Whether your business is well-established or a part of the 800,00 new incorporations set up in the UK each year, every business owner or wannabe entrepreneur should recognize that growth and success are vital for any business venture. However, in our rapidly evolving world, achieving growth and success is only possible by using the right online tools.
With the right online tools, businesses can streamline their day-to-day operations, set themselves apart from their competitors, improve efficiency, and much more. However, with the impressive range of digital tools, it can be challenging for business owners to determine which ones will benefit their business the most and stay up-to-date with the latest tools. To help business owners stay ahead of the curve, we’ve created this article outlining several of the best online tools to improve your business in 2023.
From project management software like Trello and communication/collaboration software like Slack to improving your document management processes using PDF tools like a PDF compressor and email marketing tools like Mailchimp, this list of online tools will help you optimize your day-to-day operations and take your organization to new heights.
Document Management: PDF Tools
At the heart of every business exists a paper trail of hundreds if not thousands of documents, as information is shared, stored, and sent. From non-disclosure agreements and employment contracts to invoices and bank statements, there is a document for practically every business process you can imagine, highlighting the importance of proper document management processes.
A proper document management system ensures that employees can find, send, store, and share information without creating chaos or confusion. While some businesses still use traditional document management methods such as filing cabinets etc., in our digital age, many organizations have switched to digital processes, which allow for fewer miscommunication risks, foster better collaboration between employees, streamline project workflows, and many other benefits.
However, despite all these benefits, digital document management processes aren’t exempt from becoming overrun. But this risk is significantly reduced with PDF tools like the ones from Smallpdf. For instance, using their PDF compressor, you can shrink the size of your electronic documents, which enables more of them to be stored in one place and allows for more efficient organization.
With over twenty PDF tools, consider visiting their website to browse all their tools, read customer testimonials, read related articles, and more. Or contact them directly for specific information and learn how their PDF tools could help your business improve your document management processes today.
Also read: The Benefits of Digitizing Your Documents For Small Business
Social Media Management: Hootsuite
Most of the UK population can’t go daily without checking their socials. Whether it’s scrolling through your TikTok ‘for you’ page and discovering which meme is making the internet laugh the most today or using Facebook to stalk a girl you used to go to primary school with, social media has become embedded in our personal lives and overtime in our professional ones as well.
With as many as 57.10 million recorded social media users in the UK as of January this year, it would be foolish for any modern-day organization not to take advantage of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., to attract leads, promote new services/products, connect with their customer base, collaborate with like-minded businesses, and much more.
However, creating and maintaining a robust social media platform can be challenging in our digital age without the help of a social media manager or platforms like Hootsuite. This tool in your social media management toolkit makes it easier for your team to schedule and manage posts across multiple platforms by keeping them in one space.
As well as making it easier for your team to create regular and engaging content across all your social media pages, it also allows you access to eye-opening analytics, which can help you determine whether your efforts are affecting your company’s social media presence positively or negatively. Using these analytics and reporting features, you can choose which direction your social media team should go in next to achieve your desired outcomes.
Effectively using social media management platforms, your company can create a robust social media presence that will set you apart from your competitors, convert leads into customers, save you time/effort, increase efficiency, and foster a stronger bond between you and your customers by creating open lines of communication.
Email Marketing: Mailchimp
While many would like to tell you that email marketing has been made redundant by all the other forms of marketing available today, we’re here to tell you that email marketing is still alive and well! And it’s still one of the most used forms of business marketing to date. While email marketing is heralded as one of the top marketing channels due to its affordability, stability, and control, this isn’t to say that it can’t be improved using digital tools like Mailchimp.
Using an email marketing platform, your business’s marketing team can create and automate email marketing campaigns with a button click. Not only this, but they can also save time/effort in designing since most email marketing platforms include templates that can be personalized depending on your organization’s needs and the effect you want your latest campaign to create.
Not only this, but most also offer other design options, segmentation options, and analytical insights which can help your marketing team track the progress of your latest campaign and identify areas of improvement that you can implement in your next marketing project for better success. Using an email marketing platform also offers businesses other benefits, such as the following:
- It makes it easier to deliver and create personalized marketing campaigns.
- It’s an effective tool for converting leads into customers.
- It allows you to communicate with your audience quickly.
- It makes gathering feedback and surveys relating to the customer experience much more straightforward.
- It acts as a tool to drive more traffic to your website.
- It allows you to reach more people since emails can be checked anytime and sent to anyone – and much more!
Also read: 10 Ways to Essential Data-Driven B2B Email Marketing Strategies
Communication And Collaboration: Slack
Even post-pandemic, the hype surrounding remote/hybrid working has not dampened. It has been revolutionary for many UK businesses and kept their day-to-day operations functioning during times of uncertainty. However, with half of your workforce working from home, and the others stationed at your headquarters, remote/hybrid working has created some barriers in the way of communication.
Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to communicate with someone, and it can create obstacles that can affect your workforce’s productivity. Yet, using communication/collaboration platforms like Slack has made it easier for remote/hybrid organizations to foster an open line of communication and allow staff to collaborate, whether in the office or at home.
Most communication platforms offer features like real-time messaging, file-sharing, and other collaboration features that enable your workforce to be more productive and keep lines of communication open. You can even create different channels to ensure that questions are being asked in the right places and that individual teams can work together better.
For instance, if you don’t want general chit-chat and water cooler conversation to clutter up main channels, you could consider creating a ‘random’ channel that enables your workforce to communicate when they’ve got a spare minute or are on their break. Or create channels for specific work tasks or departments to ensure everyone stays connected and informed.
Leave a comment