Industry Update: The Latest Digital Analytics Tools for Startups and Small Businesses

By Adriaan Brits | Sunday, 21 June 2020 | News

The new digital era, defined as 2020 and beyond, requires a fresh approach to business tools — particularly analytics and big data tools. Here is the latest news to stay ahead of the curve.

As a recent research article from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers suggests, a huge digital transformation has already begun and is only going to grow in the next decade. Small enterprises are prominent for economic growth globally; hence, new digital tools will increase their value and upgrade their operations.

One of the latest thought leaders in marketing research suggests that businesses of all sizes should invest in digital analytical tools and adapt to the new digital reality: embracing the “digitalization of the business” witnessed in the last years, which will further evolve in the next decade. The year 2020 is considered an introduction to this new digital era.

As we look toward 2025 in the year 2020, a big data explosion has exposed a new reality with many improvements and future opportunities for businesses. Startups and small businesses have to adapt and follow technological developments to boost their sales and achieve a profitable return of investment (ROI). Startups may need to change and improve their platforms and start using new digital analytical tools to become more innovative and keep up with this technology-oriented world.

New ventures and startups may need more time and are a bit behind in the adoption of digital concepts. However, large companies have already embraced and adopted digital services and tools that will help them remain powerful in the market.

Digital Analytics Tools Will Help Your Business Succeed Today

New approaches leverage the business’s operations. Several digital analytics tools can help your startup mission be innovative, provide the best possible services, and become successful. Find out what the top digital tools that can contribute to managing your startup or small business are below.

Social Media Tools

To manage your social media platforms and get the insights that will help you improve your customer journey and build your brand, you may work with online media tools.

Buffer, Hootsuite, and Google Alerts are all popular services. The first two are limited free online tools providing trials and premium features. Google Alerts is a free tool that enables you to get notifications about customer’s content on social platforms.

You can also check out Talkwalker or Brand24. Both are social media tools that help you discover your customer behavior and monitor your competition.

Marketing Analytics Tools

Monitoring marketing analytics is one of the most important tools for a business. With this comprehensive look into your marketing performance, you can explore your sales funnel, measure and analyze your data, collect fresh data via digital channels, and figure out the business impact of your marketing activities.

One recommended marketing analytics tool is the Marketo platform that enables you to track your marketing performance. Marketo supports large and small businesses that are fast-growing in the market. It’s a digital software that measures your performance, provides data analytics for your business, supports search engine optimization, and several other services.

A second recommended digital tool for your marketing performance analysis is Kissmetrics. This is a tool that “understands” your customer behavior. It can be used to analyze your digital marketing data, to monitor and generate revenues based on customer type and different channels. However, Kissmetrics is a costly platform that starts from $500/month.

A good alternative for startups and small businesses that can’t spend as much but want efficient marketing performance analysis is the Google Analytics platform. It’s free for small enterprises, but not large companies that prefer to use more advanced features. Google Analytics is a perfect tool to analyze your customer journey on a website or mobile app. You can measure your traffic and monitor your acquisition and conversion rates.

Customer Service Relationship (CRM) Tools

CRM tools improve customer service, help manage customers and potential customer profiles, and can increase profitability. You can keep customers satisfied and make your work life easier, using CRM tools to help you organize your workload.

Typical suggestions for CRM systems could be HubSpot, which is available as a free tool and allows you to work perfectly with the basics. Zoho CRM is also considered a good tool for small and medium-sized businesses. It has small fees and offers plenty of features that you can integrate with other Zoho products.

Conclusion

There are plenty of digital (predictive) analytics tools online that can be used by small or large companies. A few of them are free of charge for standard use or provide free trials, while others require a fee and provide premium and advanced features.

Several platforms are used for different types of analysis. For example, you will find tools to monitor your SEO, content marketing, customer experience, email, and advertising campaigns. There are also separate tools for different professions, such as accounting, project management, HR, and more.

About the Author

Adriaan Brits

As an analyst of global affairs, Adriaan has an MSC from Oxford, with diverse interests in the digital economy, entertainment, and business. He is a specialist trainer in Advanced Analytics & Media.