- On
- 13 Mar 2022
- Reading time
- 6 minutes
Operating a business has always been challenging; however, many business owners in 2022 face new obstacles that make it difficult to reach long-term business goals. Supply chain disruptions have many companies struggling to find the raw materials needed to offer top-tier products and/or services. Finding and retaining talent is more difficult than ever before as businesses compete with each other over a small pool of available, qualified workers. Customer expectations have also evolved as potential clients expect more and better service than before.
Thankfully, there are an array of tools at your disposal to help you do more with less. The following top ten business tools for 2022 can help you automate important tasks, save money on operational expenses, improve customer service, and more.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a remarkable website-building platform that enables anyone to create a professional site without professional help. It offers a range of site template options that can be easily customized to suit your exact needs. It provides search engine optimization services to help your site rank well in Google and other search engines. It offers detailed analytics to help business owners see not only how many people are visiting the site but also where these people are coming from, how long they spend on any given page on the site, and more.
Tailor Brands
Tailor Brands is a comprehensive suite for starting a business, offering a range of services to help you get your business off the ground. These include forming a business, creating a logo, and protecting it with a trademark, website and domain, digital business cards, a business mailbox, and many more.
To start your business, simply fill out some information about your company and pick the package most suited to the stage you are in. The platform is very easy and user-friendly and will guide you through every step of the way, whether you are just in the idea stage, or you already earn money and have clients.
DocuSign
DocuSign, a cloud-based e-signature service, can save a business owner up to $36 per agreement. This site is perfect for companies in the real estate, financial, healthcare, legal, education, and insurance industries as it enables clients and business representatives to easily negotiate and sign contracts without having to meet together at a physical location. It is used by over one million clients around the world and plans are available in various price points to suit the needs of any business or entrepreneur.
QuickBooks
The average annual salary for an accountant is $73,560, and those in the profession expect employer benefits such as insurance and paid leave/vacation days. Thankfully, a business owner does not have to worry about having to pay such a professional thanks to programs such as QuickBooks.
QuickBooks is a cloud-based service that makes it easy for any business owner to keep track of all financial transactions. It can keep track of expenses, income, and cash flow. It can be used to pay bills and keep track of inventory. It also has features to keep track of tax-related information. The program can be accessed anywhere, from any device, and over 98% of business owners say that it has helped them manage their business more easily than before.
Trello
Trello is a must-have program for any business owner who works with remote contractors and/or who has offices or stores in more than one location. This handy, cloud-based program makes it easy for workers to collaborate remotely via virtual boards, lists, and cards in order to streamline tasks, keep track of important information, and finish jobs on or even ahead of schedule. The program is scalable, which means a business can use it without interruptions even if new branch offices are opened or new contractors/employees are added to the company. There is even a free plan for Trello, so business owners with a limited budget can take advantage of all that it has to offer.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free tool designed to help business owners manage their Google business profile, promote their business, and interact with potential customers. It also has some powerful SEO tools that can help a business owner get noticed in a particular niche. Furthermore, it enables business owners to monitor visitor engagement, keep track of reviews and respond to them, and make important business announcements such as special holiday hours, discount offers, new products and/or services, etc.
SEMrush
Marketing plays an integral role in the success of any business, and SEMrush makes it possible for any business owner to create a winning promotional campaign for a business without help from a marketing expert. The program allows you to thoroughly research competitors, run technical audits on your website to identify ways to optimize it, discover potentially profitable keywords that other companies aren't using, and much more. It also has tools to help a business owner create and monitor a PPC campaign to ensure that it brings in the highest possible return on investment.
Mailchimp
MailChimp is perhaps best-known for its email-related services. These are imperative on their own, as email marketing has a whopping 4,200% return on investment. MailChimp makes it easy for any business owner to send custom, targeted emails to anyone in his or her target audience to ensure current and potential customers are hearing the pitch that will best meet their needs.
At the same time, MailChimp has added new features and services over the years to create a marketing suite that is sure to suit the needs of any business owner. These include website and online store creation, social media management, digital advertising management, and online appointment scheduling for companies that offer services by appointment only.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a marketing platform that makes content marketing and social media marketing a breeze. The program is incredibly user-friendly and makes it easy for a person to stay organized in order to post the right content at the right time. What's more, the headline studio helps writers score their headlines to ensure they will attract one's target audience and motivate them to purchase products and/or services.
CoSchedule also offers collaborative tools so team members can organize marketing campaigns and projects without having to spend endless hours in meetings. It keeps track of important assignments, notes when tasks are due or completed, and provides a secure file sharing service, so teams can share important information with each other without the risk of sensitive business information falling into the wrong hands. CoSchedule estimates that its services help a business complete 125% more work than would otherwise be possible and enables a business owner to complete more than 90% of important tasks.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that enables business owners to provide optimum customer service and assistance even with limited personnel. HubSpot's tools include ticketing, live chats, email scheduling, reporting, customer service automation, and conversation routing.
HubSpot also offers some great marketing tools to help a business owner target the right audience and reach that audience in the most effective manner. These tools include email marketing, contact management, social media ads, traffic analytics, ad retargeting, marketing automation, and adaptive testing that helps a business owner analyze paid ads to ensure they are effective in generating traffic and sales.
It takes a lot of work to run a business. Even so, many business owners are working harder than they need to, without seeing the results they need in order to become or remain successful. Modern technology can help a company owner automate routine tasks, accomplish important jobs faster than would otherwise be possible, lower operational costs, improve customer retention rates, boost ROI, and much more.
If you want to jumpstart your business this year in order to reach your long-term goals faster and more effectively than would otherwise be possible, check out the tools outlined above to see which ones would be the best fit for your business. Many are free or partly free, and the ones that aren't free often have a free trial plan, so you can check out the features and services before investing in them. These programs are designed for companies in all industries, don't require advanced tech skills, and can give you the time, knowledge, and practical help you need to keep your business running smoothly and effectively now and in the future.
