your business.
In a world where everyone is becoming an entrepreneur every day, it's important to take advantage of digital business tools so you can stay on top of your competition. If something exists to help businesses increase their bottom line, chances are your biggest competitors are using it too. Luckily, many of these tools are free to try out or even use for longer periods of time until your business starts to grow.