21 +1 Small Business Tools for Small and Medium Enterprises and Startup Owners
It takes a lot to set up a business! Your hard work, dedication, and resources; everything works together to make the wheels turn. Speaking of resources, do you know the 23 best small business tools? Well, if you represent an SME or own a startup, then you have landed on the right page.
Small and medium enterprises come with a lot of risk factors! But if you have high ambitions then with the right resources, the journey towards the summit can be smoother.
The present scenario is quite difficult for a business of any scale. In these trying times, having the right tools in your arsenal could really help you a lot in the fight!
No matter what your business deals with, in this list, we have something for everyone. Carefully curated, keeping in mind all the avenues of your small business, this can serve as your ultimate “small business tool” guide to getting started with.
So, without any further ado, let’s dig right in!
21 +1 Small Business Tools for Startup Companies
- HootSuite
- Buffer
- CoSchedule
- MailChimp
- Boomerang
- Sumo
- Slack
- Asana
- Trello
- Wrike
- HubSpot
- Google Analytics
- Google My Business
- PiktoChart
- PixaBay
- Skype
- Me
- Evernote
- Shopify
- Gumroad
- PayPal
- Bonus: HARO (Help A Reporter Out)
1. HootSuite
Ever imagined what you would do without social media backing you up? Well, manage all the social media handles of your business seamlessly with HootSuite.
- Discover myriad possibilities that you can opt for with social media.
- Manage all the handles easily and effectively – make things neat!
- From creating important inputs for your brand to making new and fruitful business contacts, HootSuite can take care of all of them!
- Help your team to work together in one comprehensive platform and move forward towards a common goal of achieving better results from social media.
2. Buffer
Without compelling social media campaigns, your brand cannot go to the next level. Buffer helps you quickly increase the engagement level across all social media platforms.
If you have always faced trouble creating the perfect social media campaign for your brand, then this is the tool you need.
- Use this simple yet effective toolkit to create winning campaigns for social media platforms.
- Easily publish your content and get a high engagement rate in no time.
- Review your campaign in every step and make it even more engaging.
- Visualize your social media campaign and realize it with Buffer.
3. CoSchedule
For any business, saving time is equal to saving money! So what if you get a tool where you can organize every part of your business promotions and marketing, and achieve more in a relatively less amount of time?
Well, this is exactly what you can get with CoSchedule! With some of the best marketing features, more than 30,000 marketers rely on this tool for their day-to-day marketing activities.
- You have the blog calendar that can organize the timing of your blog and social media posts – plus can automate the process.
- With social media management features, the CoSchedule marketing calendar allows you to decide when to create a new marketing campaign for your brand.
- This is the perfect marketing work management software that can host everything related to your business in one place so that the entire marketing process becomes seamless and centralized.
4. MailChimp
There are a number of ways to connect with your prospective customers online. MailChimp makes the entire email marketing process simpler than ever. This is the perfect umbrella platform that hosts all the ingredients you need to set up a successful email campaign.
After all, without a comprehensive email marketing strategy, how can your business thrive?
- One of the most powerful email marketing tools, which helps you design, run, and automate conversion-optimized emails to reach and convert prospects.
- Create landing pages that can boost your sales exponentially and at the same time, improve your customer’s experience.
- Connect better with new and prospective clients. Turn your traffic into leads and consumers with easy and customizable sign-up forms, pop-ups, etc.
- Design smart digital ads that will put your brand in front of a wider audience and improve your brand’s recognition.
5. Boomerang
Sending business emails to your clients using Gmail or Outlook is now easier than ever. With Boomerang, you can now schedule your emails and even set reminders to send them later or follow-up.
It offers you absolute control over your mailbox of what you receive and what you send and the time of it.
- Take control of your inbox, schedule your emails easily, and send them at the right time.
- It lets you set a reminder if in case you don’t get a response or want to follow-up.
- The smart calendar allows you to schedule meetings with your colleagues or clients.
- Boomerang Respondable helps you write better emails that earn you better responses.
6. Sumo
Sumo is one of the most preferred free email capturing tools – widely used by millions of marketers around the world. The tool allows you to integrate it with multiple platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and Google Tag Manager.
Sumo can be really handy if you are into email marketing and is typically made keeping in mind the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
- Super easy to get started. Just install the application and activate the form.
- This is a free tool, and you won’t have to pay for it ever.
- Set up quickly and watch your subscribers grow in a jiffy!
- If you need more extensive features like A/B testing, visitor targeting, advanced analytics, e-commerce email templates, etc., you can opt-in the Sumo Pro.
