If you’re thinking about starting a business or already run one, you might be looking into business management software.
There are many options for business management tools that can help you to manage your company efficiently. Whether you use software to have access to better finances, invoicing, customer relationships, or just want the digital aspect of managing your business, there are good solutions available.
Social Media Listening from HootSuite
Most small businesses don’t need a mega social listening platform. A free, easy-to-use dashboard that lets you stay up-to-date on what your customers are saying should be enough. Fortunately, Hootsuite ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) offers a free version of its software that’s good enough to do the trick.
With HootSuite Free, you’ll be able to manage multiple social networks, schedule posts, and interact with your followers. You’ll also be able to track how many followers you have on each of your social networks and monitor which posts are generating the most clicks. If your business grows, you can move up to one of three premium plans, which give you access to additional profiles, analytics, and multiple users.
Email Marketing from MailChimp
MailChimp ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) is one of the best and most popular email marketing platforms on the market. Service tiers are priced depending on how many emails you send per month. If your company sends fewer than 12,000 email messages per month to fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you’ll absolutely love MailChimp’s Forever Free plan.
This steal of a deal lets you use built-in signup forms to gather subscribers from across the web. You can use MailChimp’s drag-and-drop designer and email templates to craft the perfect message. You won’t get robust reporting on the Forever Free plan, but you’ll be able to check open rates and compare them to the average company in your industry. Not bad for zero dollars.
Data Visualization from Tableau Public
If you need a data visualization tool but you don’t have the coin to spend on Tableau Desktop ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) , then you should try Tableau Public. Public is essentially the same as the full Tableau Desktop product, except you won’t be able to pull information from as many data sources as the paid version, and anything you create will be saved to a public version of Tableau’s cloud.
This product gives you access to live dashboards, responsive visuals that can be created and seen on mobile devices, and access to Google and Microsoft document managers. You can even share your visuals on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Lead Guerrilla
Picture a black box that plugs into the wall. Plug it in, turn on the switch, and qualified leads with an interaction history are automatically added into your 1CRM system – day in and day out – while the system is running. You’ll also get charts and feedback on which messages clients respond to best, so that the ‘machine’ can just get more and more effective over time.
Lead Guerrilla is a control panel for your brand’s marketing efforts, organizing your website, social media, text and email communications into a single, intuitive Marketing Automation system.1CRM-Lead Guerrilla Integration
Constant Contact
For small businesses and startups, Constant Contact is a great option. It is a cost effective tool with a very flexible pricing setup where the rates are based on the number of email contacts. But what makes it really special is that they strive to provide the extra effort to help their users become more proficient with the system by conducting live webinars, classes, and day-long courses.
The app makes it easy for businesses and individuals to gather contacts from across different databases and corral them into a unified list without breaking a sweat. Whether you are importing contacts from Gmail, Outlook or uploading a spreadsheet, Constant Contact makes it happen.
The platform also comes with hundreds of email templates that are beautifully designed so that you don’t have to waste your time building one from the ground up. Constant Contact also has a selection of awesome event management tools, social media campaign manual and features, and access to comprehensive learning materials.
MailChimp
Numerous email marketing applications exist for small businesses, but MailChimp is pretty special. It’s simple to use, comes with a nice set of templates, and even has a cool monkey mascot. What more could you ask for? For starters, A|B testing, simple reports, and workflow automation are all included as well.
1CRM
Yes, yes it’s our product. But it’s also the most powerful and feature-rich all in one small business software platform for the price, offering boatloads of value. More than just a CRM, 1CRM helps you manage your entire sales pipeline, contact lists, marketing campaigns, and even has built-in project management and order management. This means you can just use a single, all in one business management software rather than purchasing multiple products for CRM, project management, and invoicing. Best of all, you can’t beat the $8/user/month entry point for the functionality you get in return. You can get a free trial of 1CRM here.1CRM 30-Day Free Trial
Business Intelligence from Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) is available in a paid and free version for self-service business intelligence (BI). The free version limits you to 1 GB per user, which you can pay to increase to 10 GB. With this plan, your data will refresh daily, you’ll be able to scan 10,000 rows of data per hour, and you’ll be able to publish to the web.
To consume live data sources, scan millions of rows of data, or access data on a physical server, you’ll need to upgrade to Power BI Pro, which is still reasonable at $10 per user per month. The Pro version of this software also provides you with ways to collaborate with coworkers on visualizations across environments such as Microsoft Office 365.
Connecteam
When you have many deskless or remote employees, Connecteam is the best free small business tool for you. After all, it was specially designed and built to cater to these employees! Apart from being super easy to use, Connecteam enhances your daily business routine. How so? Connecteam is the leading business tool that makes it easy for managers to offer feedback, enhance engagement, track work hours easily to enhance timesheet management and payroll process, share intuitive schedules, remain transparent, and unite all workplace communication and collaboration – for free.
- Get peace of mind with GPS time tracking so when employees clock in and out from their phones, a real-time timestamp and GPS location is automatically tagged. This creates more efficient and easy to manage timesheets and payroll processes.
- Create interactive communication with group or one-on-one chat and share GIFs, videos, and pictures. Decide whether your team can engage with your update with likes and comments or if it’s a one-way announcement to keep everyone on the same page.
- Share an efficient job schedule when you easily assign a schedule (use drag & drop, templates, etc.) that’s based on different requirements. For each shift, offer additional key information so your team has everything available in a tap like address, tasks to complete, time, and more. Employees can accept or reject shifts, check-in when they show up to the site, and more – while on the go!
- Manage reports on the go and in real-time like an incident report, expense reimbursement, operational checklists, and more so you can ensure compliance from top-to-bottom.
- Boost engagement through announcements, newsletters, and updates that you can segment per group and channel to avoid information overload. Share goals met, new sales landed, key protocols, and more.
- Offer a better training & onboarding experience so your team has direct access to training resources, such as the employee handbook, safety protocols, benefits, etc.
- Use the searchable employee directory to keep all work contacts on the app instead of your personal phone, easily find the contact needed with a quick search (name, job title, location, etc.) and quickly engage with the contact through action buttons like a phone call, email, or chat.
Best CRM Software – Bitrix24
If you’re looking for a CRM software that doubles as a task management tool, Bitrix24 might be your answer! Bitrix24 provides a unified platform for CRM, task management, documents management, and team collaboration.
The tool provides basic client management and marketing automation capabilities to small and mid-sized businesses in its Free version. But, add in a few bucks and you’ll get access to some solid customer relationship management features, along with integrations for email marketing.
Furthermore, Bitrix24 comes with distinct CRM solutions for different teams enabling them to track their sales pipeline, automate marketing, and provide customer support through multiple communication channels.
Key Features
- Lead management
- Sales reports
- Email marketing
- CRM pipeline management
- Customer contact center (chat, email, phone, etc.)
- Invoicing
- Task management
- Multiple third-party application integrations
Pricing Plans
- Bitrix24 comes with Free and paid plans. The paid plans start from $35, but you can also get a full-featured CRM software for $69 per month.
Google Docs (& Friends)
You can’t write about free online services without mentioning Google, so we’re going to start with the Internet giant everyone knows. This is a great tool when you need to collaborate on files.
When it comes to sharing files and collaborating on documents, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the way to go. The files are stored in your Google Drive and are a wonderful way to avoid those endless back-and-forth emails when collaborating on various documents.
Conclusion
There are many programs you can choose to manage your small business. Whether you’re looking for free, open source or paid software to run your business, the list is really long.