Since the start of the digital revolution in the mid 20th century, businesses and corporate organizations have always adopted improved ways to function digitally.

The rapid adoption of digital tools by businesses didn’t begin until the late 90s at the height of the internet boom. This golden era heralded the rise of digital products like cloud software which have transformed the way businesses and organization’s store important data from meagre physical hard drives sizes of the 60 to the 90s to powerful giant servers housed by software companies like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Service and Google Cloud Platform.

Using efficient and innovative digital tools has many advantages which include customer satisfaction and retention, improved internal and external communication, time optimization, low customer churn out rate, information centralization, etc.

What Are Digital Tools?

Digital tools are online platforms or software applications leveraged by businesses or individuals to perform quick and optimized functions that ordinarily takes forever to accomplish without them.

 

The Right Digital Tools

Beyond joining the digital transformation wave, It’s imperative that businesses choose the right digital tool that works for them. For example, an upcoming fashion brand will quickly improve its operational process digitally with a Customer Relationship Management tool like Zendesk, while a Logistics company will prioritize the use of several management tools.

Some tools remain very necessary to integrate across industries and we’ll take a look at 20 of them. Here are 20 digital tools businesses should promptly adopt this year if they haven’t:

• Google Workspace

Arguably the most used digital tool by businesses and individuals due to its simplicity and seamless integration, the Google Workplace, formerly known as Google Suites is a powerful digital transformation tool. The collaborative suite includes well known digital tools like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Slides, My Tasks, Drive and a number of others that employees can use to share real time information. The digital tools under the G Workspace package can be used independently or jointly. Click here to get more details. 

 

• KlevaHR

KlevaHR is a cloud-based HR software that enables Human resource managers to own their HR processes. The tool has a wide range of features that caters to different HR functions like,  Payroll, Employee engagement, onboarding and more. KlevaHR adapts to HR practices across different countries and organizational structures, making the tool effective for talent management on a global scale even whilst it respects local requirements.

 

• Zendesk

Interfacing with a lot of old and new customers seamlessly can be a hassle if your business has yet to integrate with the right customer service software. This is where Zendesk comes in. The tool helps optimize your customer relationship with features like messaging and live chat, ticketing system, voice, answering bot and so much more.

 

• Sage Cloud Accounting

One of the best accounting software out there, the Sage business cloud accounting platform is a truly transformative digital tool for any business that has adopted it. The software comes fully fitted with advanced inventory, stocks management, invoicing, debtor management, etc and can be used across all industries.

 

• Hootsuite

Social media has increasingly become a very important medium used by companies and organizations to communicate with customers. But managing several social media accounts at the same time will require social media management tools like Hootsuite. With Hootsuite, you can manage, plan, schedule and analyze all your company’s social media platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube) and contents in one place.

 

• Twitter

Before its ban, Twitter was one of the most favorite online tools used by Nigerian businesses for the quick dissemination of information about their offerings. Its disposition to capture a lot of audience in a matter of minutes makes it a go to affordable marketing tool for small businesses.

 

• Instagram

Do we even need to go deep into this one? I’m guessing no. But we’d do it anyway for the sake of those who aren’t still in the know. One of the most important tricks with marketing and digital marketing is understanding where exactly your customers are and meeting them right there.

With this in mind, think of who your ideal customers are, think of what they’d most likely be doing during the day at every moment when they get a breather from work. If you can picture them scrolling through Instagram feeds, then you already know your business page should be one of those feeds they’re feeding on.

 

• WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems. As of April 2023, 41.4% of the top 10million websites around the world uses WordPress. This tool enables users to create websites or blogs for any purpose and helps manage the contents deployed on the website after creation for great SEO ranking.

• MailChimp

Your business is incomplete without an email marketing tool. One of the most popular digital email marketing tools out there, MailChimp is virtually used by any business including news platforms and podcast hosts with a moderate or large customer/audience base.

The MailChimp features which include Audience Management for segmentation and targeting, Creative Tools for content creation, Marketing Automation and Insights and Analytics allow for seamless and faster interaction with customers and integration to other digital tools.

