Top 14 Tools To Facilitate Your Businesses Move To Online During The Coronavirus Crisis:

With the global pandemic unfolding, working from home has become the new normal for most of the UK’s workforce. 

Many traditionally ‘offline’ businesses are now finding themselves thrown in at the deep end when it comes to operating in the online world. You and your staff are having to learn new skills and use new tools FAST as you adapt to move the business online to not only survive, but thrive during this time.

We understand this is a lot easier said than done, and to be honest it’s all a bit of a minefield with all the different options available to you. So here are our top 14 picks we recommend you get to grips with, and a summary of what each can do for your business. 

Who knows, this could end up being a brilliant opportunity for your business to thrive online! 

1. Zoom - Think Skype, but better. Keep communications going by holding video and chat based online meetings, events and courses with clients, colleagues and suppliers all over the world. Just create an account, setup a link, and email it to the people you want in the meeting. They click on the link at the agreed date and time and are taken directly into the video call.
2. Xero - an online accountancy tool. Generate new invoices, monitor and send out automated reminders for outstanding/overdue invoices, track and review expenses, create and review financial reports, and reconcile accounts and more.
3. Calendly - schedule meetings with clients, colleagues and suppliers. Each booking is then automatically entered into yours and their online diary. 
4. Slack - communicate across teams and share ideas and updates. 
5. Asana - set and manage individual and team tasks and deadlines. 
6. Toggl - track productivity and monitor time spent on projects and client management.
7. Trello - brainstorm new initiatives and organise team thoughts into mindmaps and lists. 
8. Pipedrive - track sales activity and move prospects and new deals through your sales pipeline.
9. Hubspot - automate elements of digital marketing including Crm, email marketing campaigns, landing pages and more
10. Social Media - keep top of mind with prospects, offer support to existing customers and suppliers, and use this time to build and strengthen relationships, increase visibility, and generate more sales opportunities for your sales teams - if you’re B2B, LinkedIn is where you should be focusing your efforts for maximum ROI
11. Dropbox - store files and share them with colleagues, clients and suppliers.
12. Google Drive - create, collaborate and share documents and files with colleagues, clients and suppliers. 
13. Kajabi - create and sell online courses in your field of expertise. 
14. PayPal - accept payments online (especially handy if you’re creating new digital services and products), and pay for new software subscriptions. 

I hope this summary has been helpful as you navigate the plethora of different tools available to facilitate and bolster your business as it moves online. 

As a digital marketing business we use these tools every day, so if you need some extra help getting to grips with them, just give us a shout and we’d be happy to offer some guidance - [email protected]