To keep up with the high-speed business environment of the Tri-State area, New Jersey business owners need to be as productive as possible during their working hours. If your role takes you on the road a lot, know that doesn't mean you need to sacrifice productivity. In fact, by downloading the business apps featured in this article, you will be able to tackle significant business tasks with just your smartphone. In this post, we’ll be taking a look at the following business apps:
- Google Drive
- Quickbooks/Freshbooks/Wave
- Microsoft To-Do
- Google Analytics
- Trello
- Canva
- Hubspot
- MailChimp
- Hootsuite
- Google My Business
Many of these business apps have similar apps offered by other companies that may make more sense based on the software your company currently uses. We’ve made sure to mention runner ups when applicable so you can still get the benefits of these apps.
Google Drive
Google Drive is one of the most popular business apps and should be installed on every business owners phone. With Google Drive, you can view all of your Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets files. And if you download those individual apps, you can edit and create documents all while on the go. Files sync automatically, so if you write up a doc on your commute, you can pick up right where you left off when you get to the office. And best of all, this cloud office suite is free and offers up to 15GB of cloud storage on that plan.
Alternatives: Dropbox
Quickbooks/Freshbooks/Wave
One of the most important aspects of running a business is having an accurate and up to date picture of your company's finances. You also need to be able to perform any important transactions no matter where you are. That’s where these accounting business apps come into play. They allow you to upload receipts, manage invoices, and view other pertinent accounting info related to your business. Coupled with your business bank account’s mobile app, you should be able to perform any type of transaction no matter where you are.
Microsoft To-Do
For managing your to-do list, Microsoft To-Do may just be the best overall to-dot app that is also free. Microsoft To-Do is cross-platform. Meaning you can use it whether you're on IOS/Android or Windows/Mac OS. You can create tasks and set custom reminders/due dates, and attach files/comments and even assign tasks to members of your team. There are many To-Do list apps on the market, but none of them give you as much value as Microsoft To-Do. Many of the features it offers for free require a paid subscription by other top options.
Alternatives: Todoist, Google Tasks
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the gold standard of website analytics. It’s an extremely popular (and free) tool that gives you insight into how people find, view and interact with your website. Without Google Analytics, it’s nearly impossible to determine what’s working and what’s not from a digital marketing perspective for your business. Once you learn how to use it, you can start making data-driven decisions to grow your business. Google Analytics also offers a helpful mobile app. We recommend setting up your dashboard on the desktop web app. Then, you can view your charts on the go with the app and get a quick snapshot of your websites most important metrics.
Trello
Trello is a terrific project management tool that is flexible enough to be applied to almost any business task or project. We always create a custom Trello board for our clients before a web design project gets off the ground. With Trello, you can get a high-level overview of where a project stands and seamlessly collaborate with your team. Read this for a full explanation on how to best use Trello to keep your team productive.
Canva
Need to be creative on the go? Canva is the app for that. Canva has a generous free plan that makes it very easy to create great creative assets for your business. Whether you want to design a banner for your blog, Instagram post, or create a flyer, Canva can give you the dimensions for each asset so they look awesome on the medium you display them on. Further, Canva offers tons of templates that make it easy to find inspiration and quickly mock up a design. It’s paid option gives you access to stock photography, animation effects and a whole lot more. Alternatives: Gimp, Pixelmator (Mac only)
Hubspot
If you’re using Hubspot as your CRM, their business app makes it easy to update/manage your contact database and track leads. You can also track deals within the app and manage conversations if you have their chatbot installed on your website. Being able to track leads and manage your existing customers is essential. That’s why no matter what CRM you use, you need to download their business app.
Alternatives: Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive
MailChimp
Does your business rely heavily on email marketing? If so, it’s likely you use MailChimp. If you do, their business app is a must-have with the MailChimp business app, you can keep track of your existing email campaigns, review analytics, and create emails from your saved templates.
Hootsuite
On mobile, you're not just limited to manage your businesses email marketing efforts. With the business app Hootsuite, you can also manage all of your companies social media efforts in one place. With Hootsuite, you can schedule your organic social media posts in one sitting, which will save you a lot of time throughout the week. With it’s paid plan, you can also dive into the analytics of your posts create ad campaigns all within its dashboard.
Alternatives: Buffer, Later (for Instagram)
Google My Business
It wouldn’t really by a blog post about business apps unless we included this one, right? With the Google My Business App, you can manage how your business listing appears on Google Search and Maps. You can read and respond directly to reviews, and get analytics on views your listing generates. Setting up a Google My Business profile will make it easy for customers to quickly learn more about your business and get in touch. It’s huge for Local SEO so we highly recommend you take the time to set this up.
