Are You Using These Easy-to-Use Tech Tools to Build Your Business?

We often take technology for granted. But can you imagine going back to the way we lived and ran our businesses, even just a few years ago? As a manager, tech tools certainly can make your life easier, if you know how to leverage them.

How tech tools can make your business life easier

Finances

The concept of balancing a checkbook is all but extinct these days. Most of us don’t physically log our expenses and income in those tiny paper books, but instead use accounting software like FreshBooks to connect with our bank accounts online, send invoices, and pay our staff.

And what about banking apps for your phone? Many banks offer the ability to deposit a check by taking a photo of it, saving us the time it once took to drive to the bank, stand in line, and make that same deposit.

Marketing

Where billboards, phone book ads, and direct mail once ruled the world of marketing, we now can reach even more potential customers for less money through tools like social media, online advertising, and content marketing.

But depending on how tech savvy you are, you can get even more efficient with online marketing technology. Social media platforms like Hootsuite help minimize the amount of time you spend updating your various social media channels, and Google Analytics provides a plethora of useful data you can study to better understand your website traffic. Thanks to these tech tools, we can really understand how our marketing efforts are working (or not), and which channels are worth investing more in.

Management

Even how you manage your employees is easier, thanks to technological innovations. You can use your phone to schedule employees’ shifts or perform employee evaluations and reviews using software.

You, of course, have email to communicate with, but that’s not always the best solution for your needs. If you manage projects that involve multiple team members, project management software like Podio will let you manage tasks, set deadlines, and communicate project details to your staff. Internal instant messaging tools are also helpful.

Sales

We have more capabilities to understand our customers these days, thanks to customer relationship management software like Insightly. We can monitor customer behaviors, such as what sites they’re visiting and their actions on these sites, and make decisions about what to do next to push a lead down that sales pipeline.

And while email marketing isn’t new, its capabilities are. We can now customize—beyond simply inserting the recipient’s name in an email—to really cater to what a contact wants in terms of special offers and content.

Make your life easier with technology tools

If you’re not leveraging technology in your role as a manager, you’re making your work harder than it has to be. These tools are there for the taking, and most are free or affordable for small businesses.

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