We live in an era where technology is a must for every corner of our life. In entertainment, cooking, and even cleaning our homes, we utilize tech and digital apps that make everyday tasks and hobbies more convenient. Few of us can imagine living without these useful innovations.
Small business owners can especially utilize these technologies to help with their long-term growth, whether they’re a financial advisor or bankruptcy attorney. Philadelphia business owners, whether aiding their customer communication or improving their daily schedule, can implement technology into their business. Here are a few must-have tech recommendations that can help any small business prosper.
Seek Out CRM Software
If you’re a small business that’s just entered the industry, then you have a plan in place for how to sell your product and reach out to your target audience. However, you might be wondering how to better interact with your customers to generate more sales and, in general, grow your brand.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is one tech solution. This cloud-based software helps a business manage its customer interactions by analyzing data from multiple channels: your company’s website, social media pages, marketing materials, live chat, and other areas with customer data. CRM software uses this to identify trends and create growth opportunities through additional lead conversions or decreases in marketing costs.
Great CRM software examples include Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. All of these have necessary tools in place that will allow you to enhance your relationship with your target audience.
The Benefits of Location
If your business is still in its growing stage, then you’ll want to take advantage of location-based tools. These services use real-time GPS and WiFi data from customers’ smartphones to provide information to businesses. This lets customers check in to restaurants, stores, live events, or other places of interest. In turn, this gives firms some access to consumers’ information that they can use for ads and other proximity-based marketing.
A Research and Markets report found that global location-based services in 2019 were valued at over $36 billion, and the same study predicted those services to reach $126 billion by 2025. With the growth of both social media and smartphone usage, location-based tools are getting even more popular. However, it falls to the business owner to first put in information such as their name, business type, address, and other vital bits of contact info to the most important location-based service apps. These include:
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Facebook Places
- Google Maps
- Citysearch
Keeping your information up to date with these location sharing tools will make it easier for customers to find your business and actively engage with it. And if you sell products on-site, especially ensure that you have the proper geodata, since navigation is the most popular form of location-based service used.
Magnificent Inventory Management
If you’re a small business owner, then managing your inventory can be a difficult task. Keeping up with supply chain issues and looking over packaging can become burdensome duties that take up excess time in your day-to-day schedule.
If this sounds like your situation, we recommend utilizing a tech tool such as cloud based inventory management software. This type of cloud-based software can help you manage tasks such as large-scale order management, operational workflow, and data analytics of your inventory. You’ll be able to streamline the delivery and payment processes, and potentially minimize shipping costs by improving cash flow.
Numerous inventory management software programs are available for the small business owner. These examples include Lightspeed, UpKeep, and Fishbowl. All of these let you process and track your inventory in a customized way that is right for your business.
Small business owners are hard-working individuals who have much to focus on daily. But with these must-have tech tools, your firm’s functions don’t have to be as tricky as they were before. Using these recommendations, you can find numerous ways to expand the presence of your business and ease your day-to-day operations.
About the Author
Jennifer Bell is a freelance writer, blogger, dog-enthusiast, and avid beachgoer operating out of Southern New Jersey. She frequently works with David Offen Esq., a busy bankruptcy attorney in Philadelphia.
