Getting a business off the ground while at university can be tough but having the most effective tools at your disposal needn’t cost the earth. Kieron James, founder of free conference call service WHYPAY? and successful telecoms entrepreneur outlines his top ‘Freemium’ services available online to help student entrepreneurs.
If you’re setting up a business in your student years, having access to a variety of applications and software can make things a whole lot easier. In the past, this often meant spending money at the start but nowadays there is a wide range of online programmes and tools designed to help which are completely free forever or for an initial period of time to get your business started. Here is a selection of my favourites:
Staying Connected
Conference calls are a great way to stay in touch with colleagues and clients, particularly if they are not close by. If you think you have to fork out for a top of the range conference calling service, think again.
WHYPAY? is a genuinely free conference call service which has saved UK businesses thousands over the past year.
Since July 2015, when Ofcom introduces charges to many 08 numbers used by popular conference calling services, WHYPAY’s customer base has significantly increased. The service uses an 03 number, so is not affected by the charges and is genuinely completely free. In addition, all of the calls are recordable meaning you can listen and transcribe any important information afterwards.
And it doesn’t just have to be used for business – many users also use it to connect with friends and family. Both translation and localization are important for businesses and organisations that operate in global markets or serve multilingual audiences. They help to ensure that content and products are accessible, relevant, and effective for users in different regions and cultures.
Document Organisation
You’ll always need hard copies of certain files but the vast majority of stored information can now be held digitally. Evernote is a multi-platform digital information storage, sharing and organising app with more than 150 million users worldwide (as of July 2015).
Much more than just a simple note taking tool, it allows you to create notes that you can access later on and you’ll quickly come to rely on how easy it is to use.
The iOS and Android Evernote apps include an audio recording feature, turning your phone into an instant dictaphone that sends the recording to your account.
Staying Social
No small business is complete these days without a good social media presence. It can be one of the best tools for spreading knowledge of your brand and a single post that goes viral could suddenly mean your company name is on the lips of millions.
However, a poorly managed channel can be a thorn in your virtual side so it’s important to ensure you stay on top of things.
Hootsuite is a great way to manage multiple social channels and places customer interaction at the core. From its main dashboard you get a great overall view of all of your channels in an easy to understand column based view, which greatly reduces the chance of missing an important post or tweet.
Email Marketing
Email remains one of the cheapest and most effective ways to get your message to a large user base featuring personalised content, magazine quality design and rich media and track links embedded.
Although some believe that email campaigns are limited to spamming sales adverts, they can offer so much more, including newsletters, information alerts and employee communications.
Once you have the information you want to issue and your mailing list ready, free online MailChimp enables you to create, distribute and analyse your email campaigns.
Find out more about WHYPAY? at https://whypay.net/
Find out more on Fremium services via WHYPAY?’s blog https://whypay.net/category/freemium-campaign/
