The current economic climate means that many businesses are feeling the pinch right now, and finding ways to save money is likely to be more important than ever before. Integration tools are an often overlooked but effective way to save your business time and money – and you may be surprised at just how cost-effective they are to deploy, too.
Below you’ll find our pick of the very best integration tools, from platforms that allow you to bring all your email accounts under one roof to powerful sales CRM systems – and how they can save your business some serious cash.
Spike
This innovative new email platform can be used to integrate your messaging effectively. The fact that Google doesn’t currently offer a dedicated Gmail client for Windows is a hassle – especially as most people and businesses have at least one active Gmail account.
Switching platforms and screens isn’t just inconvenient; it increases the risk that you or your team will miss an important communication or an urgent notification. Spike is the perfect solution. It can fully integrate your Gmail (and other) email accounts into one handy platform and is also a great Gmail client for iPhone. Plus, it boasts an arsenal of helpful features designed to boost productivity and make your workday flow more smoothly.
Zapier
This nifty integration tool lets you link all your apps in order to automate and streamline workflow. Information is shared and moved between apps to free up time, plus Zaps are workflows that you can create to pull multiple apps on board to complete a task efficiently.
Facebook, Slack, Quickbooks, Google Docs, and Google Sheets are just a few of the apps that Zapier can integrate – and there’s a free version, too, if you want to try out its basic functionality and tools before committing to a paid plan with all the bells and whistles. The number of apps Zapier can connect is constantly growing and currently stands at over five thousand!
Best of all, Zapier is adaptable enough to fit your unique business; it offers custom solutions for those seeking to streamline their marketing processes, business owners, those wanting to smooth their sales operations, or those wishing to incorporate additional IT automation.
Domo Business Cloud
An all-in-one solution that covers integration, business intelligence, and data apps so that you and your team have the tools and information you always need ready at your fingertips.
Data can be integrated from any source, and data assets located in various places can be easily and quickly brought together and analyzed. This means data silos can be broken down into manageable, interrogatable information, and more valuable insights can be mined from this information.
By eliminating time-consuming tasks and freeing up hours of staff time, Domo could save you significant time and money. Doma’s cloud infrastructure also means it can easily scale – meaning it’s a solution that will grow with your business.
Stackby
Stackby combines the functionality and features of spreadsheets and databases and integrates with the most widely-used business apps, so you and your team can get more done from one platform. As well as scaling back your software spending, this is a great way to boost productivity.
Stackby is easy to get started with and use and enables better collaboration between staff members, teams, and departments. It also features some powerful automation capabilities. For example, you can connect spreadsheets to external data sources, negating the need for your staff to perform manual updates.
The automation tools on offer with Stackby can also cut the cost of your business’s marketing campaigns while boosting their effectiveness. Create a marketing pipeline to keep track of every element of a marketing drive, from conception through to the end analysis of results, and update the settings to import your marketing data automatically, in real-time, so you can see how things are going at a glance.
Online Lead Portal
For sales teams, an integration platform like Online Lead Portal can make a huge difference in closing more deals and saving time.
This software optimizes customer communication and facilitates a better follow-up process. It offers marketing automation, post-sale analysis, email integration, contact management, a custom dashboard, and more.
Online Lead Portal is especially useful for real estate businesses, as it incorporates various CRM tools designed specifically for this sector. These include property alerts, lead nurturing, source tracking and scoring, and lead capture.
Working Smarter to Save Money and Time
By creating slick workflows and rethinking your processes, you may be surprised at how much money your business will save. With the range of integration apps, software, and platforms out there, there’s likely an all-in-one solution out there that’ll fit your business needs perfectly.
Make the most of free trials or discounted periods to try out the options available to find the right fit. Integrating elements such as your email accounts or your online sales processes or deploying a single software solution that has everything your team needs on one intuitive dashboard could be the most significant money-saving action you take this year.
