Ronak Kothari is the founder of RONKOT, a full-service digital marketing agency.
Small and medium-sized businesses often face several stumbling blocks and challenges when scaling up. They struggle with costs, resources, and technical tools that help them rise the ranks to that of enterprises.
Meanwhile, cloud-based SaaS tools can perfectly cater to their needs and remove the growth blocks for easy scaling. As per research by BMC, 78% of small businesses have already invested in SaaS tools for business.
Also, Gartner’s report says end-user spending on public cloud services like SaaS is expected to grow by around 35-40% in 2021-2023.
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SaaS business products are becoming ubiquitous as they enable you to make informed decisions to attain the highest level of growth through your SaaS marketing. But do you know what SaaS tools mean?
What are SaaS tools?
SaaS tools or SaaS products are on-demand cloud-based software that are distributed over the internet for businesses to tap into through a subscription model. They are essentially web-based software you can utilize without procuring expensive hardware or installing software in your system.
Advantages of using SaaS tools for business:
- Hassle-free accessibility from anywhere on any device
- Flexible pricing options
- High scalability and quick security upgrades
- Consistent feature enhancements
Top 15 SaaS Tools for Small Businesses to Achieve Phenomenal Growth
A) Team Collaboration and Management
1. Bit.ai
Bit.ai offers remote companies and teams one smart roof to store, share, track, manage, and collaborate on all the essential company documents, files, and other content. It’s a new-age SaaS tool that helps small businesses with content management and collaboration.
Bit offers a wide array of functionality for team collaboration, knowledge creation, sharing, integration, and organization. You can create workspaces for your private use and invite others to join them.
Key features Bit.ai:
- Real-time team collaboration
- Integration of 100+ rich media
- Smart search & document tracking
- Workspaces with folder hierarchy
2. Trello
Trello is another great SaaS tool to power up your remote team collaboration efforts. It’s one of the renowned tools that small businesses can use for project management. The tool lets you assign, organize, and track what your remote team members are currently working on.
The best part is that you can even start free to accomplish basic tasks like adding cards, assigning a due date, writing descriptions, and much more.
Key features of Trello:
- Kanban-style boards with drag and drop
- Task assignment to individuals/groups
- Due date alerts and notifications
- Information backup and retrieval
3. Slack
Slack is a go-to SaaS tool for small businesses to streamline their communications with remote and in-house teams. Since its launch, Slack has gained immense popularity and has 18 million daily active users and 156,000+ paid enterprise subscribers — said a report on Business of apps.
This communication tool offers disparate ways for employees to communicate instead of sending emails, attending meetings, and phone calls.
Key features of Slack:
- Encryption for data transfer
- Creation of different channels for different communications
- Activity logging and contextual search
- Open API for building integrations
B) Business Intelligence Tools
4. Power BI
PowerBI is a Business Intelligence tool from Microsoft that empowers businesses to discover useful insights from data. It helps you create a data-driven culture and enable all your team members to make informed decisions.
Power BI is a great tool if you use Microsoft products like Office 365, Sharepoint, and SQL server. It’s developed keeping decision-makers in mind to help build reports easily.
Key Features of Power BI:
- Interactive Power BI desktop
- Customized visualization
- Integration with Microsoft products
- Convenient access from web and mobile
5. Sisense
Small businesses that don’t work on Microsoft products can use Sisense for all their Business Intelligence needs. Its affordable pricing will fit your small business budget and also offer a more scalable option for fast-growing businesses.
The tool offers integration of reports from popular apps like Excel, Google Adwords, Salesforce & Zendesk CRM reports, and others.
Key Features of Sisense:
- Drag and drop interface
- Range of business analytics tools for small businesses
- Visual and interactive experience
- Department-specific pre-built dashboards
- Widgets to go beyond standard dashboards
6. Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is a wonderful tool for businesses that rely extensively on Google products. The tools help you unlock invaluable data in a visual manner for better decision-making. The best thing, it’s free and accessible for everyone to generate interactive and visual reports.
Google also offers an entire course on Data Studio for business owners, marketers, and agencies to learn, build, and gain insights.
Key Features of Google Data Studio:
- Community-developed connectors for a variety of information sources
- Real-time dashboards to monitor and measure the campaign’s success
- Google Ads and Analytics dashboards to monitor performance
- Built-in customizable dashboards and reports
- An array of charts, graphs, maps, and tables for visualization
C) Accounting
7. Xero
Xero is an award-winning SaaS tool that offers tons of features to help you manage all your accounting needs. The key USP of this tool is that it offers free 3rd-party API integration with Salesforce, Payroll, Time-Tracking, and others.
This gives Xero the ability to change the broad functionality in real-time.
Key features of Xero:
- Send online quotes and invoices to customers
- Schedule, track, and pay your bills
- Match and reconcile bank transactions
- Hubdoc to capture bills and receipts
- Multiple optional add-ons
D) Content Management & Marketing
8. Wix
Wix is a comprehensive SaaS-based tool that lets you build websites and manage your content efficiently. It currently holds around 10% market share — the second-highest after WordPress. Features like web hosting, free custom domain, SSL security, and others give Wix a competitive edge.
Small businesses with content marketing workflows must get their hands on Wix for all the content scheduling, storing, publishing, and managing.
