Technology is nowadays a business’ best friend. Utilization of tools that enhance efficiency, and therefore, cost-effectiveness, are constantly on the rise that the business not too keen in doing so is a business that usually gets run down by competition. Then again, if we pause and think about it, some businesses aren’t putting their best feet forward mainly because of the cost of implementing these tools. Well, with these three online tools that are either free or low-cost, hesitation will be nothing more than an excuse:
1. PickyDomains.com
A business name that consumers remember is a good business name. And given statistics saying nine out of ten new websites netizens browse are forever lost in memory, it’s important for a businessman to make sure his brand and his website domain resonate with customers. If you’re that businessman and you start to run out of ideas, branding agencies can save you time and trouble, but they do charge a hefty sum for their services.
PickyDomains.com is a crowdsourcing site that’s been in the business of providing relevant, catchy, unique and easy-to-remember names, domains and slogans to individuals and businesses alike. PickyDomains now has a strong contributor base of over 50,000 registered creative minds from all over the Internet. Once you’re registered with the site as a client, paid the required $50 for a name or domain, or $75 for a slogan, and specified your naming requirements, you immediately start receiving suggestions. And if none of the suggestions makes it to your guidelines, you get your money back.
2. Bitrix24.com
In this day and age, if a business is to differentiate itself from its peers, CRM and intranets are good avenues to explore. But these avenues don’t necessarily come cheap.
Free for companies with a maximum of 12 employees, Bitrix24.com is a social enterprise platform that combines several different work tools in a single application – CRM for your transactions, workforce monitoring to know what your people are working on, calendar and activity planner to keep track of obligations, deadlines and important dates, file sharing for easy access to reports, portfolios, etc., activity streaming to keep everyone updated with an ongoing project’s status, among so many others. And yes, these are all free. Bitrix24 is cloud-based as well, ensuring that whatever you need can be accessed anywhere you are, either through your computer or your phone, essentially making your workspace on the go. And if you ever decide to expand, an upgrade to unlimited users is available at a monthly subscription rate of $99.
3. JetRadar.com
A lot of businesses require travel. And what better way to travel than by air? With the arrival of low-cost airlines and online ticket brokerages, air travel has become way cheaper. But with this comes intense competition among airlines that some have been forced to leave for good. Those that are still afloat, as a result, have decided to confine their promotional offers into their own sites instead of price-comparison sites where other airlines can potentially steal their customers away by offering better deals than the ones they offer. For the customer, this means having to go from one site to another to compare and eventually find the best deal.
JetRadar.com is an integrated meta search engine that specifically searches 728 individual airlines and hundreds of ticketing and flight sites for the cheapest airfare promos, and makes the information publicly accessible in a single location, cutting down the time it takes to get to that airfare promo a consumer is looking for.
