Technology helps a growing number of small businesses to improve their efficiency and productivity. Here are seven tools to have in your technology pack:
1. Get mobile
Approximately 71 percent of consumer traffic to leading South African websites comes from mobile devices. With this statistic in mind, “mobile” is a must-have technology for any small business. You can implement this technology by creating mobile-friendly websites. By creating these types of websites you may rank higher on some search engines. The next place where you can go mobile is on payments. In South Africa, the adoption of mobile payments is gaining traction. People are becoming more keen to pay via payment applications and online banking. Another marketing strategy to adopt is a mobile app. Nowadays you do not need someone with specialized skills to create app, you can design it yourself using platforms like Microsoft PowerApps.
2. Marketing automation
Marketing automation has made it easier for entrepreneurs to get leads, segment messages and set up processes which trigger certain responses based on actions taken by a customer. The automation has also made it possible for small business to perform marketing tasks with more efficiency.
3. Cloud-based solutions
With the issue of security in South Africa, cloud storage and backup are becoming more common. Being able to save your information off-premise ensures that the loss of data is limited. You are also able to access certain software through cloud-based solutions. Another advantage of cloud-based solutions is the ease of scalability, efficiency and flexibility.
4. Collaboration tools
These tools assist to bring a remote workforce together. They help teams to communicate through a chat-based workplace where documents can be shared and people can collaborate in real time even though they may not be physically close.
5. Email marketing
Though email marketing may seem dated, it is not. It has been rated as the best market channel regarding return on investment. With more personalized emails being made possible, marketers will move away from bulk nameless emails to more individualized emails. Furthermore, emails will need to be made with mobile in mind as many people read their emails on a mobile device.
6. Live chat
By providing live chat on your website, clients can be attended to by an agent who is on standby. They can advise the client on how to solve their problem, provide them with guidance and recommend products for the specific customer. By integrating artificial intelligence with the live chat widget, the agents will be able to attend to the more complicated requests while the artificial intelligence (AI) can attend to simple requests and learn from the customer as they interact with the AI.
7. Cyber security
One of the constant challenges faced by small business is internet security. With more devices being connected to the wireless environment in a business. It is important to have anti-virus and malware detection software on your computer network system like the products offered by Norton.
By attending to these technologies you will be well on the way to creating a tech-savvy business.
Article proudly brought to you by the NSBC.