Must-Have Digital Tools to Grow Your Business

Fri, Sep 18, 2020 6:24 AM

Have you heard that only 10 percent of small businesses succeed within the first year? All things considered, this isn't actually true, it's more like in a decade. This makes sense though, correct? Starting a small business is difficult work, particularly if it's your first business. Anyway, what can you do be able to make life simpler?

Let's discuss how small businesses can succeed rather failing to utilize technology! Here are some digital tools to make your business life easier.

Calendly

Pricing: FREE to $12 per month (Freemium)
Key Feature: Puts the other person in control of meetings and saves time for all parties

Scheduling a meeting has never been easier. Calendly is a better option that puts the other party in control. Calendly quickly and easily integrates with your calendar, as well as Gmail, Slack, and Salesforce. Having this integration allows the platform to verify your schedule and block off different increments of time people can schedule time with you. As a business owner, your time is extremely valuable, and your days are unpredictable. Going back and forth emailing about times to meet can be a disaster, so I usually block off 15-minute blocks that people can meet with me. This is also helpful if you have a service business as you can have people schedule times for a service or something you are providing them. The best part of all of this is that it’s free. Users can also quickly and easily upgrade to pro versions that allow for more block options, customization, additional users, reporting, and more.

Google My Business

Pricing: FREE
Key Feature: Quickest, Easiest & Cheapest marketing option for local service businesses that people use Google to find

Ever wonder how to get your business to show up online from people searching on Google and Google Maps? Google My Business (also known as GMB and previously known as Google Places), allows a business to ‘register’ their business online so that people can find your hours, location, phone number, and more. This is a great tool to focus on getting more recognition and customers for those searching for your products and services locally. GMB is making a lot of changes to improve the listings tool by allowing for Posts, Virtual Tours, Messaging, and more. If used and optimized correctly, GMB can drive a lot of new business and phone calls for no cost at all. Do you have a local business and want to know how well it’s performing? Use this free local SEO scan tool to find out.

Square

Pricing: 2.75% card transaction fees
Key Feature: All-in-one POS and Processing Solutions for small business

Most small business owners have heard of Square if they are in a B2C transaction industry. If you haven’t, then let me tell you why I like it, and why it’s a robust platform to consider. So Square is actually a transaction software platform that allows you to take orders and process transactions online or in person. This is a very popular application for Coffee shops, boutiques, repair shops, and more. Not only can you set this up as a point of sale with a built-in register, but you can also send invoices, customize your products/services, track employee timecards, customize reporting, and even implement marketing. Some new Square features include payroll, e-commerce online stores, marketing automation, and options for capital. My favorite aspects of Square include the easy to use interface, the in-depth reporting, employee tracking, and customizations.

CallRail

Pricing: $30+ per month
Key Feature: Allows for truly advanced marketing tests and call management

Phone calls are incredibly important for many small business owners. However, most businesses simply have one phone number they use for everything. This causes issues when running different marketing campaigns and advertising objectives, not to mention the limits a standard phone number can have for connectivity and call flows. Not only does CallRail allow you to choose a local number, but you can also have that number provide a variety of lead flow management and reporting. CallRail is more than just call tracking, you can have your phone numbers route to multiple phones simultaneously, while also using whisper messages, automation, synchronization, voiceover, and more. A few favorite features include Call Recording and review, linking of data reporting platforms (Google Analytics), and real-time tracking. This is a pivotal marketing platform for small business owners to test and track various marketing tactics such as digital ads, print, billboards, social media, etc!

Google Suite

Pricing: $5-$25 months per user
Key Feature: All-in-one digital solutions for getting your business online

Google has a business package where one can not only get an email address, but they can get a majority of their digital assets needed to start a small business digital presence: Gmail, Google Calendar, Domain, Website Builder, Drive (cloud storage), Adwords, Analytics, Google Sheets, Docs, and much much more. This package is a seemingly easy and affordable way to start your digital presence online. Many companies use Google for a variety of digital needs due to the interconnectivity and ease of use. Their packages come with unlimited storage, additional users (for a small fee), data migration, mobile apps, live support, and much more!

Slack

Pricing: FREE to $15/month (Freemium)
Key Feature: Makes team communication so much easier. Replacing the email.

This might be the most popular Silicon Valley startup and software communication tool. Slack is known and used my millions now across the world to help reduce the clutter of email. This communication platform is a standalone product to help create efficiencies in communication, teamwork, collaboration, and workflow. As communication increases with growth and hiring, this platform has proven to be the most reliable innovation for business operations. Growth Hacking is a must in today’s business landscape, and Slack is a tool that allows for just that. Most people have 1 account, but many entrepreneurs quickly realize first hand how this can improve the management of time and employees. This tool is free, and not an end-all solution for business applications, but it saves a lot of time and money. Last but not least, let’s not forget how this product integrates with a lot of other tools and resources such as Zapier, Google, Salesforce, ToDo, Zoom, and hundreds more!

Also Read : Ways to Use the Cloud for Your Home-Based Business

Tawk.to

Pricing: Freemium
Key Feature: Allows businesses to help their customers with questions in real-time

Chatbots are a hot topic right now, especially for marketing automation. Although they aren’t necessarily a new feature to add to your website, platforms like Tawk.To can quickly and easily add a level of professionalism to any small business. Both of my companies use Tawk.To for a variety of reasons, but mostly to give our potential customers quick real-time answers. This level of customer experience and appreciation goes a long way. With Tawk.To, you can add multiple users who can all chat at once, and even have different levels of access. The platform setup is very quick and easy with basic coding to integrate onto the website. There are a plethora of features including branding, autoresponders, user interface customization, tracking, alerts, email capture, and much more! Other than the simple fact that this platform is free, many would have to agree that the mobile app for responding is a massive gamechanger to help to manage the communication flow very seamlessly.

Google Voice

Pricing: FREE
Key Feature: Easy & Free method to have a business number that you can control the calls, messaging, and settings from an application.

Are you looking for a free phone number? Well, look no further! Google Voice has been around almost 15 years but has been mostly underutilized in most regards. G Voice (as it’s also known by), saves business owners a lot of money and headaches. Essentially, you can register your G Voice number and download the app (or not) and have it synced to 6 different phone numbers. The only limitation is that you can only register your phone number that it forwards to one time, meaning you can’t have multiple G Voice numbers going to your same cell phone number. Not only does the app allow you to place and receive calls, but you can also send and receive SMS text messages. This application was forgotten about by Google developers for a few years, but just recently had some updates that enabled a new interface and additional features for simultaneous calling. Check out this Google Support article if you’re looking to get started with G Voice for the first time!

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to starting a small business, but these digital tools are proven to helped grow small businesses

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