7. Slack
Slack is perhaps the most effective and must-have tool in the current situation. This is a time where working remotely has almost become a necessity, and Slack makes it a lot easier for you and your team.
It manages all your communications and tools in one place and allows your team to work seamlessly anywhere anytime.
- It gives a well-organized feel to the entire business operation by bringing the teams together.
- Manages all your conversations efficiently with dedicated channels.
- Helps you focus on the important matters in hand and declutters your inbox.
- Allows you to use the shared channels to connect better with clients and people outside your company, and get the job done!
8. Asana
Staying focused on the goal is the key to success. Make your team ready and organized for the project in-hand with Asana.
This is one of the best and most preferred work management tools around the world and can do wonders for small and medium enterprises.
- Whether it’s a new product launch or marketing campaign or so on, Asana can help your team execute the tasks collaboratively.
- Follow the development of your project in every stage and make the necessary changes when needed.
- Meeting deadlines is now easier than ever!
9. Trello
It’s always fun to work together with your team. But without the right collaboration tools, the to-do list assigned to the team can look daunting and tiresome.
Fret not and boost your productivity easily with Trello. With the boon of automation to help you get through, work is now fun and easy!
- Organize and notify your team about new projects and updates painlessly.
- Easily classify information and jobs into dedicated categories and assign and find them quickly whenever you need them.
- Use the power of automation – the built-in robot in Trello can help your entire team collaborate and grow.
10. Wrike
Wrike is another fantastic work management platform, which can connect your employees with you no matter where you and they are.
With an easy collaboration option, you can now manage your projects remotely and care less about the impending deadlines.
- Turn your strategies into actions, and propagate your goals across the teams quickly and seamlessly.
- With this application, you can streamline your workflow and track the team’s performance in a given project.
- Get reports on a real-time basis and keep track of all your projects in one place.
11. HubSpot
Without perfect inbound marketing and CRM tool managing your marketing jobs, clients and their requirements are quite an uphill task. HubSpot can make the entire process much easier for your small business.
This is one of the premier marketing, sales, and service toolsets, which acts as the perfect launchpad to create a customer-oriented outlook.
- Use the free CRM to organize your business contacts and create better engagement with prospects and customers.
- The CMS Hub can work as the perfect all-in-one content management platform as it offers unique features for the marketers, empowers developers, and provides a seamless experience to the customers as well.
- The Marketing and Sales Hub is an impeccable platform to increase traffic and leads, and convert them into sales.
12. Google Analytics
Attaining high rankings on Google search results can jump-start your business immediately and push it to new heights in no time!
In order to do that you need data insights that can improve your entire SEO process. This is where Google Analytics comes into the picture.
One of the most useful tools for small businesses, especially for those who invest their blood, sweat, and tears in improving their organic search rankings, increasing targeted traffic, and boosting sales.
- Google Analytics gets you all the crucial data about your website traffic or app visitors to make it more optimized, user-friendly, and service-oriented.
- Categorize visitors based on countries, cities, browsers, devices, channels, etc. to make better and informed decisions.
- Analyze the information and data to measure the performance and further optimize it.
13. Google My Business
If your local customers can’t find your business on Google Map or local results, then definitely you need to work on your brand’s local SEO. This is exactly what Google My Business can do for you.
Just like the name suggests, the GMB tool can increase the reach of your brand or service in the local search results. By signing up, you get a ton of facilities other than just the business listing.
- Entice your prospects and expand your customer base.
- Post your brand’s photos and news to attract your target audience to your GMB profile or directly to your website.
- Allow your visitors to access your business or store direction and connect with you by several means like phone, messaging, and more!
14. PiktoChart
If you are into creative designing or need a wonderful tool to create captivating visual contents for your business with pictures and graphics, then PiktoChart is here for you.
Now, let your imagination take the steering wheel as you make terrific infographics and presentations for your business just in a few clicks.
- No matter what you wish to create, PiktoChart has a template for every need.
- Making infographics has never been this easy. Let the data tell the stories in the most engaging manner possible.
- You can also make flyers, posters, and even can print them as per your convenience.
- With Piktochart for Teams, you can collaborate with your design team members and screen the creatives on the go.
15. PixaBay
This is one of the most useful tools for content creators, marketers, bloggers, and small businesses. If your business has an ongoing requirement of hundreds of stock photos that are entirely free of royalty, then this is it!
PixaBay offers some of the best photos you need to create engaging content and visuals for your company’s blog or social media campaigns.
- 7 million high-quality stock images to choose from for your brand’s creative needs.
- Bunch of royalty-free illustrations, vectors, videos, and music shared by talented creators and communities, all ready to use.
