Small and family-owned businesses can benefit from using a variety of apps. While many people are familiar with app games and the like, fewer people know about business and productivity apps. Below are a few of the best apps that small businesses should be using to improve their productivity and sales.
People who work in sales or have a large variety of clients can benefit from using Customer Relationship Management apps. More than anything else, CRM Apps are used to keep employees organized. Depending on what CRM app a business uses, the employee may be able to schedule appointments, communicate with clients, and even perform marketing activities!
CRM apps are most helpful for business professionals that are constantly on the move. This is great for people who work in sales. The reason this is so helpful is that the apps can be used on phones. Since most people have a smartphone in their pockets at all times, they can carry the app with them at all times too. This way, the employee does not need to go to a computer or carry around a bulky laptop to keep up to date with clients.
If your business is heavily involved with social media (namely Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), then you may want to invest in using Buffer or a similar social media management app. Like many apps, these come in a variety of price ranges. Buffer, in particular, has both free and paid versions of the app and website. On this app and similar apps, businesses can write their social media posts and schedule them to be posted at a specific time.
This can be a great tool for marketing on social media. If your business makes its own advertisements, then an employee can use a social media management app to post the advertisements on a scheduled basis. However, if a business is paying a website to post advertisements for them, then one of these apps may not work the same way.
Whether your small business has a professional accountant or not, it can be extremely helpful for businesses to use a money management (sometimes called bookkeeping) app. These apps can help to keep track of both income and expenses. Like any other kind of app, these apps range from being totally free to use to having a fee associated with them. Either way, if you use one of these apps, it’s best that you make sure the app has everything your business needs included.
Some money management apps are simple, in that they only do calculations for income and expenses after you add in the numbers manually. Other apps can do more complicated things like create invoices and expense reports. The more things a bookkeeping app can do, the more expensive it is likely to be. However, the more things it can do, the more the app can help to strengthen a small business.
Last but not least, having an email management app is key for any small business, especially one with an online presence. Email apps are perfect for any business that regularly tries to keep in contact with customers. This can be for sending email newsletters, emails about upcoming sales and promotions, or anything else.
Before using an email management app, it is important to collect customer emails. After all, a business owner can’t email anyone without having addresses to send messages to! There are a variety of free and legal ways to collect customer email addresses. One of the best ways to do this is simply ask for customers to sign up for email alerts by having a pop-up window come up when they visit your website. Giving an incentive to customers, like giving a coupon code or discount, can encourage them to sign up.
Try any or all of these apps to help your small business to run more smoothly. If you can learn how to use this technology, your business is sure to change for the better.