Starting a business is a big deal; you’ll need all the help you can get to keep that business going and reduce the burden on yourself. If you’re running a small business, you’re probably up against more established businesses or competitors with sizable teams, resources, and fat budgets. Fortunately, the modern business world has many tools you can take advantage of to help your startup business thrive and compete. One of the best ways to boost your chances of success is to identify and use the right tools to aid your business growth. The best part is that most of these tools are either available for free or are budget-friendly. So, have you just started a new small business, or are you in the process of setting one up? Here are some of the essential tools your startup business should have.
Project management tools
A project management tool or software is crucial if your business schedule is stacked with loads of daily activities. These tools allow you to digitally track all your appointments, meetings, deadlines, and other business activities without worrying about manually writing them down. You can also set most of these tools to automatically send reminders when deadlines are drawing near, when your next meeting is due or the projects you’re currently working on. Different project management tools like a work schedule maker make it easy to schedule your employees’ tasks and let every worker know what is expected of them. So, you are bound to find a management tool to cater to your business’s various management needs.
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools
Your customers are at the center of your new business, and managing your relationship with them is crucial for business success. That’s why business startups need the right customer relationship management (CRM) tools. CRM tools are designed to help you track, measure, and manage all aspects of your dealings with your customers. For example, you can closely monitor your customers and analyze their demands with CRM tools. You can also identify which areas of your services or products need improving and which products your customers prefer the most. These tools can also improve customer relations, help you offer better services, improve customer retention, and increase sales and productivity.
Social media management tools
It’s no secret the impact social media has when it comes to helping businesses get the online visibility they need. You also don’t have to look far to see how social media marketing has become a key part of most businesses marketing efforts. With about 4.62 billion people actively engaged in the social media space, it offers a wide range of potential customers to reach out to. But social media management can be very time consuming and even frustrating sometimes. There are also so many social media platforms that hold potential benefits for your new business. That’s why you need the right tools in your arsenal. And social media tools can help your startup. The right social media tools can help you manage multiple social media pages in less time. You can also monitor your social performance and level of engagement with your online followers, organize conversations, give updates on your business, and so much more. These tools also ensure you never miss anything important.
Financial management tools
Keeping track of your finances is a major part of running any small business startup. Your ability or otherwise to track your finances plays a part in the success or demise of your startup. Even small business startups must deal with taxes, expense tracking, payroll, invoicing, and accounting responsibilities. You may not have the funds to hire a team of expert accountants to handle your business’s bookkeeping tasks. Still, you can find several financial management tools that you can use to handle basic tasks even without financial training.
Web design tools for startup businesses
A professional and well-functioning website is crucial for any startup in the modern business world. While you can find several free platforms that allow you to create easy and cheap websites, an amateur-looking website hardly inspires any confidence in potential customers. If you have the funds to hire a professional website designer, that’s great. But if funding is an issue, look for website design tools and platforms that allow you to create your professional website or online store without any coding experience.
E-signature tools
Almost everything part of business administrative duties has been digitized. And that includes contracts, invoices, and agreements. A reliable e-signature tool will come in handy when you need to sign electronic copies of important contracts, agreements, or other business documents without printing them. Most e-signature tools allow you to add or assign due dates for the needed signatures and send automatic reminders to parties yet to add their signatures.
Email marketing tools and software
Even with numerous digital marketing strategies, email marketing remains relevant. And by every indication, email marketing is here to say, so you may as well take advantage of it. And the best way to do so is to equip yourself with an email marketing tool or software. Today, you’ll find many email marketing tools that do much more than simply allow you to send newsletters. You can find free email tools with automated messages, newsletter templates, and mobile-friendly designs to choose from. You can also find options that allow you to track and analyze the performance of targeted email campaigns.
Other marketing tools
Aside from an email marketing tool or software, investing in other digital marketing tools to boost your marketing efforts makes sense. As a startup, you need to give your new business all the push it needs to catch up with your competitors and give your new brand the online visibility it needs.
It’s safe to suggest that few new businesses can thrive without online marketing. But many online marketing tools give you more than simply promoting your new business. For example, there are several marketing tools that allow you to track how effective your marketing campaigns are, so you can make the needed changes. You can also use many marketing tools to gauge the effectiveness of your social media posts, use search engine optimization (SEO) tools the right way, and automate marketing campaigns to improve your conversion rates.
Sales tools
Your social media strategies, marketing campaigns, and customer relationship management aim to help your startup business make the sales it needs to grow. You want to be able to convert interested prospects into paying customers as often as you can. A sales tool is any software that improves your sales process, making the sales process cheaper, faster, and better. Many sales tools are also designed to improve the chance of converting prospects into buying customers. The right sales tools will also improve sales productivity and success rates.
Communication and collaboration tools
While emails and old-fashioned telephone calls can work pretty well for a startup business, they can quickly slow you down as your business grows. A faster way to communicate is important. Therefore, using various modern or digital communication tools to allow instant communication, collaboration, and file sharing is a great idea. Modern communication tools can help you give quick, real-time responses to customers, communicate with partners and workers instantly, hold online conferences at any time, and stay in touch with any aspect of your business even when you’re on the go. Some of the most common modern communication tools include video call software and apps, social media, social media direct messaging, and instant messaging apps, to mention a few.
What do you think?