Why You Should Include Free Tools on Your Business Website

Your business website is the online face of your business. It may be the first interaction most customers have with you. You have one chance to make an excellent impression. Adding valuable tools your audience wants can start off with a goodwill gesture that keeps them coming back for more.

Although you have the option to add a wide variety of tools, you’ll want to stick with the ones that make the most sense for your industry and your customers. Think about what their pain points are and what tools will help answer any questions they have about their problems.

Why Is It Important to Have a Good Website for Your Business?

The Small Business Administration reports there are over 33 million small businesses in the United States. Although not everyone is your direct competitor, you are still trying to grab user attention in a busy, crowded marketing environment.

A beautiful, high-functioning website is a vital component of a successful small business. Nearly any industry benefits from having an online home base.

Offering free tools can give you that extra edge over the competition that you need to attract new leads. Here are some of the ways free tools can help you:

1. Improve Their Business

If you are a business to business (B2B) brand, then you should think about what you can offer that might help your potential clients make more profit. You can offer ebooks, professional PowerPoint templates, and other tools that show them where they can increase conversions or leads.

Databox offers a free template to help improve user experience and allow you to increase conversion rates. They offer a small popup in the lower left corner above the fold and also at the top of the page. The offer is in a vivid blue, which contacts sharply with the green background. The different hues grab user attention and make them understand what you have available for them to try.

2. Learn About Your Customers

Surveys are an excellent way to learn more about your customers so you can better meet their needs. Throwing a pop-up on the screen can answer questions about what type of help they’re seeking, why they decided not to make a purchase or even demographic information.

You might ask how they found the site, what brings them your way and offer some options from which they can choose. The goal is to find answers to the questions you don’t already know but can use in your marketing efforts.

3. Help Them Understand Your Service

Offering tools such as calculators help the user understand how you can best help them. Ultimately, you want anyone who signs up with you to fully understand what you can do for them. Highly satisfied customers tell others about your product or service, which brings you word-of-mouth referrals. The more information you provide, the more likely the customer will be happy with your product.

RefiJet offers an online calculator that shows clearly the approximately monthly payment with a vehicle refinance. Users can see what they’ll pay, how much they can save and even try different scenarios based on how long they want to pay the loan back or if they have a small down payment to offer.

4. Save Time

Online tools can save your workers time. Rather than phoning your office and asking for a rate quote, users can input their information online and get an instant answer from artificial intelligence (AI).

Utilizing AI gives you an opportunity to save time on the repetitive tasks and focus on the creative ones that make your business stand out from others in the industry.

5. Offer Better Customer Experience (CX)

Tools such as live chat give you an opportunity to create excellent CX for anyone who visits your site. Combining AI, as mentioned above, with a live agent gives users instant answers to almost any question they might have.

For example, the user can type a question in the live chat and get a response from the bot for any pre-programmed, frequently asked questions. However, if the conversation goes outside the scope of what the machine can handle, a live agent steps in and the customers get handed off seamlessly to the real person.

On the customer’s side, the experience seems all positive and as though your company is highly responsive to their needs. On your end, you only jump in and pay an agent when you absolutely must to move the customer to the next phase in the buyer’s journey or solve a problem for them.

Chico’s Off The Rack offers live chat where site visitors can “Chat with a Style Expert.” You can get advice about what pairs well together, the comparable sizing of clothes and more. By making the chat specifically tailored to the items they sell, they seize an opportunity to connect with their target audience.

6. Avoid Bounces

Perhaps you feel there are similar tools out there that aren’t by competitors. Why should you reinvent the wheel? However, there is something to be said for keeping traffic on your own site. If they bounce away to try out a calculator on another site, what guarantee do you have that they’ll return?

Free Tools Build Goodwill

Offering freebies that help out your target audience builds positive associations with your brand. It doesn’t require a lot of effort for you to build a survey, calculator or interactive display, but it might be the thing that turns browsers into buyers.