Know a small business owner? Then you know that time is one of their most precious resources. This list of Christmas gifts for a small business owner contains web tools that will go a long way in helping the owner gain some of that time back and help them grow their business. Everything falls on their shoulders – they are accountable for the sales effort, the marketing effort, customer support, technical support and more. Click on each of the listed web tools to learn how each tool can deliver top-notch results equal to or better than their larger competitors.
Unbounce is your solution to get targeted, actionable web pages online in a matter of minutes. Unbounce provides a simple, point and click interface that enables the creation of a professional web “landing page” in as little as 5 minutes. Use Unbounce to capture sales for your new product, announce a sale, obtain registrations for an upcoming event or anything else that does not merit a formal, permanent page on your company site or blog. Unbounce capabilities will dazzle you and your customers with the capabilities and results you will achieve.
Ratepoint is web tool that will save you time, generate new customers, and increase the reputation of your firm. Every business should be using an Email Service Provider-no question. Ratepoint is unique from the others in that it provides not only a very easy to learn and use email capability for newsletters and announcements, but also gives you the ability to request and obtain reviews to drive more sales, online surveys to help get to know your customers better and social marketing by connecting your activity directly to Facebook and Twitter and through them, LinkedIn. Ratepoint is competitively priced and you get many valuable functions all from one tool, saving you both time and money.
Zendesk provides an online help desk and customer support solution. By enabling an effective web layout, you are provided with an easy way for your customers and prospective clients to ask questions, submit a service request, and track the entire process online. Built from the ground up for small businesses in any industry, you will receive the added benefit of automatically building your own Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, and have it visible on your site. The recent integration with Twitter turns your customer service activity into one of the most effective marketing activities around. Every business that has customers should have Zendesk in their operation.
Bluehost provides web hosting services and domains for millions of businesses worldwide, large and small. They are one of the preferred WordPress hosts and enjoy a top notch reputation for their 24×7 customer support desk. With your one account, you receive professional web hosting for as little as $6.95/month. You receive unlimited domain hosting, unlimited GB hosting service, unlimited file transfer, unlimited email accounts along with support for C-panel, the industry leader in ease of use. One account, unlimited sites, highly-rated customer support are all included. They host Fill the Funnel and nine other websites that serve our business initiatives. If you are online, Bluehost is your best choice for your small business.
Hosted Microsoft Exchange Email from MyHosting.com will remove your email, calendaring and contact problems immediately. Most of us as small business owners have worked in a big corporate organization at one point in our career. One of the major sacrifices we experienced when running our own business was having a Microsoft Exchange server and its benefits. MyHosting.com provides you all the features and benefits of Microsoft Exchange, located in the cloud, for $9.95/month. Signup for this service and a helpful tech will step you through the setup over the phone, providing the Outlook client, and connections to your iPhone, Blackberry and other mobile devices. Calendar sharing is no longer a problem. Integrating Outlook with productivity web tools like Gist is now able to be completed easily. Synchronize all activity between your laptop, desktop, iPad and smartphone with no extra steps on your side. Trust me on this one, your headaches with your communication goes away when you are using Hosted Exchange email from myhosting.com.
WordPress is the de facto standard for business sites on the web. Unless you can afford to hire a design team and a technical team to install, build and maintain your web presence, WordPress is your solution. Support is available from thousands of companies, and plug-ins, widgets and themes are available by the thousands. Go WordPress and never look back.
Unilyzer is your dashboard for all of your Social Media activity. You are trying to use all of the social tools and maximize the return. By viewing the Unilyzer dashboard and keeping an eye on the trends from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Website, blog and more, you are able to immediately know if you are up or down. Drill down to learn the specific details of any of the customizable reports to take action where necessary. One screen will show you everything you need to know about your social web activities in real time.
Making the choice to be a small business owner can be one of the most rewarding you can make. It can also be frustrating with the limitations of resources and capabilities. I speak from experience when I say that these web tools have made a measurable difference in my business. I believe that they will make a difference others.
Tomorrow’s post will be “Christmas Gifts for Bloggers”
(Please note that several of the links above, if selected, create a small payment to me equivalent to one of my favorite latte’s at Starbucks.)