16. Skype
Simple, effective, and useful: That’s Skype for you!
This is one of the most preferred communication applications around and a favorite for small business owners across the world. Loaded with features, it allows you to connect with your peers, partners, clients, or employees all over the globe on the go!
- Experience seamless, high-quality video calling with 50 people at a time with call reactions.
- Use the live subtitles option to comprehend better during the video calls.
- Record your Skype calls and screen easily for future reference and use.
- With surprisingly low call-rates you can now call mobile phones and landline numbers around the world easily.
- It allows you to own a local phone number in another region or country, and lets you answer the calls using Skype. Isn’t it great for a small business aspiring to penetrate another location?
17. Join.Me
In this ongoing crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic, working remotely is the only way to keep the work going. If you are an owner of a small business or startup company, then you have to take some necessary measures swiftly to abstain your business from incurring a hit.
Tools like Join.me can make this possible. It offers you simple yet easy and effective toolsets to make audio and video conferencing to communicate with all your remote employees, partners, prospects, clients, and customers.
Apart from just conference calls, this application holds a ton of other features.
- You can schedule calls and meetings and invite your joinees with your personalized branded links.
- It allows you to hold a training session, or pitch a proposal to your client, or close a deal, or interact with your customers remotely.
- Use the mobile whiteboard and screen-sharing option to make the remote meeting much more organized and productive.
18. Evernote
Notes, notes, and notes! Well, you have penned down a bunch of notes, but in the moment of an emergency, you can’t find the information you need desperately! Then, what’s the point of making them?
Organize your PC and just have Evernote to take all your important notes in place.
- Easily take your notes and find them seamlessly later whenever you need them.
- Whether it’s your meeting, webinars, or your to-do list – note, find, and share easily with Evernote.
- Organize everything effortlessly. With Evernote around, you won’t have to go rummaging around your computer every now and then.
19. Shopify
Your business lacks an entity if it doesn’t have a website. Build an e-commerce website effortlessly with Shopify.
No matter what products your business sells, this amazing platform can help you with the perfect tools and setup to get started with your e-commerce site.
- You can use this platform to create the perfect online store for your brand and increase your sales.
- Marketing your business is very important, Shopify makes it simple!
- Track the stats of your business and get helpful insights to make it even better.
- Manage your products, categories, sales, shipping, and payments all in one place.
20. Gumroad
If you are a creator, then this tool is dedicated to you. Gumroad gives the creators a chance to explore themselves and put the best things on the table.
With this simple yet powerful e-commerce tool for creators, everything that you create beautifully does have a customer. It is a wonderful e-commerce platform loaded with features, and getting started with this tool takes just a few seconds.
- Sell your creative works to buyers from around the world.
- Thanks to the powerful in-built analytics, you can analyze your every move and increase your sales and thus business.
- With effective customer management, you can build a large consumer base in no time!
21. PayPal
While dealing with customers around the world, your small business startup needs a payment gateway that is easy to integrate and secure for you as well as your customers.
PayPal is one of the most used online payment solutions, which not only works for you but also increases the faith of your customers in your brand. After all, trust is perhaps the greatest capital of any business. PayPal ensures this trust and allows you to have a secure payment channel for all your business transactions.
- It allows you to customize the customers’ checkout experience.
- Inbuilt mobile optimization lets your customers pay you on the go.
- PayPal enables you to accept payments in more than a hundred currencies.
- Customers can even make payments without a PayPal account.
- Social media payment allows your customers to transact in chat or over social media.
Bonus: HARO (Help A Reporter Out)
Wondering how to get media coverage or publish a press release in reputed media house? Use HARO!
HARO is a trusted source for every journalist. It provides your brand with abundant opportunities to get connected with journalists and media personnel from across the world.
If you have been looking for valuable and effective media coverage for your startup brand, then this is the tool you need. Some of the top media outlets in the world are currently using HARO – it speaks of its reputation.
- Currently, it hosts more than 800,000 sources.
- It also features 55,000 plus journalists and bloggers.
- It lets you register and access the source requests aligned to your business, industry, or profession.
- The HARO tool allows you to pitch your story to relevant journalists covering or interested in your industry.
Conclusion
This is it, folks!
Remember, the utility of any tool can transcend the norm only with the efficiency of its user.
So, did we miss out on any of the small business tools?
Well, we would love to hear a startup owner’s firsthand perspective. Let us know about your personal experience of using these small business tools.
Also, let us know your modus operandi and favorite set of tools for your small business in the comments section. This will help numerous startup owners like you a lot.
Disclosure: This content doesn’t contain any affiliate link.
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