How to Choose the Right Tools for your Online Business
There are now well over 200 different tools that help you schedule your social media.
200… That’s an awful lot to choose from!
It’s the same with email marketing platforms, website hosting companies and many of the other products we use on a daily basis.
So, how do you go about deciding which are the right tools to use for your online business?
Read on for my three-step process and top tips on the most important factors to consider before you make your decision.
Step 1. Decide what you’re looking for
The first step is to decide what you need the tool to do in terms of functionality and customisation. What are the critical must-haves?
Make sure to consider what stage your business is at so that you don’t get sucked in by all the bells-and-whistles that you don’t really need.
Instead, list out those things that it really must do and those things that are a nice-to-have. Do this before you even start to think about what tools are available.
Make sure to include your requirements for how easy it is to use, or whether you’re happy to get stuck into the tech, as well as the sort of support or customer service that you’d prefer. There’s no point finding the perfect piece of software if they only offer written tutorials and you really learn best by watching videos or speaking to a real life human.
Also consider how it needs to fit in with the other tools that you already use. Does it need to work with a specific website platform, payment tool or other aspect of your business tech. Yes, there are tools that you can use to make systems talk to each other, but it’s a lot easier if they are set up to do that already.
This is also a great time to consider your budget. Are you looking for a free tool, or are you happy to pay $10/month, $100/month or more.
There are tools for every single budget and it isn’t necessarily true that the more you pay, the more you get. Some just have better branding or have been around for longer!
Step 2. Pull together a shortlist
The next step is to get a shortlist of potential tools to research. Ideally between 3 and 5 options should give you enough to go on.
To prevent being overwhelmed by too many options, it’s probably best to avoid broad Google searches.
Instead, ask in Facebook groups filled with people in similar businesses to you, or at a similar stage of business. Be very clear about what features you are looking for and ask them what they use and whether they’d recommend it.
(Or better yet, start off by searching in those same Facebook groups for the many posts where others have asked exactly the same question. That way, the generous souls who always respond won’t have to keep repeating themselves!)
An alternative to Facebook groups might be to ask your business mastermind, business coach, or other business buddies.
Be wary at this point that some of the responses you get may be from people who are affiliates for the product they are suggesting (meaning that they get paid for anyone they send over who becomes a customer or, in some cases, even for those who start a free trial of the product in question).
If they have written a favourable blog post about it, or are raving and sharing ‘their’ link to it, then their enthusiasm might not be as authentic as it seems.
An alternative is to read blog posts that compare a number of different tools within a category, such as the Angel Rated guides.
Again, if these are written by people who are in a similar business to you, they are more likely to be relevant. There’s no point reading something that’s sharing the best tools for consulting businesses with 10 employees and a turnover of $1m if that’s not where your business is at.
Another option on Angel Rated is to use the main search function (at the top of the page!). This allows you to search by the topic and type of product you are looking for, and then sort and filter the options by price, review ratings, experience level, etc.
This, along with the independent reviews written on Angel Rated by other online business owners, should give you a good indication of which platforms might be the best fit for your needs.
Step 3. Research and test the shortlist
The final step is to go through your shortlist and see how well they fit the criteria you came up with in step 1.
You’ll want to make sure they do everything on your must-have list, and as many as possible on your nice-to-have list.
But be warned that even though they may claim on their sales pages to do everything on your list, some of the functionality may only be available at the higher price plans.
You’ll therefore also need to have a look at what features are included in each price plan and what limits are in place (e.g. size of audience, amount of data, number of transactions, etc).
At this point, I don’t think it’s worth worrying about whether the tool will be able to grow with you as your business grows. I’m yet to find a tool that won’t scale, and if you do hit restrictions in the future, then it’s time to celebrate that your business has grown and that you have new criteria!
If you’ve got time, another thing you can do at this point is to watch a few YouTube videos of real users talking about their experience with that tool and how they use it. This should give you a real insight into whether it’s something that you will enjoy and be comfortable using.
Or you might want to do some research into the company itself to see if their values align with yours. Doing this is one of the reasons that I chose ConvertKit as my email marketing service – I really loved their mission, vision and values, and wanted to support an organisation that I believed in.
[As an aside, this is also why I started my podcast, The Angel Rated Show. In it I interview the founders of businesses listed on Angel Rated to understand more about their beliefs and values. This then provides you with more information to help in your decision making process.]
For tools that have a free trial, now is the time to sign up and have a play. Test out using the features that you need and see how easy it is to get things up and running, and how much support is offered.
One word of caution is that free trials often include all the features from the highest priced plan, so make sure to check that you’re not getting excited about something that is way out of your budget.
Hopefully by this stage, you’ll have a pretty clear winner. If not, it’s probably because the tools are remarkably similar in price, functionality and support, so it’s time to either list out the pros and cons of each, or to just pick one and jump in.
Final tips on choosing tools for your online business
Don’t be scared to make a decision and then change it later on. Even if you’ve signed up for a year, you’re not stuck with this tool forever and as your business grows and changes, you’re likely to need to change systems.
If you are looking for lots of different tools, then do look at some of the all-in-one solutions that do multiple different things in one package. There are more and more of these available and they often save you a lot of money compared to buying each of the tools separately.
And lastly, if you don’t mind using new software and love getting a bargain, then get signed up with AppSumo. This is the great site for getting vastly reduced lifetime deals on new and up-and-coming tools that are looking to grow their user base.
So, there you have it, my three-step process and top tips to help you choose the right tools for your online business.
Now why not pin and save the graphics above so that you have them to hand next time you need to choose a new tool for your business.
And if this all sounds like something you'd rather not face, then fear not. Just drop me a line about my done-for-you research and implementation service where I take it all off your hands so that you can stay focused on doing what you do best.