No code solutions for creating a bespoke experience for your business
The pandemic changed how people work and interact with businesses but they are still the centre of all business, and they need digitalised processes to function in today's environment.
Find out what is important to your customers and work backwards from there, you want your brand to not only provide a solution to your customer's needs but also a positive experience.
The rise of no-code and low-code tools
No-code and low-code tools are a movement started to make it easier to build your own applications, bespoke to your business needs. Low-code reduces programming efforts down to the bare minimum, while no-code tools empower anyone to create apps, landing pages, scheduling systems and more without needing to know any code, thus enabling non-programmers to create software or tools in a more accessible way.
Building a website or app used to need a lot of resources, but now it can be done cheaply, sometimes in as little as a few hours. Start-up businesses can launch without any knowledge of coding or without having money from an investor. This means that they can fail faster and are more flexible to new ideas and changing strategies. No doubt you have already seen these tools in action, for example, if you have created a form or survey online - this is a great example of no-code tools in action.
In its essence, these low-code/ no-code tools present a platform to build or create the desired applications whilst generating the code required to make them function, a great innovation to face the daunting task of learning the language of code.
Below are some examples of low-code and no-code tools available:
Website and App builders
On Webflow's no-code website building platform, you can collaborate with your team and build using HTML, CSS and Javascript in a visual canvas that is easy to navigate. The Webflow platform allows companies to launch new campaigns faster and connect to key marketing platforms. Built for growth it enables fast and scaleable hosting with advanced security to keep your website safe. Not sure where to start? Webflow boasts a library of 400+ free lessons covering everything from layout and typography to interactions and 3D transformations.
The more well-known website builder SquareSpace provides users with beautiful templates that are easy to use, and can be optimised to present professional portfolios designs. The customised display galleries allow users to also add password-protected pagers to share private work with clients.
SquareSpace has built in SEO tools that allow you to maximise your search results for your website or online store and display where your website traffic is coming from and what content they are interacting with the most.
Adalo is a no-code app developing platform that uses a drag and drop building format so users can create bespoke application experiences that are available on both app store for iOS and Android. The platform automatically adds interactions and data base configurations and can also integrate with existing API. Interestingly, the company is named after Ada Lovelace, widely considered to be the world's first computer programmer.
Turn your spreadsheets into software with Glide. Gilde generates a working app or website using the data you already have, wether it resides in a Google sheet, Excel file or other sources and allows users to add visual interactive components using drag and drop components. Updating your app is as easy as editing a document, making iterating quickly an easy task by making changes live instantly.
Unicorn Platform is a drag and drop website and blog builder for startups, mobile apps and SaaS. Explore the components gallery and image packs to easily change colour palettes, fonts, button styles and backgrounds and then launch your website on a custom domain. Unicorn Platform is a landing page builder tailored for startups, with specific startup integrations, components and features.
Softr is a web application builder that allows users to create client and employee portals with self service account creation and secure access to content, the ability to create internal apps like employee directories and CRM's. Create a marketplace, or online community with membership and content options built in. Start from a template or use their pre-build blocks that are easily customisable, and easily integrate your Softr app with tools of the trade such as Zapier, Google analytics, Mailchimp and more.
Booking system builder
Define your services to your customers with Simply Book Me, a booking system that is mobile-optimised and can be used as a stand alone site or a widget on Facebook, Instagram, Google or your own branded app. Automated push notifications can be set up to remind staff and customers about bookings, and users can have a client and admin app, allowing them to manage bookings on the go.
"The all-in-one event ticketing system to grow your business" Beyonk offers simple ticketing tools that streamline admin whilst boosting engagement by making your events visible across other event booking platforms. Add a widget to your website to make booking services easier for your customers, minimising drop offs. Integrate your schedule into your existing calendar or use the inbuilt calendar to manage bookings and simplify your customers experience with QR tickets and personalised email campaigns.
Calendly automates your meeting workflow, allowing you to customise your schedule and have your customers book the days and times that work for you, with reminders going out to invitees automatically via email or text. Calendly will even send thank you notes, and let your customers reschedule meetings/appointments quickly and efficiently and easily with a widget that can be embed on your website.
With an extensive free plan, Picktime has unlimited appointments, three team members, two locations and a number of useful navigations and syncs with any existing calendars like Google, Office 365 and iCloud calendars to show users availability in real time and avoid double booking mistakes.
Form builder
Making form building accessible for everyone, Tally's no-code form builder offers users customisable templates to build forms for any activity, whether your taking payments and registering users or measuring your customers satisfaction and creating lead generations forms. You can even use Tally to manage information gathering internally, for measuring employee engagement, onboarding employees or even organising team activities. Sharing your forms is easy, simply copy the generated form link, connect your custom domains or embed the form into your website. Collecting data form your forms is easy, with Tally reating detailed reports that can be exported and automated through Google sheets, Airtable, Slack and more.
Landing page builder Carrd allows users to 'build one-page sites for pretty much anything' wether its a personal profile or to capture emails, Carrd offers templates to users to create sleep responsive landing pages. Publish three sites from a single account, and use any custom domains you own with full SSL support. Embed your own custom code and widgets from third-party services like Paypal, and add an optimal GoogleAnalytics tracking ID to each of your sites to track and report your traffic.
Automated systems builder
Mailchimp offers a span of tools to manage your audience data, marketing channels, newsletters and insights all from a single platform. Mailchimps website tools can be used to sell products, schedule appointments and more, and all feature built-in marketing features that include emails, ads, landing pages, creative tools and automation features and more. The simple yet insightful audience dashboard empowers you to make data-backed decisions and test them with A/B testing and multivariate testing.
With Make users can easily drag and drop components to automate existing workflows or build new complex processes. Integrate all your tools, apps and processes, then be inspired by their thousands of workflow automation templates.
Bust your company's constrictive silos with Notion, the workflow automation builder. Use the platform to connect your teams, projects and documents with their drag and drop workflow builder. Get inspiration from Notion's global ecosystem with thousands of templates, integrations and events.
Easily add all your data into Airtable and organise it to create the perfect workflow for your team with custom interfaces that share relevant information with the member using it. Airtble's automation help workflow seamlessly with added notifications, streamlined working methods and relevant tools that allow users to run custom code.
Zapier allows you to automate your work across over 4,000 apps so your workflow can be more seamless. Zapier can be used to manage your entire marketing funnel, organise your contract and business operations and even empower your IT personnel. The multi-step workflows can be fully customised to work exactly how you would- but automatically.
