Zapier is a tool that could definitely help you to automate processes in your business. It serves as a multi-level bridge between 3000+ business web applications. Essentially, you can use Zapier to tie together two or more web apps to take advantage of their functionalities in an (almost) automatic way. If you are a freelancer, a manager or even a startup owner, then you likely use web apps such as Gmail, Dropbox, Slack, Trello, Airtable, and so on, on a daily basis. At times, digital marketers and SaaS founders find themselves utilizing 30+ apps on the same day. And that’s inconvenient, repetitive, and it can become time-consuming (really fast) even before your company or client base starts growing.
So that’s where Zapier steps in.
If you are trying to grow your agency, startup, or even independent client network, you don’t want to deal with dull, menial, time-consuming work. Work such as organizing files into folders after receiving them from different sources, or even setting calendar event reminders.
Instead, your mental and physical energy could be better spent on something more meaningful. Like drafting up strategy plans or networking with prospective employees, clients, etc.
This way, Zapier will focus on automating your business workflows and automate processes. Whereas you can focus on growth. The possibilities are limitless with Zapier. From simple to advanced processes, Zapier has you covered. There’s so many Zapier tools and integrations that I can’t possibly do the platform justice, but just to get your mind rolling, let’s do an example of how Zapier can help you do some DIY automation for your business.
Why using Zapier?
You may already have figured out how useful Zapier can be. However, there are some benefits that may not be immediately obvious. If you keep reading, we will go through the various benefits of making your business processes more in-depth with Zapier.
Zapier is affordable, versatile, and secure
It comes with affordable plans, its versatile nature allows you to access the online application from any location or system. It offers high encryption and authentication security measures, including two-factor authentication.
It connects any app (it automate processes)
In Zapier, you can integrate applications like Asana and Gmail, thereby creating Asana tasks immediately from a trigger in Gmail. You can even automate the process of adding new responses from Google forms to a new row created in the Google sheet.
It saves time
For example, let’s say your team currently does the following process to get leads and do follow-up from your online contact us form.
If doing this manually, the contact intake and scheduling process would be as follows:
- Receives contact-us form responses to your emails.
- Copy/pastes the data into a Google Sheet to log a new lead.
- Creates a new folder for the lead’s data in your Google Drive.
- Sends a Slack message to everyone in your Slack “Leads” channel.
- Sends an email to ask the person to schedule an introduction call.
This manual process takes about 20–30 minutes for staff to process each new lead entry, making it labor intensive and prone for errors and slow follow-up.
Luckily, Zapier can automate this entire process, and it is easy to set up!
It is easy to understand and operate
One of the most captivating features of Zapier is the fact that there is no requirement for the user to be well versed with the coding language. Back before the advent of this online software, integrating between applications was only possible for the ones who had coding knowledge.
Zapier offers smart work, even without having to learn the ABCD of the coding language.
Zapier can help you boost your creativity
You can also be creative in Zapier. You only need to use your creative side to construct and lay the road for the zaps, acting as an architect to your own business process map.
There is also the possibility to place filters that are stationed like “traffic cops” to regulate the traveling zaps to your liking (as we explained above).
It reduces customer churn and helps you focus on what matters
Specializing in sales supervision, billing, and other management processes, Zapier helps reduce customer churn. When it comes to any business, tracking and closing deals are a huge priority.
The work to get there is as tedious as drawing water from the well every day. Zapier can be used as a motor and a pipeline that connects the well to the house. Daily manual labour is avoided and more time is saved for more interpersonal and logical tasks (or for say it out loud, it helps automate processes on a daily basis).
Zapier’s working system is so smooth that it can even get you addicted to its automation support in organizing, assembling, sending, receiving and arranging mountains of data. It caters to both professional and personal needs.
Here’s a note of advice: Don’t waste hours performing tasks a system can achieve in seconds. Instead, focus your and your team’s efforts in tasks which can help you grow your SaaS business to the next level.
How to automate processes with Zapier?
Zapier is an automated, online task management program that allows you to connect different apps and tasks into workflows, which keep data consistent across multiple web applications.
Zapier is often referred to as a translator between web APis, as it allows you to create connections that push data between apps. Each trigger or connection is called a Zap, which is essentially just a blueprint for a specific task you want done continuously. So essentially, you tell the program, “When I do this in A, do this in B.” In this Zap, the first part is referred to as the Trigger and the second the Action.
Through these Zaps, Triggers, and Actions, you can easily move information between web apps and build your own workflows with just a few clicks, all without any coding or development experience. Which is great and incredibly convenient for users, especially if you are a non-technical founder.
Zapier can connect you with 3000+ popular apps. Plus, Zapier even allows you to do things which cannot be done through a native integration, another great important reason for implementing it.
Bear in mind that some of the apps might be free of charge. Take a look at our recommendation of what to use to drive your business growth.
Examples on when to automate processes
Zapier Pricing
Zapier offers a free level of service with some limitations. With a free account, you can perform up to 100 tasks per month, but you can only have five Zaps active at any given time. To clarify, a task is a completed action within a Zap. For the full breakdown of how tasks are counted, visit Zapier’s dedicated support page. The free tier does not support Premium Apps or multistep Zaps and Zaps only run every 15 minutes. You also cannot use the Autoreplay or Paths features. Businesses may find Zapier’s free account limited, but it’s beefy enough to give consumers a taste of how it works. This free version includes a 14-day trial of premium features.
Conclusion
Some tasks require creativity, problem-solving skills, or emotional intelligence. You might not want to automate them. However, you have other simple tasks that does not require complex thinking and could be handled by an automation platform like Zapier.
Zapier helps you lend a truckload of your monotonous manual tasks to automated programs. It helps stack out most works without even having to move a muscle.
Nowadays, integrating apps and automating communication between them can be an essential distinguisher between a scalable company and one that does not.