Here are 3 affordable online, cloud-based services that will make your small to medium-sized business operations more organized, secure while making your marketing outreach more professional and organized as well. 

Egnyte – Secure Cloud Storage

Egnyte is an easy-to-operate cloud solution that integrates secure cloud storage with your local server. You can store and share any type and size of a file, and the system constantly syncs between local files and the online copies of them to ensure that all company files are accessible wherever there is an Internet connection. It is also highly customizable. Specific permissions to view and/or edit certain folders can be defined at the folder level to ensure that only the right people see any confidential information. Your Egnyte domain can also be customized to reflect your brand and include items like your logo, a custom message header, or a custom access URL. If you are handling any confidential material, the cloud simply isn’t good enough. A secure EFSS (Enterprise File Sync & Share) like Egnyte will help you avoid any risk. It can also improve project management and make your workforce more collaborative and effective. If your team is wasting time trying to track down files shared only over email (and they probably are), an EFSS will make your team exponentially more efficient. In fact, a 2014 IDC report identified that 70% of users see increased productivity from using file sync and share services.3 

• Key Features: • Secure file storage • Easily share files • Visual activity stream to identify content changes • Customizable interface and folder permissions 
• Pricing: • Office (5-24 employees): $8/employee/month • Business (25 to 100 employees: $15/employee/month • Enterprise (unlimited employees): Call for pricing

MailChimp – Email Marketing Outreach

MailChimp’s mantra is “send better email,” and that is exactly what will happen with this email marketing service. MailChimp helps you reach the right people at the right time by allowing you to set up emails that are triggered by different actions along the customer decision journey. Customers can be targeted based on behavior, preferences, and previous sales, and emails can be scheduled for any time or trigger. The service also offers advanced analytics that helps you monitor sales and website activity as well as your email metrics. In terms of design, MailChimp offers customizable email templates that make emails look more professional. The end result is more attractive, smarter, and more influential email marketing. Despite the influx of new media in the market, email marketing remains effective. In fact, 72% of U.S. adults prefer companies to communicate with them via email, and 91% say they like receiving promotional emails from companies they do business with.4 If your email marketing outreach is going to work, however, it must be done right. Today’s consumers do not like to receive emails that are not relevant to them, and they do not like to have to piece through cluttered, unformatted emails with awkward attachments. MailChimp helps you send an email that will work, allowing you to leverage this still incredibly valuable medium. 

• Key Features: • Easy drop and drag email designer • Powerful marketing automation • Advanced reporting features • Integration with other apps • Proprietary data 
• Pricing: • Up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails/month) Free • Up to 1,500 subscribers and unlimited emails: $20/month • Up to 2,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $25/month • Up to 2,500 subscribers and unlimited emails: $30/month • Up to $2,600 subscribers and unlimited emails: $35/month • Pro Marketer: $199/month in addition

SurveyMonkey – Customizable Customer Surveys

SurveyMonkey is an online, cloud-based survey service through which users can create and deploy customizable surveys on any range of topics. These surveys can even be branded or deployed through an integrated partner such as MailChimp. For an additional fee, premium features like data analysis, sample selection, bias elimination, and data representation tools can be leveraged. The service is ideal for customer satisfaction surveys, market research, event planning, and employee feedback loops. It provides easy access to quality, first-party data and enables users to make data-driven, real-time decisions. If you want to take it one step further, you can also buy targeted audiences and learn meaningful information about your market. Today’s consumer refuses to be ignored. If you are not listening to your customers and adjusting your business plan accordingly, even your loyalists will begin to jump ship. You need to know what your prospects and customers are thinking, and SurveyMonkey provides an easy way to collate and analyze that data. Once you know what they want, you can make it happen. In addition, customers will appreciate that you have asked for their input and opened a dialogue with them. In addition, SurveyMonkey can be useful for performing market research with customer surveys that allows you to understand better what other prospects might be out there and what might draw them in. 

• Key Features: • Customizable surveys • Easily digestible charts and text analysis • Buy a targeted audience • Streamline your survey data 
• Pricing: • Basic (10 questions, 100 responses): Free • Select (Unlimited questions, 1000 responses, basic analytics): $26/month • Gold (Unlimited questions, unlimited responses, analytics): $300/year • Platinum (Unlimited questions, unlimited responses, advanced analytics, multiple users): $1,020/user/year