As a small business owner, you’re looking for ways to lower costs, improve the bottom line, and free up time. Because we all only have 24 hours in the day, entrepreneurs need to focus on tasks that will have the most significant impact on the business. Luckily, there are various types of software on the market to assist small business owners juggling different departments.
If you don’t have the overhead to delegate your repetitive (yet crucial) tasks, consider outsourcing to tech tools to do the job for you. The goal is to scale your business, so what are five tools to help you do just that while saving your time?
1. Social media management
Social media is a whirlwind of content being distributed to you from different channels—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Tik Tok, to name a few. Your business will benefit from having a presence on social media but with a well-laid-out strategy.
Once you decide which social media channels your target audience is interacting on, then begin researching a social media management platform to assist. Convenience is key! Social media management software provides you an all-in-one: monitor channels, schedule posts, report analytical data, respond to messages, and track growth on one dashboard.
There are great tools on the market such as Hootsuite, Social Sprout, and Buffer; all allow you to push out content seamlessly without manually posting on each channel. This saves you time as you invest in your online brand growth.
2. Customer relationship management (CRM)
Focusing on managing your customer relationships benefits your business. It gives you insight as you envision scaling or growing your business. Keeping track of your customer list and purchasing market demographics can be a difficult task. You don’t have to do it yourself.
You want to ensure that the CRM system you choose fits your business size, industry, and needs. A few popular software include HubSpot, Salesforce, and Nimble.
With a solid CRM system in place, you can better organize your customer database, improve customer retention, and get valuable business insights. Additionally, it will benefit your internal team with better reporting, documentation, and communication.
3. Email marketing
There’s a long list of types of emails your customers and leads should be getting: value-added newsletters, product releases and improvements, drip campaigns, and more. Whether you’re running a one-(wo)man-show or lean team, the time spent creating and sending these emails manually will add up quickly. However, they are vital.
Utilizing a tool like HubSpot or Mailchimp will make your business look more professional and polished—without any extra effort. All you need to do is initially spend time designing, copyrighting, and setting up the email series. Once you have these emails automated, you’ll never have to give them a second thought (until you decide to update them).
4. Accounting and invoicing software
When it’s time to ask for payment from a client or customer, you could design an invoice in Microsoft Word. But the manual effort isn’t sustainable as your business grows. There are some real benefits of using accounting platforms that send out invoices, send clients receipts, track past-due payments, and calculate monthly and yearly totals.
With a virtual mailbox, you’re able to sync your incoming mail and checks to accounting software for easy invoicing, collecting credit card payments, and tracking revenue. There are many options available to choose from, some even offer free services, such as Quickbooks.
5. Mail management
Ever heard of a virtual mailbox? In short, it makes your postal mail paperless. With a virtual mailbox and address from Earth Class Mail, a LegalZoom company, our trained employees sort and scan your incoming mail and important documents at one secure, access-controlled facility. Your mail becomes high-resolution PDFs that you can easily download, share, or forward with the click of a button—from anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
And, if you or your business receives checks regularly, Earth Class Mail offers a check deposit request feature as an optional add-on. With all of your business mail accessible in the cloud, there are endless ways to customize your experience.
