10 Most Essential Online Platforms For Small Businesses

If you’ve been a business owner for a while and you haven’t used any of these tools, you’re missing out. Time to shine a light on these awesome platforms — free and paid — but all beginner-friendly to help you achieve all your business goals. 

Here they are:

Bookafy

If you want to streamline the appointments of your business in real-time, then Bookafy is a tool that you must have. It is one of the most popular and intuitive appointment scheduling software. It comes with inbuilt automated text reminders, calendar syncing facilities and much more. In addition, you can also use this software to book recurring meetings, group events, and one-on-one appointments.

This software is capable of scheduling and running meetings automatically. It runs them through a unique link for every new appointment booked with Zoom, Skype, GoToMeeting, etc. Moreover, it also allows you to receive payments for each booking too with its Authorize and Stripe integration.

Bookafy offers a lot of features to make booking and scheduling appointments a seamless process. It can even send SMS to remind people about the meeting, you can set limits for future appointments, it can show the availability of staff, and do a lot more. Bookafy comes with a custom API that ensures tasks are managed efficiently. It also makes sure that no one misses the meetings by sending automated meeting specific messages. Lastly, this software comes at a reasonable price that’s worth paying, considering what’s on offer.

Zoom

This is the number one tool for remote working. If your business is established online, meaning no office, or if you have remote employees, clients, and customers, then Zoom is a non-negotiable, free tool. 

You don’t have to pay anything to use this platform. You just need to have access to the Internet, a microphone, and a camera. Then you’re all set. Hop on to its website. Create an account. And call whomever you want. 

Zoom lets you connect to people anywhere in the world. Distance is never a problem. Some key features to consider: You can share your screen so presentation is a breeze. You can add as many as 100 participants (for the free version). Lastly, you can change your background pictures from office to hotel vibes.

Brandcrowd

BrandCrowd is home to thousands of logos and other marketing templates. It goes without saying that a business is worth no more than the loyalty of its followers. To build a successful brand following, excellent branding and marketing are key. 

First, BrandCrowd helps you establish an appealing and unique logo. Access its database of inexhaustible font and icon logo templates you can customize. Download one or several designs for a cheap price.

Then go on with your marketing needs. There’s a selection of marketing tools. You can design your own flyers, business cards, mockups, social media covers, social media posts, invoices, and so much more. 

All this for a very small price and beginner-friendly tools. No design-experience? No problem. Its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for small and starting business owners to design their own visual assets.

Aritic Pinpoint

Aritic PinPoint is the best marketing automation software platform for marketing operations teams at small and medium businesses. It helps you to build relationships with leads, automate marketing campaigns and convert leads to paying customers easily.

It has features such as landing page builder, SEO tracking, keywords tracking, lead scoring, lead tracking, lead nurturing, email campaign management, email campaign automation, push notification campaigns, marketing campaign builder, a/b testing, website tracking features with marketing assets management. Aritic PinPoint integrates with CMS, like WordPress, Drupal, has bi-directional native CRM integration with Salesforce, SugarCRM, Dynamic CRM, Zoho CRM and social media platform integration with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Foursquare, Instagram.

Aritic PinPoint is perfect for a marketing team to get going from day one. It is user friendly and is easy to understand in seconds. This automation tool is surely going to be perfect for your business. Try this simple yet powerful tool for all your marketing needs.

Uplers

It is a one-stop destination for all the digital services that you might need for your business. Delivering end-to-end design, web development, digital marketing, and email production services, this link building company is operating across 52+ countries. Uplers is backed by a team of more than 500 digital experts. It is one of the most preferred hubs to hire dedicated designers, developers, marketers, and above all, dedicated teams.

It provides a vast range of digital services like content marketing, email marketing, inbound and PPC marketing, SEO, UX design, web design and development, and much more. It is one of the largest, globally recognized outsourcing agencies in the industry dedicated to empower businesses across the globe to build a better digital ecosystem.

Uplers has provided services to more than 1000 digital agencies along with a long array of end clients. Some of its top clients are National Geographic, Amazon, Facebook, Disney, 21st Century Fox, etc. Uplers is where you’ll find solutions for all your digital problems.

Softr

Internet is hectic and the way we consume data and store it matters, especially for small businesses. To manage and share your data effortlessly, we recommend using Airtable.

Airtable is a low-code, spreadsheet-database hybrid that enables users to transform their data into powerful applications.

Airtable differs itself from traditional databases, like Excel and Google Sheets and spreadsheets, thanks to its ease of use and innovative features. You can even visualize your Airtable data and share with your team with third-party tools like Softr.

DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd serves the same purpose and usability as Upwork. The difference? This is a platform for freelance designers alone. 

So if you specifically are looking for design services, then go for DesignCrowd. It has over a million professional designers, whose specialization ranges from logos to flyer designs. 

Here, you can run a design contest. This is by stating your design brief and budget. Let designers submit their best designs according to your instructions. Pick the best one and award them the major percentage of the budget. 

The good news is that you don’t have to offer a large budget to win professional and unique designs. The cost can range from 100 dollars to 700 dollars.

Slack

There should be a tool where you can chat seamlessly, where you can send documents fast, and where you can also build friendly relationships with the use of emojis, GIFs, and videos.

Slack has all that. It is now the largest messaging platform for companies. It’s a small-business-friendly tool because it’s free and easy to use and set up. 

While Zoom is a good video conferencing tool, it is not as efficient in chatting as Slack. With simple messaging, Slack is a better option. So make use of its beginner-friendly interface.

Trello

Trello is a collaboration and task organization list. The idea is simple: You can jot down your tasks as a board. And you can move that board from start to finish. This way, you will know what tasks you’re working on, what tasks are left, and what tasks have been completed. 

Trello has a paid and free version. But no worries, the free version lets you create and use most of its useful features. So there’s no need to pay up for the premium version unless you want to automate your boards. 

The best part about it is its collaborative features. So you can create a board/tasks and share it with another collaborator. The collaborator can then write comments, work on the files enlisted, and even move the board once done.

Asana

Asana’s purpose is the same as Trello’s. But it has a lot more features to it. Asana lets you manage your teams effectively. How? By assigning tasks, uploading necessary documents, communicating with the team and so much more. 

If you’re a small business owner with a small team under you, Asana can be your best friend. It takes the worries of managing the team away from you and onto the efficient platform/software. 

Conclusion

There’s no easy way to grow your business. But hopefully, these tools will ease your business-building process. Find one that you can use and stick to it, even master these tools, then your business will come a long way.