Key Features of Wix
- Drag and drop, easy-to-use interface
- Editing on the go
- A pool of pre-made template resources
- 3rd-party integrations
9. Outgrow
Outgrow is an answer to all your interactive content marketing needs. Using the Outgrow SaaS tool, you can build highly engaging and feature-packed calculators, quizzes, chatbots, survey forms, and others. It also includes a variety of tools to bolster your content marketing efforts.
Outgrow SaaS marketing tool offers highly optimized layouts that work on multiple screen sizes and browsers to bring engagement and conversion.
Key Features of Outgrow:
- No-code SaaS tool to build content campaigns
- Data export/import and analysis tool
- Drag and drop builder
- Engagement tracking tool
- Improvised lead segmentation
E) Customer Support and Management
10. HubSpot Customer Service
HubSpot is not only a CRM or marketing platform but much more than that. It offers a whole suite of tools for sales, customer service, and other aspects of your business. The customer service tool can power your customer support and management by going beyond just email marketing.
It enables you to prepare workflows, publish content, and integrate live chats & email support, schedule meetings, and do all sorts of other things too.
Key Features of HubSpot Customer Service:
- Ticketing and live chats
- Email and meeting scheduling
- Reporting dashboards
- Email tracking and notifications
- Facebook Messenger integration
11. Zendesk
Acclaimed as the best customer service software, Zendesk is the most recognized name when it comes to customer support. It offers a powerful live chat experience small businesses can quickly tap into to offer real-time customer service.
What makes Zendesk favorable to most small businesses is its ease of deployment which ensures higher engagement of valued customers. Plus, it’s effortless to scale your customer service needs to meet your growing business needs.
Key Features of Zendesk:
- Complete customer support solution
- Integrated help centers and community forums to resolve customer issues
- AI-powered bots to provide a personalized touch
- Meet customers on messaging, live chat, social, email, voice, etc.
F) HR & Employee Training
12. Bizneo HR
Bizneo HR is one of the best SaaS-based HRMS solutions to automate and optimize the human resource department. It offers a suite of 10+ tools that help improve your employee onboarding stages and enhance their experience with your company.
The best thing is that you can integrate other SaaS tools for managing your employee payroll, ERP, access control, and presence.
Key Features of Bizneo HR:
- Tools for time and shift management
- Onboarding and offboarding processes for employees
- Survey to measure employee work climate, satisfaction, and commitment
- Automation of workflows of routine tasks, notifications, and other communications
13. TalentLMS
Training employees is one of the crucial tasks for small businesses and TalentLMS is an excellent SaaS tool to accomplish the same. This cloud-based software allows you to train your employee effortlessly with a collection of ready-made courses.
You can even build your own training course and also hold virtual employee training sessions. Further, getting started with this SaaS product is quick and simple.
Key Features of TalentLMS:
- Automation of repetitive tasks
- Web-based classes to save employee time
- Intuitive tools to build courses
- Engaging gamification
- Ready-made courses to upskill employees
G) Social Media Management
14. Buffer
Managing multiple social accounts can become a hassle sometimes. Buffer can help streamline your social media marketing and build a presence on multiple handles with a single account. It allows you to schedule posts and track performance with smart analytics.
Buffer is the best in-budget small business SaaS-based product that starts with a free plan and can be scaled depending on your requirements.
Key Features of Buffer:
- Smart analytics to measure social media performance
- Plan and schedule posts and campaigns in advance
- Interact with all important social comments
15. Zoho Social
Zoho’s suite of cloud tools are a one-stop shop for all your business management needs. But what catches our eye is the flexibility to manage and monitor social media platforms. Zoho social empowers small businesses with intelligent reports and other such features to build a brand presence on social platforms.
What gives it an edge over other competitors is an insightful and intelligent analytics tool to give you the bigger picture of what matters and resonates with your audience.
Key Features of Zoho Social:
- Post scheduling and publishing calendar to build posting pipeline
- Brand reviews, mentions, and keyword tracking
- Reply to all the important messages on social platforms
- Team collaboration to manage draft approvals and content workflows
Wrapping Up
The SaaS tools we’ve tossed here are definitely the top-notch ones to reap the benefits and turn your small business into a large enterprise. While we have tried our best to give you the most useful SaaS-based products and tools that aid in your digital branding and business management needs, you can explore more for all your varied needs.
On the journey to becoming a corporate entity, you often need a robust team of SaaS marketers by your side. Ronkot is one such team of SaaS marketing experts based in Dallas, Texas that helps small SaaS businesses take a growth-focused approach to boost conversions and bolster their brand identity.
Get in touch with our team of SaaS marketing experts to know more about our SaaS marketing specializations and get a complimentary beverage from us.
Frequently Asked Questions on SaaS Tools
Does confusion cloud your judgment? Let’s clear a few of them:
1. Is SaaS good for a small business?
SaaS tools are a new form of technology that small businesses can adopt to gain agility in their business management processes. They offer easy integration and ease of use with limited IT expenses.
2. Why do small businesses use SaaS?
SaaS-based products enable small businesses with an added set of features to streamline and organize their business management processes.
3. What is SaaS for business?
SaaS for business is a cloud-based model where businesses subscribe to third-party software that can be accessed over the internet.
4. What are the benefits of SaaS to business customers?
Benefits of SaaS tools for businesses include reduced capital expenditures, saving on operational costs, speed of implementation, flexibility in scaling, better access to data, and many others.