 

• HubSpot

Very few digital tools offer so much comprehensive digital interaction for businesses the way HubSpot does. The HubSpot platform packs a big punch; it combines customer relationship management solutions, inbound marketing solutions and other digital solutions into one package and can be integrated with other popular digital tools. The platform also offers easy to use free features to help businesses grow their audience base online.

 

• Whatsapp Business

For most individual businesses, especially on social media, the Whatsapp Business app is the go to digital tool. With features such as a business profile, catalogue to show your products and services, auto messaging, QR codes to invite new customers and other features, Whatsapp business allows businesses to enhance operations and provide them with a professional and personalised way to engage with their customers. The messaging app was created by Facebook as a standalone application for business owners and can be downloaded from the app and PlayStore.

 

• Audiense

We’ve talked time and time again about the importance of  social listening for identifying trends and potential customers.

Tools like Audiense take listening to the next level by helping companies both identify and segment their social media audiences. Doing so makes it easier to run laser-targeted ad campaigns and likewise dive deeper into your customer personas. Digging into demographics, personality straights and beyond, you’d be surprised at what you can learn from social alone.

Audiense’s platform focuses primarily on Twitter, making it great for B2B brands interested in prospecting and B2C companies looking to understand more about their target audience. 

 

• SendGrid

SendGrid offers a full suite of email marketing services, many of which are totally friendly to novices and email veterans alike.

For example, the platform offers flexible design options via visual, drag-and-drop editing, coding or a combination of both. In-depth deliverability and performance analytics are also built into SendGrid, cluing marketers in on which messages are performing and what needs work.

We know: there are more email marketing solutions out there than we can count. That said, a big upside of SendGrid is the forever-free plan for up-and-coming businesses as well as scalable pricing that matches your needs as you grow your list.

 

• Lemlist 

lemlist is unique among our email marketing tools because the platform is primarily focused on deliverability. Emphasizing the best times to send your messages (and how often) for the sake of more opens and clicks, lemlist is awesome for optimizing your existing campaigns.

Rather than second-guessing your marketing pushes, lemlist can be an eye-opener in terms of how to warm up your list.

Additional features include personalization tools to make your outreach emails sound less spammy and follow-up email sequences to encourage more replies from cold prospects.

• Moosend

Moosend is among the most user-friendly and affordable of our digital marketing tools, representing a surprisingly robust email solution for those just beginning to build their list.

Codeless campaigns, simple automations and easy-to-read reporting are all built into the platform. Paid users can also take advantage of landing page features, including mobile popups and countdown timers.

 

• Clearscope

Now, let’s say you’re interested in capitalizing on keyword opportunities and optimizing your existing content. That’s where Clearscope comes in.

Particularly useful for content writing, the platform provides a detailed editor to recommend keywords, headers and readability to help you write (or rewrite) high-ranking, well-balanced blog posts.

Whether you’re creating a content strategy from scratch or refreshing your existing blogs, Clearscope covers every nook and cranny of search optimization.

 

• Optimizely

Emphasizing landing page experiments, Optimizely combines tools for visual creation and audience targeting to quickly run tests on different segments of your audience.

A no-code platform that allows you to test both major and minor edits to your pages, fine-tuning your site for performance doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking.

 

• MailMunch

A hybrid email marketing and landing page tool focused on list-building, MailMunch offers several engaging form types and emails to send to leads once they’ve opted-in.

The platform lets you segment your audience based on factors such as how often they buy and customer demographics. Additionally, their goal-based form-builder is straightforward and lets you work from a variety of templates.

 

• Clearbit

Using 100+ sources, including Salesforce and additional marketing platform data, Clearbit creates an up-to-date profile of your leads to make your outreach efforts go more smoothly. The details gathered include company, role and company size, just to name a few.

Rather than dig for details or rely on outdated information, the platform regularly updates itself every 30 days to ensure that your data stays fresh. This allows you to prospect with confidence and save serious time in the process.

 

• Microsoft Azure

Build applications to meet customer demands using AI and machine learning. Test, deploy, manage and scale applications up and down depending on demands. Do all of this and even modernize your existing applications with Microsoft Azure.