5 Business Automation Tools to Utilize While You Are On Vacation

5 Business Automation Tools to Utilize While You Are On Vacation

In a few days, I’ll be on a cruise ship on my way to Bermuda for a girl’s trip with my mother and sister, so naturally, right now my mind is focused on getting my business ready for my absence. Although I have taken a few vacations since starting my business full time, this vacation is a little different because I won’t be on land for most of it, and therefore, I have no idea how reliable my internet connection will be. Because the ship charges you a wifi fee per device, I won’t be bringing my laptop with me, just my iPhone. So, I am taking steps now to make sure everything runs smoothly while I’m away. Since I’m a solopreneur, I normally rely on a number of different automation tools to help me run my business on the day-to-day but if you aren’t already streamlining your business like this, give these automation tools a try the next time you go on vacation!

Email Autoresponder: Many different email applications give you the ability to set up an email autoresponder, an out of office email reply that will automatically generate a canned response to any incoming emails.. If you are going on vacation or will be out of the office for a significant period of time (more than a weekend or sick day) I highly recommend setting up this function to reply to emails on your behalf while you are busy. The response doesn’t have to be complicated, a simple notification of the time you will be away from your business will suffice, but I also like to include links to the FAQ and/or resource pages of my website that may address common issues and concerns. If you don’t have a FAQ or resource page on your website, I highly suggest compiling one because they are easy links you can share with your customers that address common issues they may be able to troubleshoot on their own!

MailChimp: I use MailChimp to manage my email list, and since I pay for a monthly plan, I have the ability to create automated email campaigns and schedule emails in advance. These are two very useful features that help me get ahead on my work and allow me to run a marketing campaign even when I am out of office. Nothing is better than coming back to work after a vacation to see new sales that generated while you were away!

Edgar: I recently started using the social media scheduler Edgar to automatically publish posts and content to some of my less used social feeds and it has really helped me to boost sales and keep a constant presence on the platforms I don’t actively create for. I love that it stores and recycles content for me so I don’t have to create and batch upload new posts in order to fill my feed. It’s such a time saver and easy marketing tool for any online business that wants to have a presence on multiple platforms but doesn’t have the time to create unique content for each.

HootSuite: Hootsuite is another social media scheduler that I tend to use for one platform only, Instagram. As you may already know, Instagram does not allow for auto publishing of images, so to get around this Hootsuite gives you the ability to preplan out your post and set’s an alarm telling you when its time to post so you can go into the app and quickly share your content. It’s not a perfect solution to automating Instagram, but it’s the best solution I have found that does not compromise your Instagram account. Beware of any apps that say they will automatically post to Instagram for you because until Instagram gives this function the green light, you are risking closure of your account by using these sorts of apps that store your login information and publish for you.

Paypal: To process my online payments I always use Paypal. I have it fully integrated into my site so I never have to send a manual invoice or actively collect payment from customers- it’s all done for me automatically! If you don’t currently use a system to automatically process payments, I would suggest checking out Paypal as it’s very easy to use and integrates into many different online sales platforms.

Okay, so those are some automation tools I use on a daily basis to run my business and ensure my business is running smoothly even when I’m on vacation! I’d love to hear your automation tips, so feel free to leave me a comment below.

xoxo,