Are businesses ready for AI?

NIG 10 February 2025 NIG

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking root in all types of industry and areas of business. From robotics to natural language processing, it offers a huge range of capabilities that can drive innovation and efficiency.

However, there are mixed feelings about AI among SME owners and financial directors recently surveyed on behalf of NIG Insurance[1]. While on the one hand this emerging technology is seen as the key . . .

This content is restricted to subscribers

Tags: NIG

Previous ArticleHSB releases 2025 construction trends risks podcast Next ArticleAXA Commercial: Fire Risk Guidance for Lithium-ion Rechargeable Batteries

Cobra Network Limited is an Appointed Representative of PIB Risk Services Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Firm Reference Number 308333. PIB Risk Services Limited and Cobra Network Limited are both registered in England and Wales. Company Registration Numbers 02682789 and 04628555. PIB Risk Services Limited’s and Cobra Network Limited’s Registered Office is Rossington’s Business Park, West Carr Road, Retford, Nottinghamshire, DN22 7SW. Part of PIB Group.
Copyright © 2023 Cobra Network

Privacy | Cookie Policy

Dashboard

Insurer Panel

Q Underwriting

Citynet

Broking Desk

PIB Facilities

Compliance

HR Support

Employee Benefits Hub

Risk Management

Vision™ Platform (Broker MI & Reporting Tool)

Marketing

Close Premium Finance

Community
Member Forum

Sign In

Remember Me

Register Lost Password

Lost Password

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Sign In

Sign Up

Company Name Input

Company Website

Job Title

Sign In

Broking Desk Risk Form

Broker Name
Phone
Email

Client Name
Type of cover needed
Due Date
MM slash DD slash YYYY

Target Premium

SEO

Open Site Explorer is a great free tool for checking your website domain and page authority and also for checking how many links you are getting and from which source. You can plug your URL into Open Site Explorer to see the high-level stats like page authority and incoming links. You can also click over to the Just-Discovered tab to see recent links and Top Pages to see which pages on your site get the most links. In addition, you can also check your competition. Note – the free version of Open Site Explorer gives you 3 reports per day, only. If you want more you’d need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Try Open Site Explorer for free

Email Marketing

Looking for a way to run your email marketing efforts without breaking the bank? There are a number of free email marketing services that let you send thousands of emails per month without spending a single penny. If you have lots of subscribers but you don’t need to message them all at the same time, our top pick is Sendinblue. If you want to send out email blasts to all your subscribers at the same time, a good alternative is Mailchimp. Mailchimp free plan includes 10,000 emails per month for up to 2,000 subscribers.

Sendinblue has a great free plan (unlimited contacts) along with support for SMS text message sending, SMTP, in-depth analytics, powerful marketing automation features all in the same dashboard. The free plan lets you have an unlimited number of contacts, but you’re limited to 300 emails per day.

Try Sendinblue for free

CRM

We could dedicate a whole website on choosing a CRM system as there are so many of them out there and so much discussion around which is best. Keeping things simple, if you’re looking for a better way to manage customer relationships, but don’t have the budget, our top pick is Hubspot free edition. It’s an all-in-one business solution with hubs for sales, marketing, and customer service.

HubSpot’s comprehensive free plan is better than many paid CRMs out there. You get hundreds of powerful features and the ability to manage up to a million (1,000,000) contacts without ever paying a penny. But it’s not always perfect and it doesn’t come without its share of drawbacks. Then again, no CRM does. Not even the most expensive!

Try Hubspot for free

Stock Media

Finding decent images for your brochureware, social media and or websites can be one of the biggest headaches and can eat into time you don’t have. You can spend hours (days) searching to then discover that perfect image you’ve found is not royalty free or it costs a small fortune. Thankfully, there are some amazing sources of free, royalty free imagery, in addition to Canva, which we mentioned in the design category. It’s knowing where to find them. Here’s a selection of some of the best resources for downloading free imagery.

Pexels
Unsplash
Pixabay

Design

Canva is another great time and money saving tool especially where you don’t have an internal design resource or budget to outsource. One of its best uses is to help create images for social media and blog posts, but it can be used for practically most basic design requirement and you don’t have to have any design skills!

Canva has a suite of built-in templates that you simply select and add your company logo, edit as required and download. If you fancy yourself as a budding designer or have someone in the business who is, there is also the option to create bespoke designs and resize to your requirements within Canva, so you don’t have to buy additional design software. Canva also has a free suite of images built into the system which you can simply select and use. Plus, you can also upload your own images.

Canva is quick and easy to use and with over 2 million registered users there’s a wealth of free tutorials and tips you can find online. We also love the upgrade if you do have some budget. It’s around £10.99 a month, so won’t break the bank, but it’s worth it for the wider access to images alone that you get.

Try Canva for free

Social Media Scheduling

The best time-saving tip for social media marketing is scheduling posts ahead of time for your social profiles, and Hootsuite is a tool that will enable you to do that.

It has a free plan that gives a single user a social media dashboard for three social accounts. You can set up a social media posting schedule with up to 5 messages scheduled in advance. Note – if you need to schedule content for more than three profiles you’ll need one of the paid Hootsuite plans instead, but for most, the free plan should cover your needs.

Currently, Hootsuite supports Twitter, Facebook (profiles, pages, and groups), LinkedIn (profiles and pages), Instagram (business and personal profiles), Pinterest, and YouTube channels. It also supports Google My Business through the Hootsuite app directory.

Try Hootsuite for free

Free Consultation

[ameliabooking service=1]

Ask the expert

Company Name*
Name
Contact Name*
First Last
Phone*
Email*

Type of Query*
Query*

Request a quote

Company Name*
Name
Contact Name*
First Last
Phone*
Email*

Type of Query*
Query*

Ask The Expert

Company Name*
Name
Contact Name*
First Last
Phone*
Email*

Type of Query*
Query*