To run a profitable business, a company must exhibit certain criteria some of which include: unique products/services that solve a problem, healthy atmosphere in which employees can work, incentives for both customers and employees, and good customer service and care.
That being said, these are not enough. Many of the issues businesses — large, medium, and small — face today is how to organize their advertising and task management needs in a cost-effective way. The main word here being “cost-effective,” especially for small and new businesses.
It does a business no good to increase costs at the expense of decreased growth. So, how can a business increase growth while decreasing costs in their marketing and implementation process. Simple, tools!
Online Tools
There are many online tools today, both free and paid, that can increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and cost-savings of a company’s marketing endeavors. These tools, most of them which can be found online, are easy to set up and easy to use.
In the following section, we have included 5 tools which are sure to help any business increase their digital marketing campaigns and daily tasks without breaking the bank.
The point of all these tools is to make technology work for your business and free you up to focus on what you need to do to spur on more business growth.
Website
When it comes to marketing online, you will do your business a great disservice by not having a website. Even if you are a brick-and-mortar shop and do all your business offline, a website can increase visibility and attract potential customers and clients who might have never heard of your company had you not had an online presence.
Businesses today are using online advertising more than traditional advertising mediums because of its ability to laser-target their core audiences (ideal customers) in the most economical ways possible.
From 2016 to 2017 digital media advertising increased by 30%, while print and TV media increased by only 5-8% respectively.
That being the case, it is of great importance to at least spend some of your budget, both time and money, to implement a solid digital marketing plan which begins with creating a website – a place to drive online traffic (visitors) in order to create awareness about your brand and business.
Creating a website these days is very simple. Here are the basic steps for doing so:
- Choose/Register a domain name (most likely your company name).
- Choose a hosting platform (where your website files will be stored). These days many domain name registrars offer hosting plans, so you can keep both your domain names and website files with the same company.
- Decide on the content you will provide on your website.
- Design a logo for your website (use your company logo, if you already have one).
- Design your site or get a designer to do it for you. *** There are many free-site creators available today that make it easy to drag-and-drop elements for your website design. Best of all, most of them are free.
Business Listing App
The Yellow Pages used to be a great way to advertise a business back in the day. However, today hardly anyone uses it. There is, however, an online version supported by the number one online presence: Google.
Google allows you to freely advertise your business with their Google My Business App. Every Time a person searches for your business or a similar business, your listing will appear right on the first page of Google. How cool is that?
With this app, you can update or edit your business listing as often as you like. Some of the added features and benefits of this tool include the following:
- Ability to create a free business website.
- Ability to post offers to your listings.
- Business listing analytics so you can track customer visits and behaviors.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
As a business grows, it gets harder and more expensive to keep crucial customer data organized. This is where CRM software comes into play.
Customer data software helps businesses save and track customer information so that the company can detect patterns, spot trends, and market to their customers in a more personalized manner.
Some of the key benefits of employing CRM software are as follows:
- Easy access to customer data.
- Efficiently locate financial and marketing opportunities.
- Helps to build better relationships with customers.
- Analyzes important business metrics that can increase customer conversion and customer satisfaction.
- Keeps track of sales and sales reps.
Business Intelligence (BI) Tools
Business Intelligence adds upon the data collected through CRM software in that it is able to compile various sets of data from various sources and interpret the data to come up with algorithms that help a company’s decision-makers to make better decisions.
BI tools can really assist a business in their “scale-up” efforts as they radically reduce the amount of time and effort it takes for employees to gather and analyze customer data.
Some of the key benefits of BI tools include:
- Maintenance of inventory.
- Business metrics analysis.
- Trend spotting for better marketing.
- Logical predictions based on patterns.
- Easily accessible information throughout all channels within a business.
- Reduction of errors made by manual input.
Womply
If you are looking for an all-in-one solution for your small business’s online needs, then Womply is probably going to be your best bet.
Womply is a software that assists small businesses in keeping their online reputation secure, increasing customer engagement, and tracking the major metrics of their business. It basically, does all the things a small business has to do in order to spark further growth and maintain it well into the future.
Some of the specific ways in which this software is able to contribute to a company’s growth, especially those companies who are just starting out or who want to make their small business bigger, are as follows:
- Hosts a singular platform where you can read and respond to all of your online reviews.
- Secures more reviews from current customers.
- Signals alerts about posts mentioning your business (either positively or negatively) so you can respond immediately if you have to.
- Stores all your customer data in one place.
- Email system that sends out automated emails to customers and leads.
- Supplies reports on how customers in your market spend their money.
- Records & reads every card transaction that takes place in your business.
- Compares your business with other local businesses in your same industry.
- Measures customer behavior (spending) in your locality.
This single piece of software is able to do all the basic functions a small business needs to do to not only survive in today’s digital environment but to also scale up for exponential growth.
Summary
The truth is that all businesses are going digital — everything is going online. Therefore, companies, small businesses, in particular, have got to invest and incorporate in both free and paid tools to streamline daily functions and free-up manpower to focus on growth strategies and customer service.
Using the above five tools is a great place to start employing technology to work for your business instead of the other way around.
