By Rait Raak.
Running and managing an online business isn’t easy. You need all the help you can get to manage your documents, projects, employees, sales…the list goes on. So, many online business owners turn to business software solutions to enable them to do more and do it more efficiently.
The problem is that there are sooooo many online business solutions out there, and finding one that seems specifically tailored for your business is never easy. To help narrow your search, here are five essential types of software solutions that will help you run your online operations while improving your online visibility and engagement.
Project Management Software
Project management software is designed to help you collaborate with your team and stay on top of all your projects. Since you’re already working online, it’s great that most of the best PM software solutions are cloud-based. They also come with a dedicated desktop and smartphone app.
For any such app, you’ll need to take care to ensure that it’s going to be as useful as possible, but also safe to use. You’ll need to look into the concept of consent apps, those that actually do seek out consent on how your data is managed. That will help you a great deal here.
Project management tools also come with pre-built PM templates which you can use out of the box or customize them to fit the specific goals and objectives of your projects. After you add team members, you can automate task delegation and send notifications to inform them about new changes.
Tools to consider:
- Zoho Projects
- Trello
- Basecamp
- Teamwork Projects
- LiquidPlanner
The features to look for:
- Two-factor authentication
- User privilege rights
- Customizable dashboard
- Easy task delegation
- Notification system
- Collaboration
- Real-time reports
- Invoice generator
CMMS Software
CMMS is the acronym for a Computerized Maintenance Management System. In some cases, you’ll see it called Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). This software is especially useful for online businesses who sell products and/or services that will require maintenance and management down the line.
The best CMMS software on the market comes with a variety of features to help your managers streamline management and maintenance actions. You managers will be able to make decisions based on information generated in real time on the CMMS software dashboard.
Tools to consider:
- Limble CMMS
- eMaint CMMS
- FTMaintenance
- Hippo CMMS
- MPulse
The features to look for:
- Tracking
- Scheduling
- Real-time reporting
- Work order management
- Designated mobile app
- Easy to use
As buyers complete more of their research and evaluation online and avoid talking to a sales person until late in the process, customer relationship management (CRM) becomes more essential. It helps your sales team track prospect and customer touchpoints so they can maximize the value of those conversations when they do occur, and show that you care for the attention of your target audience.
CRM software is a complex solution which lets you look at the entire customer lifecycle, ranging from the first interaction and lead generation to conversions and follow ups. If your business is in the early growth stage, you may think you don’t need this, since your customer base is likely still quite small.
But you should also know that by gathering numerous data points on your customers, this software can help you learn who your perfect customers are. This will make it easier for your marketing team to design and launch highly targeted campaigns.
In the end, CRM is there not only to help your marketing and sales departments, but also to help guide business strategy and product development, and to help you deliver more effective customer support.
Tools to consider:
- Zoho CRM
- Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional
- Apptivo CRM
- Bpm’online CRM
- Base CRM
- Insightly CRM
The features to look for:
- Ease of use
- Multiple integrations
- Remote and mobile access
- Campaign management
- Lead management
- Contact management
- Powerful analytics
- Customization and flexibility
- Follow-up management
Social Media Management Tool
Social media has evolved into a core channel for digital marketing and online business communications. Running a successful online business without a strong presence on social networks is difficult, and social media management tools can help you kickstart your SMM campaign. If you already have accounts on different platforms, these tools can automate the posting process for you.
The backbone of social media management software is the scheduler feature. It is easy to use and its primary purpose is to automatically post when your audience’s activity is at its peak. These tools can help you optimize your posts, increase the number of people who see them, and increase engagement rates on all of your social media accounts.
These tools also have powerful analytics features that allow you to determine how well your posts and your social media marketing campaigns are performing. While we are at it, you should also consider using paid ads. They are really affordable and can help you get much-deserved attention for your online business.
Tools to consider:
- Buffer
- HootSuite
- Hubspot
- TweetDeck
- MeetEdgar
- IFTTT
- Sprout Social
The features to look for:
- Easy to use dashboard
- Support for integration with several social media platforms
- Social media monitoring
- Post scheduling
- Built-in notification system to stay informed about comments
- Likes and shares
- Powerful analytics
- Collaboration
- Paid ads management
Cloud-Based Office Tools
Since online businesses have to deal with (at least) as much documentation as their brick-and-mortar counterparts, you’ll also need to start using office tools, preferably cloud-based options. Why? Because you can assign roles and invite people to collaborate on documents, access the edit history, make sure that no information is lost, and do all of that on the go from a mobile device.
Cloud-based office tools are going to be your greatest ally. Your business will have a lot of content and documents in various states of revision and review, and these powerful tools will help you manage and store them in a secure, remote cloud location.
Tools to consider:
- Google Docs
- Sheets and Slides
- Microsoft Office 365
- Zoho Office
- Open365
- Apache OpenOffice
The features to look for:
- Support for all commonly used document formats (PDF, docx, odt, html, zip, epub, rtf)
- Ease of use
- Cloud-based
- Revision history
- User privilege rights
- Mobile access
The line between business tools used for online and “old school” businesses is very thin. Every business needs to take advantage of cloud-based tools for a range of business operations.
These were the five types of software tools that you can use to smoothly run your online establishment. Did we miss any? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Rait is a top rated freelancer on UpWork, online marketer and certified web specialist. He has over 8 years of experience in SEO, building websites and helping businesses to grow online.