Small business owners know the importance of digitization, but for many, getting started on the digital journey appears prohibitively expensive. In many cases, the time wasted in manually typing data into spreadsheets (or even using pen and paper) is costing you more in terms of lost efficiency than you would spend investing in digital tools or resources.
Luckily, low-cost and free resources exist that can take the financial burden out of digital implementation. While the free version of a digital tool may be suitable for a small to medium-sized business, they often include an option to unlock extra (paid) features as you scale up.
1. Inventory/Warehouse Management
Canvus
This free inventory management system can be used to track inventory turnover, take returns, record sales, and monitor damaged goods. Unlike many free systems, Stockpile doesn’t limit the number of items, users, or locations needed to run a small business.
InFlow
The free version of inFlow includes up to 100 products, 100 customers and up to 13 reports. Users get access to barcoding, different accounting methods, and automatic data backup. Upgrading (for a one-off payment of $399) allows access to advanced user features and inventory management options including customized invoices, order forms, and (importantly) technical support.
Snappii
Snappii’s warehouse inventory and shipment app offers a free trial that enables users to make a warehouse inventory, create supply records, track goods that are shipped out by scanning bar codes, make quick pick lists, and create reports while syncing across multiple devices. The app is also accessible offline and can sync data across multiple devices.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is one area that rapidly becomes extremely time-consuming to keep track of manually as a business gathers pace. HubSpot CRM is just one example of a free tool used to digitize the sales process, track every interaction your business has with customers, and store marketing leads and customer data.
Zapier, a remote web integration company, also compiled a list of free CRMs for businesses based on their unique demands:
- Bitrix24 – all-in-one business capability
- Zoho CRM – scaling your business
- HubSpot CRM – businesses with a lot of contacts
- Insightly – project management
- Capsule – easy to use
- Really Simple Systems – sales forecasting
- Agile CRM – marketing capabilities
- Streak – managing from a Gmail inbox
- Flowlu – financial records tracking
3. Online Collaboration
If you’re still emailing Word documents around and asking others to give their feedback before emailing it back to you, you’re doing it wrong. Google Drive is a free, real-time collaboration tool that can host documents, slideshows, spreadsheets, forms, and even artwork. Multiple users can edit a file simultaneously, and the file will reflect changes live to other users so they won’t overlap.
4. Project Management
Trello
Trello is a free task management app that gives a visual overview of what is being worked on, who is doing it, and when it is due. Using a system of boards, lists, and cards, the app encourages collaboration through tagging, comments, and checklists, and can host documents up to a certain size.
Users are encouraged to “power up” with paid add-ons; included in the paid section of the app is also seamless integration across other apps, including Dropbox, Jira, Google Drive, Slack, and a host of others.
Basecamp
Basecamp is another option for free task management, perfect for hosting teams working on multiple projects simultaneously, or projects that will progress across various teams. Features include message boards for posting pitches, announcements, and progress updates, "to-dos,” or a checklist of work to be done with due dates, group chats, and reminders to team members to check in on all of their active tasks.
Basecamp, like Trello, also allows for seamless integration with third-party apps, including time tracking, software development, and even customer service and support.
5. Video Conferencing
Skype is no longer the only key player in the video conferencing market. As more key market players hire remote workers or seek international vendors to help manage workloads, video conferencing is becoming a vital part of managing a business.
According to one study, 75% of CEOs believe that audio-only conference calls will ultimately be replaced by video conferencing calls. This could be because another study found that 82% of individuals are less likely to multitask when they use video than when they just use only audio. This suggests that videoconferencing is more engaging. This finding is bolstered by the fact that 98% of individuals reported that video conferencing is a helpful tool for building relationships both in and out of the company.
Here are some free options for small businesses looking for more in-face value.
Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is a great, free app for video conferencing, and even more, will seamlessly integrate with the rest of the G Suite. Google Hangouts meetings can host up to 250 participants for larger meetings, and are easy-to-use; hosts just send a meeting link to whoever is invited and conferencing launches directly in your browser. The app also offers a chat feature for teams who need to send a quick message.
Microsoft Teams
Similar to Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams offers a host of chatting, video conferencing, and calling features, but up until recently, it was only available to Office 365 subscribers. Microsoft Teams also offers a paid version for larger teams, but its new free version still packs a punch. With no subscription, you still have access to chat messages, video and audio calling for up to 300 people, and seamless integration with Microsoft Office and other business apps, including Adobe, and Evernote.
6. Email Marketing
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is free for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails. Its template editor allows you to customize electronic direct mail to suit your brand and store images and files for easy access when creating a new email. The tool also offers a unique (and free!) smart recommendations feature that gives you audience insights so you can optimize your email marketing campaigns.
Sender
Sender is one of the most powerful free email marketing tools on the market; it not only allows users to create emails using templates, images, videos, and texts, but also allows targeting to specific audiences; you can customize different versions of your newsletter to different segments of your readership. Since Sender includes templates, using this app won’t require any prior HTML or coding knowledge.
Sender’s pricing plan is similar to Mailchimp; it allows free users 15,000 emails monthly to up to 2,500 subscribers.
Benchmark Email
Benchmark Email is an email marketing tool best-suited for companies looking for easy setup and viewability across all kinds of devices. Users can build their emails from scratch with the code editor, but also have the option to select from pre-designed templates tailored to the email occasion and industry. Benchmark also offers a dual view feature so you can view all of the changes you’ve made from the perspective of your recipients as you create your email.
The application allows up to 250 emails per month to an unlimited number of subscribers with the free version.
7. Dashboards
An essential way of visualizing real-time data, free dashboards such as Sisense, Google Data Studio, and Microsoft Power BI can be customized with widgets to display the KPIs that are most applicable to your business.
They say that nothing in life is truly free. Keep in mind that the organizations developing these tools are doing so with the intention of bringing you into their sales pipeline, and the tools themselves usually include paid upgrade options or tantalizing extra features that can only be unlocked through upgrading.
A number of apps even include advertising, just as you would see on network television. But with these annoyances aside, free or low-cost tools are critical for cash-poor small businesses to take the first steps on their digitization journey.
