As a small business owner, having a digital toolkit to help run your business is great and these beauties are Retail Connects must-have tools.  We just couldn’t successfully run our business without them in fact!

These are some of our favourites

1. Google Analytics – to guide our online activity through its powerful website visitor insights. We could say the whole Google suite – the Google Apps platform is a fantastic tool for any small business.
2. SproutSocial – to manage our social media activity effortlessly. From analytics to creating content on one platform for various social media platforms. There are also some fabulous free options for small business which will give you what you require  – these include: Instagram – Statigram, Pinterest - Tailwind, Twitter – Twitonomy.
3. MailChimp – a simply fantastic email marketing tool. Free for up to 2,000 subscribers. A total steal and links seamlessly to Google Analytics – I’m in seventh heaven – and don’t get me started on the fabulous data available!
4. Survey Monkey – to create online surveys and analyse the feedback.  We use a payment plan version for more intense data but their free version would do the trick for a small business owner.
5. Pocket –a fantastic programme which saves interesting articles, videos and more from the web for later enjoyment. Once saved to Pocket, the list of content is visible on any device — phone, tablet or computer, so that great image, article or video is ready to share.
6. Swayy – time is money and this fantastic desktop app finds articles from around the globe on your chosen topics. You’ll still want to check out local news but Swayy will take the time out of searching for fresh content.
7. Offerpop – run seamless and beautiful contests on social media platforms and so much more.  Easy to use and gives your contests a professional edge.
8. Pagemodo – Designer cover photo’s for social media are at your fingertips with this great little design tool.  You can also run contest from the platform.  Pagemodo will take your social media pages to a whole new level.
9. Xero – who knew accounting could be fun?? The NZ based company is going from strength to strength and it’s easy to see why with their easy to use cloud based accounting packages.
10. Zoho Projects – Never miss a deadline again with this handy digital tool!  The whole team can be kept up to date with project tasks and milestones through the Zoho platform. 

These are just a few of the digital tools we use to keep us over top of our workload but also to take some of the time out of tasks  so we can spend time with our loved ones. 

Cloud based digital tools are providing a golden age for small businesses with tools that have previously been out of the reach of the small business owner now are accessible through easier to manage cost structures. If you aren’t already using some of these tools check them out and let us know what you think. And if you have other great digit tools we would love to hear about them.