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Building a Business from the Ground Up? 10 Useful Apps to Use
Small businesses are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to competing with bigger companies in their industry – smaller budgets, less people to do vital processes, the list can go on.
But this doesn’t mean small businesses can’t compete at all.
If you intend to even the odds a bit, the following 10 platforms can help you get more done with less.
Optimizely
A/B testing is a process every company with a digital presence should be taking seriously and using often.
Optimizely makes testing simple for those with no tech chops by providing an easy way to measure which web page variant works best with your target audience.
For those unfamiliar with A/B testing, as its name suggests, you get two options to test out, A and B:
- The software selects one page to show a user when they arrive at your site.
- The next user then gets the other version.
- Over time, you’ll have plenty of feedback to know which variant has the most impact on your site visitors.
Wilogo
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Every company needs a logo.
Take Nike, for instance.
The swoosh, also known as the Nike tick, is one of the most recognizable logos in the world.
And then there’s Starbucks’ mermaid, Firefox’s fiery fox, Playboy’s black bunny, Apple’s apple, and Coca-Cola’s script logo.
These are brand properties people are likely to recognize anywhere. While it’s true that brand value is not just about the logo, in business, brands that are top of mind are generally the brands that snag a bigger portion of the market.
If you lack a logo, you’re missing out on the advantages of branding, but if you lack a quality logo, you may alienate a lot of customers as well. They’ll wonder about your level of professionalism.
This is where Wilogo comes in handy.
Wilogo doesn’t require that you suddenly get really good at wielding a stylus. Instead, it puts you in touch with countless designers and gives you a user-friendly interface through which you can make a decision.
Basically a crowdsourcing platform that lets you run design contests, there are three options to choose from:
- Basic, which is ideal for small businesses, for about 30 designs
- Business for an average of 100 designs
- Premium for roughly 200 designs from only the site’s top designers
Designs and logos can be used for your website, products, company mascot, packaging, product labels, shirt visuals, and so on.
Rerun
It doesn’t matter which industry you’re in.
One way to make it easy for customers to do business with you is through the ability to take their payments wherever they are in the world.
Rerun is an online payment platform that can process credit card payments as well as bank transfers.
Your customers can change or edit their transactions as necessary, particularly if anything goes wrong, including if someone stole their information to make a payment.
Rerun can be used for single payments or recurring charges, the latter a clear benefit for companies running subscription services.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce is a software manufacturer known for putting out incredible products to help even the smallest outfits go toe-to-toe with much larger competitors.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is one example. This suite covers a whole host of things including:
- Lead scoring
- Case management
- Opportunity tracking
- Reports
- Sales forecasting
- Collaboration
- Email integration
- Workflow and approvals
- Document management
- Marketing automation
As it’s cloud-based, it can be accessed from any device, anytime, anywhere.
Pricing options vary, depending on the features your organization needs.
Smartsheet
The moment you bring in additional people is the moment to invest in project management software.
Smartsheet is a collaboration software that simplifies the way you manage your projects, tasks, staff, conversations, files, calendars, and reports.
It’s equipped with visual tools like Gantt charts and color codes that show you, at a glance, how tasks and projects are progressing.
With Smartsheet, you know what everyone’s up to without resorting to numerous meetings or project briefings that keep your team away from the actual work.
Zoho People
Another platform to look into as your business grows in size is Zoho People.
The app is a solution that organizes and automates your company’s HR processes.
It functions as a centralized hub where your employees can:
- Access an employee portal they can use to log in/out of work
- Update their employee profile
- Access leave reports and payroll data
It’s also equipped with manager portals for:
- Time tracking
- Attendance management
- Knowledge sharing
WordStream
No matter your company size, no matter the type of business you engage in, to truly compete, you have to be found online.
WordStream is an online advertising service that covers:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- Managed services
- Agency services, if you run a digital marketing agency
The app provides tools such as PPC reports, analytics, keyword research, geo-targeting, landing page optimizers, and more.
LinkedIn Marketing
Most people don’t fully appreciate how great LinkedIn is as a search engine.
While it’s technically a social media platform, it’s being used more and more by businesses and professionals seeking specific solutions.
To further leverage the power of LinkedIn, there’s LinkedIn Marketing, which offers services such as:
- Lead acceleration
- Sponsored updates
- Sponsored InMail
- Display ads
- Text ads
LinkedIn Marketing helps with brand building, ad targeting, and lead generation.
Thingamablog
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Just about every business should be investing in a blog on their website.
You might think your industry doesn’t lend itself to this kind of thing, but you’d be surprised how many companies bring in new business because they use blogging to their benefit.
Thingamablog is a cross-platform blogging application that functions as a standalone solution, meaning you don’t have to pay for a MySQL database or a third-party web host like you would with other blog platforms.
It’s free, open source, and works with any system with Java installed.
Designed for non-techies, Thingamablog:
- Supports multiple blogs
- Allows users to create unique page layouts from customizable templates
- Enables blog syndication via Atom or RSS feed
- Supports remote publishing via email
- Lets users set up flexible archiving options
Sage CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) software allows businesses to engage with customers and maintain profitable relationships with them for years to come.
Built for growing organizations, Sage CRM is a small business CRM solution that’s equipped with the following features:
- Sales acceleration
- Targeted marketing
- Email marketing
- Social CRM
- Mobile CRM
- Sage ERP integration
- Sage CRM Builder for activities such as events planning, competitor tracking, and employee training
Sage CRM can be deployed as a SaaS-based or on-premise application.
Final word
Don’t become a small business that fails simply because you’re not using the right tools. Instead, start putting one or two of the above to work for you, and soon, you’ll understand how the others can be helpful, too.
Did you know these tools? What other tools do you like to use? Let us know in the comment section below.
The post Building a Business from the Ground Up? 10 Useful Apps to Use appeared first on Cloudswave Blog.
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