4 Supplies to Pack in Your Business “Backpack”

It’s that time of year again. Parents all over the United States have a certain spring in their step and are turning their thoughts towards carpools, school uniforms, sports registrations and new school supplies. After you finish searching the aisles of your local office supply store for just the right brand of notebook, take a few moments and focus on your supply needs. Are there tools that you could use to run your business more efficiently, identify better leads, or target the areas on your website that could use some attention? Yes. Yes, there are. And since nobody seems to send a “back to school roundup” flyer for small business owners, I’m here to share the tools that I’m packing in my virtual backpack to get ready for the new school year.

Hotjar

Wouldn’t it be great to hover over a prospect’s shoulder as he or she navigates your website? With Hotjar, you get all the information gleaned from “watching” site visitors navigate your website, with none of the creepiness (or questionable legality) of actually having to snoop around a stranger’s home or office. Hotjar creates a “heatmap” of users’ visits to your site and also records individual visits in video format for you to watch whenever you choose. The end result: you get to see exactly what works on your site and what areas could use some love. Best of all? While Hotjar has a variety of pricing plans, the free version gives you access to videos and your site’s heatmap.

Unless

I don’t know about you, but I value finding opportunities to include personal touches in my business communications. Unless, a service that allows users to create custom landing pages based on certain parameters, is a great option to provide site visitors with a personalized experience starting with their first visit. Segmenting your audience, and creating a message that will resonate with each group, is a minor change that can have a major impact on conversions. We are using it for all sorts of personalization needs both for clients and our own website. Not bad for $9.00/month.

ConvertFox

If a prospective client wants to initiate contact with me, I want to be available to her. My phone number is on my site, so is my email address and a project phone. What if she wants to “chat online”? Enter ConvertFox. ConvertFox is a complete client communications package that includes chat, email, and other features. While I haven’t found the email function to be quite ready for primetime, the live chat feature is a fantastic addition to my website and gives users another way to reach out to us. It collects an email address so you can get back to the prospect if you aren’t at your desk at 2 AM. And, like Hotjar, the free version can cover basic needs.

Leadworx

Now, if you’re looking for the professional equivalent of the big box of Crayola crayons, consider splurging on Leadworx an advanced analytics tool that identifies and tracks visitors to your site and provides insight into how visitors behave while they’re on your site. Although a bit of a splurge, Leadworx can provide invaluable focus to your outbound campaigns. Instead of wading through lists of cold contacts, work with a list of contacts who have already visited your site.

These are the tools that I’m using and loving right now, but I’m sure you have your own tools that you can’t imagine running your business without. I’d love to hear more about them!