Paying for a service may sound counterintuitive when you are trying to save your business money. But that isn’t always the case. There are some services that work as effective cost-saving measures. Some work by helping you stay more productive at work while others work by freeing up more time in your day – time that you could put to good use to tie up more profitable tasks.
Even if you think you do not need all of the services at once, there are a few that are worth paying for right at the outset for the money they will save you.
Here are the top business money saving services:
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VoIP Phone Service
Traditional phone services are out and about time too. They are clunky, inconvenient and much too expensive for the features they offer. VoIP phone services are a much better alternative.
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. Instead of the traditional model where the sound was transmitted from the user to the receiver through cables, with VoIP, the sound is transmitted over the Internet. So how does this save you money?
With the entire VoIP system living in the cloud, there are no phones, cables or other hardware to be installed or maintained. The entire system is housed and maintained at the service provider’s end. This saves you money upfront.
That’s not all. You save on ongoing costs too. Because communication takes place over the internet, it doesn’t cost anything by way of phone calls. No worrying about your phone bills and other mundane matters at the end of every month. You choose a plan that is best suited for the stage your business is at and pay your selected service provider a monthly fee for immediate access to a host of services that allow you to connect with customers and collaborate with your team. As your business grows, adding extra features or upgrading your plan can be done instantly for a nominal fee.
In addition to the basic functions, some of the more advanced features you can expect with Nextiva VoIP Phone System include integrated messaging, conference calling, application integration, notification, and a screen pops, call queues, call routing, call forwarding, auto attendant, and more.
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Virtual Tech Support
Having a computer that functions smoothly and efficiently is integral to any business today. One hour or even less of downtime can mean hundreds of dollars in lost business. Unfortunately, where there is tech, malfunctions happen. If not today, it is sure to happen tomorrow, the next week, or sometime down the line. And if Murphy’s Law is anything to go by, your computer is sure to malfunction sometime during peak buying season. When it does can you really afford to wait for a technician to find time in their schedule to attend to your computer? When a technician does turn up, you can expect to pay an exorbitant fee to get your computer problem resolved.
The solution – Virtual Tech Support services such as TechtoUS. For a nominal monthly fee, virtual tech support services offer quick resolutions to all tech issues 24/7. What’s more, they don’t even need to send a technician to come over to your place of business personally. All of the maintenance and problem-solving is done using the power of remote desktop technology. Most virtual tech support service providers offer unlimited support that covers all your computers, mobile devices, scanners, and other multifunction machines.
Just pick a monthly tech support plan that best fits your needs and you’re ready to get started instantly.
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Payroll
Managing employees requires a fully-staffed HR division. Or does it? When you are just starting out can you really afford to hire more employees to manage your existing employees? While HR departments may be essential for larger companies, using payroll services may be a more cost-effective solution for small and mid-sized business. With payroll services, you can set up recurring employee payments, track work hours, and sanction leave requests.
Sage Payroll Services helps you streamline the payroll process efficiently so you need never worry about mistakes impacting employee relationships. You choose a plan that fits your business size and industry, and Sage Payroll Services will manage all payroll services for your organization so you can focus on growing your business and increasing your profits. They will even get your taxes filed on time, reducing the risk of penalties and fines. You can access your payroll reports, analytics and other data on the go, anytime, anywhere.
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App Development
From designing cool games to creating ordering platforms for their customers, an increasing number of businesses are using apps in ingenious ways to promote and grow their brand. Sure you could hire a team of developers to create an app for your business, but that will cost you more than a small fortune. A more budget-friendly way to develop an app is to use an online app builder such as Appypie.
Don’t know to code? No problem. Appypie has several innovative features that allow you to make a basic app with zero coding knowledge. Whether you are looking to build a GPS, Fitness Tracker, Recipe, Multilingual, CRM or Dating app, you’ll find a sleek template to help you get started. A number of images, stickers and other drag-and-drop features make it quick and easy to customize the basic template. You can even convert your website to an app.
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Customer Profiling
Cookie cutter marketing doesn’t work anymore. The millennium customer wants to be treated like the individual that they are, which means you have to employ a more personalized approach in your marketing. However, hiring a market survey company can get expensive very fast.
Blitzen offers small businesses a suite of features that make it easy for you to get a 360˚ profile of prospective customers more affordable. This allows you to customize your marketing based on your customer’s location, behavior, interests, social profile, and other demographics.
Advanced features such as dynamic segmentation & scoring allow you to use the information you’ve collected to launch campaigns targeted to a specific audience. The biggest benefit of using a customer profiling service is that it puts all the information about a customer in one place, so it ready for you to use instantly. This makes it easier than ever to target your marketing pitch to the person on the other end.
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Social Media Monitoring
Social media is no longer thought of as a complementary marketing strategy. Businesses of all sizes and across all industries are using multiple social media platforms to promote their brand and build their business. But is your social media marketing really working for you the way it should? Is it getting you the results you are hoping for? Without monitoring your social media efforts you could be wasting time and money just spinning your wheels.
There’s no dearth of social media monitoring tools at various price points. The best one for you may depend on which social media platforms you are focusing on. Mention is one social media monitoring tool that’s worth mentioning. It makes it easy for you to scour the web, and social media platforms, helping you stay on top of all your brand mentions for more powerful market insights. You can receive live monitoring data in real time, filter your results, generate reports, share alerts and more. Using a social media monitoring tool allows you to stay on top of it all without spending valuable time tracking your various social media profiles.
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Email Marketing
Email marketing allows you to interact with your customers in ways that go beyond the fleeting interaction that social media allows. With email marketing, you can share your work with your customers, give them a head’s up on upcoming promotions, hook them with sneak peeks of your behind-the-scenes processes, promote your products and services, and so much more.
Your email list is your business’s greatest asset. Consistently reaching out to your customers can reap rich rewards. The key is to sign up with a professional email marketing service. With a slew of advanced features, AWeber is a name to reckon with when it comes to email marketing. This platform offers subscribers a wide assortment of attractive sign-up and pops up forms that make it easier than ever to collect email addresses on your website. That’s just the beginning.
AWeber makes it easier to keep your readers on your list with great-looking, customizable, professional emails and a range of tools that help you track your success and create a strategy for long-term growth. If you’re not using email marketing, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to build a loyal customer base.
When you are just starting a business, it is important to find services that will help you grow and succeed while still saving you money. Fortunately, there are several online services and platforms available today that allow you to do just that.
