I don’t know how a business today could possibly run effectively without employing some time-saving, economical, efficiency-boosting apps. Wedding clients expect faster and more accurate responsiveness from service-providers, customized to make them feel valuable, along with unprecedented access to account details, event plans and easy billing methods. If any one of these things is even a little “off,” couples are acutely aware.
Thankfully, great apps exist in free and inexpensive, user-friendly forms to help every events business meet this new level of demand. Some of the apps that you might find most useful for 2018 include:
Square Point of Sale
Square is one of the best apps to happen to small businesses, ever. This point of sale system is free to install and charges a small percentage of each transaction that you process. It allows you to accept electronic payments via your phone or device and receive those payments quickly (in some cases, instantly) in your bank account.
TripIt
When you travel frequently for business, you know how much time you can waste trying to track down itinerary information. TripIt stores everything you need in one place, making it easy to stay on top of all of the critical details without worrying about carrying around a stack of printed reservations or searching through your email every time you need a confirmation number.
Doodle
I’m really not sure how we survived before Doodle. This meeting scheduler allows you to crowdsource availability and interest when you plan important appointments and walk-throughs. Using links, each participant can check the possible options, input conflicts or preferences, and ultimately contribute to the selection of the perfect date and time for your most important get-togethers.
Adobe Document Cloud E-sign Services
Contracts are a necessary part of doing business, but they can be a total pain. Obtaining signatures, issuing copies, retrieving details when needed. E-sign services like Adobe allow you to create and verify electronic signatures that hold up in legal proceedings. It simplifies the process of sending, revising, signing and sharing contracts which accelerates your ability to start serving your clients as soon as they are ready to book.
Later.com
Instagram has become the gold standard for wedding business social media. Couples find service providers and share information with them on “Insta” making it an important source of leads for many businesses. It can be incredibly time consuming to post on a regular basis to keep your content updated while managing the operations of your business. Later allows you to pre-schedule your posts so your feed stays current and relevant at all times.
Dropbox
In the wedding industry, we uniquely have the need to share large files like photos frequently. They can drain our available memory on devices and various programs quickly. Dropbox offers cloud storage that is affordable and easily accessible from practically any device. It has numerous applications for PR, marketing, file management and more.
These are only a few of the thousands of apps available to address the needs of your wedding business. Evaluate your unique opportunities and match them with the apps that best address them, and your business could soon be operating with increased efficiency and even profitability!
Kevin Dennis is the editor of WeddingIQ and the owner of Fantasy Sound Event Services, a full-service event company based in Livermore, California. Dennis is the past president for Silicon Valley NACE, and national vice president for WIPA.