Managing a small business isn’t easy.
Especially with all the paperwork, finances, communication, and managing of your employees, which makes it quite challenging to manage your business operations.
The good news is there are now digital tools to help you with that.
But there are tons of tools out there. It is a time-consuming task to pick the right ones for your business.
We have listed down the top 10 essential digital tools for business success to relieve you from this burden.
1. Slack
Communication is essential to everything, whether it’s in life or business. Keeping everyone informed and on the same page is mission-critical for streamlining business operations and preventing miscommunication issues within the organization.
That’s the main reason for having a communication app for effective team collaboration.
Although Skype and WhatsApp are good for one-on-one conversation, if you are looking to establish business communication, Slack is your best bet.
Slack allows you to conduct both individual and group messaging, simplifying the communication among different teams. For instance, you can create separate messaging groups for your design team and tech team and even conduct video calls.
Pricing: Slack offers a free plan and a paid plan of $6.67/user/month. On the free version, you can only make one-on-one video calls and have access to 10,000 of your team’s messaging, which is quite low.
2. Google Meet
In today’s modern world, where most people work remotely or freelance, video conferencing has become a necessity for conducting online meetings and collaborations.
Such dire need has compelled small businesses to adapt this online medium to connect and communicate with other team members, stakeholders, and customers.
So, if you are looking for a robust online communication tool, consider using Google Meet. Now, Zoom has certainly gained immense popularity recently, especially during the pandemic. However, Google Meet is a better and free alternative when it comes to managing online business communication.
As compared to Zoom’s free plan which offers up to 40 minutes per meeting per video call. Google Meet’s free plan offers up to 60 minutes per meeting.
Pricing: Google Meet can cater to your small business needs. You can also opt for its Business Starter plan at $6/user/month that offers 100 participant video meetings and 30 GB pooled storage per user.
3. Flipsnack
All businesses need visually appealing marketing material such as digital brochures, catalog, or a booklet to promote their product or service.
That’s where Flipsnack comes in. It’s a powerful cloud-based digital tool that allows users to create online magazines and other digital documents. It also allows users to download these documents in multiple formats, including PDF, JPEG, GIF, and HTML5.
If you are looking for aesthetically pleasing digital brochures, you can simply either upload a PDF document and utilize their Design Studio to enhance its visuals. You can also create an online brochure from scratch and choose from hundreds of design templates to personalize.
Pricing: Flipsnack offers a free plan, but it’s not enough for small businesses. You should at least go for its Starter plan at $14/month.
4. Monday
Staying organized is essential for businesses to maintain and improve their employee’s productivity. If (some) of your employees are remotely working, Monday is the perfect choice for your business.
Monday offers a variety of features including cards, lists, boards, time tracking, calendar and timeline views that effectively manage your projects as per your business’ needs.
Furthermore, it offers team collaboration, and a CRM for business, that allows you to stay on top of your customer-business relationships.
Pricing: Monday offers a free plan but with limited features. It’s best to at least opt for its Basic plan, which will give you unlimited free viewers, 5 GB file storage, and an activity log.
5. Buffer
No matter the size of your business, it’s essential to leverage a robust social media tool like Buffer to stay on top of all posts and messages about your business.
Buffer is mission-critical for businesses and allows you to create, schedule and publish posts across all your social media channels. It features a highly intuitive dashboard where you can access all the messages from social media channels in a single inbox.
It also offers advanced social analytics that give valuable insights into your customer sentiments about your product or service.
Pricing: The free plan of Buffer offers basic planning and publishing tools and an AI Assistant. It’s best to choose its Essentials plan at $6/monthly for one channel that features engagement tools and analytics reports
6. Mailchimp
There are various methods to promote your business. Social media is definitely one of the most sought-after but still email marketing is the preferred marketing channel for 73% of consumers.
Mailchimp is a dynamic email marketing tool that allows you to craft compelling and personalized emails to your target audience. It offers a variety of features to elevate your business to success.
For instance, Mailchimp features hundreds of pre-designed email templates for creating personalized emails. You can schedule and automate emails about the latest offers and promotions, order confirmations, and abandoned carts. Furthermore, you can integrate Mailchimp with your online store and send personalized product recommendations based on your customers’ past purchase history.
Pricing: Mailchimp offers 1000 monthly email sends on its free plan. So, it’s recommended to go for the $10 Essentials plan which offers 5000 monthly emails, ideal for small businesses.
7. FreshBooks
One of the hassles for business owners is to deal with the paperwork and finances. Even if you know the books and accounts, you would certainly need help to do your taxes and other financial activities. That’s when you need a trusty accounting app like FreshBooks.
FreshBooks is a highly intuitive double-entry accounting software that features invoicing, financial reporting, and estimates along with time tracking and project management.
Pricing: FreshBooks Lite starts at $5.70 per month and offers tracking unlimited expenses, unlimited estimates and unlimited invoices to up to 5 clients.
8. Freshdesk
Exceptional customer service is the secret to every business’ success. When you address your customer’s needs and deliver the support they require, they will definitely buy your product or service again. That makes it crucial for your business to implement help desk software like Freshdesk if you want to boost your sales.
Now, you may certainly be offering exceptional customer support on your social media and email. However, you may probably not know how many of your visitors leave your website when they aren’t satisfied or need urgent assistance before making their buying decision.
Freshdesk allows you to assign, categorize and prioritize tickets. It also enables you to automate repetitive tasks and even create a knowledge base for customers to easily help themselves in properly using the product or service.
Pricing: The free plan offers integrated ticketing across email and social media and supports up to 10 agents. It’s quite sufficient for small businesses. However, you can opt for its advanced features for $15/agent/month that offers 24/5 phone support and in-depth helpdesk report.
9. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot offers a reputable CRM for business that provides a single platform to track, analyze and manage relationships with customers, suppliers, leads and everyone in between.
Its user-interface is highly intuitive, making it easier for marketers to set up and run. HubSpot CRM is a dynamic collaboration tool that brings all the contact information in one place. It shares this information with every team member to simply interact with customers and leverage their data and past activities to deliver a better experience.
HubSpot CRM also features lead-capturing tools that help you convert visitors into highly qualified leads. For instance, it gives you a chatbot to instantly connect with your potential customers. That makes it quite easier for you to interact with your customers, answering their queries and providing support in real-time.
Pricing: Although HubSpot CRM offers a free plan which features contact and lead management and business insights. Its Starter tier offers more advanced features including 1000 marketing contacts and marketing hub starter.
10. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free, but it’s a highly critical tool for online business.
This powerful tool equips you with relevant data to ensure that your website and mobile apps work efficiently.
Google Analytics offers a comprehensive solution to elevate your online business. From identifying opportunities to improve your website content and visitor experience to tracking leads, sales and everything that could be the primary goal of your business.
It offers a plethora of features to track important metrics, including the number of visitors landed on your website, their time spent, the sources of traffic, and the type of devices they are using.
Pricing: Google Analytics is free for small businesses.
Conclusion
All these digital tools are designed to simplify your marketing endeavors by automating several of the repetitive tasks. By implementing such tools, you will be able to save time and focus on more important and mission-critical tasks at hand.
Now, you don’t have to implement all these tools all at once. Start by considering which tools can align and contribute to achieving your business goals. Finally, opt for their free plan first in order to get hands-on experience before upgrading to the premium plan.
