10 Must-have Tools to Grow Your Small Business

Running a small business is tough. You play the role of almost all departments, managing every part of it. It’s an exhausting job, but luckily, technology has made life easy for business owners.

There are tools created that will lighten the workload of small businesses. Some of these tools can be free while others with a small price to pay.

Tools For Small Businesses

1. Google Analytics

Part of knowing if your business website is working or not is to check your website’s performance. You have to see how your website is dealing with the traffic coming in. You can do this by using Google’s free tool, Google Analytics.

Google Analytics allows users to check on their website’s performance by monitoring the number of traffic and where they mostly came from.

Studying your website’s performance can help you with the content you need and which audience you can target for your business.

2. Mailchimp

Email marketing is one of the oldest online marketing strategies used. It’s even more effective than other digital marketing techniques. It has one of the highest ROI, reaching up to $40 with every dollar spent.

If you utilize email marketing as one of your business marketing strategies or you’re planning to try it, using a tool to help you with it will be beneficial.

MailChimp is the ultimate tool you can use to promote your business. It’s an automation tool that will assist in sending out emails to your target customers. Also, MailChimp helps in gathering data of your audience and create personalized content for them.

Personalization will increase the chances of customers buying from your business, as they are presented with the things that they want.

They offer a free plan, but their paid plans have more features. The price begins at $9.99.

3. Hootsuite

Aside from email marketing, social media is another marketing strategy often used by marketing professionals. It’s free, easy to use, and there are a lot of potential customers here.

There are billions of active social media users daily. With these numbers, it’s not a surprise to see why marketing experts like to get their hands in social media. But handling numerous social media accounts is difficult, let alone the need to post content daily.

A tool like Hootsuite can do the job of managing your business social media accounts. You can use it to schedule posts for your various social media platforms. Also, you can monitor the performance of your post and find out who is talking about your brand.

They have a free plan that can manage three social media accounts. Their premium plan starts at $19 per month for ten social media accounts.

4. Leadpages

It’s not easy to convert visitors to customers. You need tools that will assist you with it. You don’t want your customers to end on your landing page and then move out without them visiting your website.

But now, you don’t have to worry because you can use tools like Leadpages to help you with the conversion.

Leadpages is a tool that allows small businesses to collect leads and turn them to customers. You can now increase your sales with this tool.

Also, Leadpages has Facebook Ad Builder and email marketing support.

Their paid plans start at $37 a month. If availed for a year, it starts at $25 a month.

5. Slack

Even in a small business, communication is vital. You need to interact with your employees, no matter how small it is, to make things work out and to make the workflow smooth. But sometimes, it gets tough.

Email can be an excellent tool for communication, but sometimes messages get lost. That’s why most work can’t be done. But now, a new tool will help you when communicating with your workers.

Slack is a communication tool that makes it easy to relay on messages to your employees. It allows the creation of channels for departments. Your employees can now communicate base on the projects they are managing, and they don’t have to receive messages they don’t need.

Slack’s paid plan starts at $6.67 per month.

6. Canva

If you don’t want to spend much on graphic designing, you can manage your own by using Canva. It allows newbies or even professionals when creating banners, social media posts, ads, and more. There hundreds of templates available, which will make it easy for users to create anything they need for their business.

Canva has a free plan with limited templates and elements, but there’s still a lot to choose from. Their paid plan starts at $12.95 a month, but when availed annually, it will cost $9.95 a month.

7. DropBox

The sharing of files now comes easy with the use of DropBox. It’s cloud-based file storage that allows anyone with access to the account to check on files and edit it.

You can now carry your work wherever you go.

Other features of DropBox:

• Content suggestion allows users to continue the work they need.
• Integration of tools such as Zoom, Slack, and more
• Allows organization of meetings
• You can use DropBox for free or avail one of their paid plans which start at $9.99 a month.

8. Evernote

Great ideas come in when you’re busy doing something else. That’s why a pen and notebook must always come in handy. But of course, it’s inconvenient to carry it all the time, and you could also accidentally leave it anywhere. So, what better way to write down your idea is through Evernote.

Evernote is more than a note-taking app. It has features such as cloud storage, can be managed in any device, sharing and collaborating with other co-workers, and you can add media, like videos or images.

Other features of Evernote:

• Integration with other apps
• Search for handwritten documents
• Set reminders
• Edit documents

Evernote is free, but you can avail of their paid plans if you want to experience more of their features.

9. Xero

If you manage your accounting department, you know that it’s a daunting task. But you don’t have to worry anymore because there have been tools created for such.

Xero is a cloud-based software that allows small businesses to run their accounting department. You can manage your bills, finance, invoices, and track sales of your business. And, since it’s cloud-based, you can work anywhere with any device you have.

Their paid plans start at $20 a month.

10. Buzzsumo

Last in the list of tools you can use for your small business is Buzzsumo. It’s a tool you can use to manage your online marketing content.

Features of Buzzsumo:

• Search content that will drive more traffic to your website.
• Allows collaboration with influencers by looking for the right one for your niche.
• Monitor how your content is going and what you can do with it.

Buzzsumo’s price starts at $99 a month, but you save up to 20% if you avail it annually.

Conclusion

Managing your small business doesn’t have to be difficult. You can now use tools that can assist you in making the workflow smooth and branding easy. You don’t need to wear all the hats in your business anymore. Lighten your workload with these affordable tools, and focus some of your time in parts that your business needs.