Just like my Springer Spaniel, Scout, I am easily distracted. While squirrels might not hold the same appeal for me, I get distracted by new apps that promise a better life. Many times, they do not in fact provide a better life. Many times, you spend time and money learning them only to find out they are clunky, poorly constructed or just a feature in search of a real benefit. But sometimes, they really do change your life for the better.
If you like to try a lot of new things and don’t mind wasting some of your valuable time on fails, then I strongly recommend you sign up for a service called AppSumo.* Every few days, they promote a new app and they bring it to you for a “lifetime” price of around $49. I have found several apps on this site that have been fantastic investments and I have found many more that have been duds. I enjoy every minute of finding out about both, it is just how I am wired.
If you do not have the time or interest in spending a lot of time learning useless apps, then I will share briefly here some reviews of some of the useful apps I have come across that simply help me, in one way or another, sell more stuff.
In order to keep up and take advantage of how technology really can save you time and money, you will eventually have to try some things. My goal here is to help you pick and choose wisely.
PromoRepublic.com*
I am a big fan. If you want to share great content but you don’t always have the time to invest, this app will actually help you out. You link your social accounts to it – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram – and then it gives you a mountain of options to post. You can schedule your posts out for months in advance. You have your choice of really good articles, organized around subjects like business, health, mindfulness, leadership, etc. or fun quotes, some entertaining and thought-provoking memes, and even upcoming events (national puppy day). You are able to easily insert your logo into any post and write a message to go along with it. It should NEVER replace your content strategy, but if is a fantastic supplement to it when you just get too busy to curate or create every piece of content to share. There are a number of apps like this that I have tried, but PromoRepublic continues to come up with the goods.
Albacross
I am a little bit obsessed with Albacross, I can’t lie. Albacross tells you what companies are visiting your website. You need to put a little code on your website but once you do, you can log on to Albacross and see exactly who has been checking you out. This is obviously most valuable for follow up sales calls. When I see a prospect has visited me, I will reach right out to them. But it also tells you how frequently your competitors visit you – and of course what pages they are viewing. That is just entertaining. You are also able to use Albacross for retargeting – more expensive but great results. Again, there are some other apps that do this but after investigating several, my choice is Albacross because I have done the free trials and compared results and Albacross seems to always come out ahead of showing me the most companies.
Snip.ly
This is probably my favorite tool – and I use the free version! It works a bit like bit.ly in that you can find an article you want to share, put it into snip.ly and it gives you a shorter URL to share – and it tracks how many people click on the link. But, it goes one step beyond in some cases and allows you to add a little call to action at the bottom of the article that leads them back to your site, or to a video you have created, or anywhere you want to guide them. And of course snip.ly also tracks that into. Then, on your dashboard you can see at a glance what content you share that gets attention, and conversions.
I have several more but will save them for another time. Enjoy!
*Full disclosure – I get some sort of credit if you sign up for these particular apps through the link I provided. Not sure what credit but something.
Also full disclosure, I have to credit Loren Gray with Hospitality Digital Marketing for introducing me to AppSumo. He is the ultimate shiny object tester!