Technology
How to Choose the CRM Software That’s Right for You and Your Business
The business world is becoming more and more complicated. It’s easier than ever to connect with hundreds of thousands of potential customers. To keep track of them is even more challenging!
Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to keep track of everything without some kind of CRM or Customer Relationship Management software to help your business keep everything in order.
CRMs: The Centralized Database You’ve Been Looking For
CRM systems are tools that assist businesses with everything from managing sales information, keeping track of productivity in the workplace, and organizing all of your contacts from leads to actual sales.
However a CRM can be so much more. It can also help you find more leads, generate more of those sales, and even act as a communication hub for your entire organization. And it’s all done in one centralized place, which is what makes CRMs so effective and essential for growing businesses in this ever-changing business world.
But not every CRM is made the same. Depending on the CRM, there may be a focus on one area of productivity instead of another. So, picking a CRM really comes down to what you will be focusing on in your business operations? The same can be said for the marketing platform software out there that would integrate with your CRM of choice!
Today, we’ll be taking a look at what makes a CRM so great, as well as a couple of marketing automation programs that work well with CRM integration.
A CRM is a Sales Team’s Best Friend
With the power of a CRM, you can not only keep track of all your customer contacts, but you can also better organize your leads that will lead to more sales. And what’s more, a CRM can do this all on its own, reducing manual data entry and giving your sales teams more time instead of focusing on what’s important: Reaching out to those leads and converting them to sales.
Inversely, not having the organizational power of a CRM can actually lead to the loss of money in your business. A CRM can remind sales teams when a meeting is fast approaching. You won’t have to worry about losing written notes when it’s all stored digitally. What’s more, CRMs keep information in an easy-to-read format so that salespeople can quickly learn what they need before they follow up with a customer or approach a lead.
Improve Team Coordination
Email communication is a wonderful tool, but even emails can take time to read and follow up. In that time that it takes, an opportunity could be missed, a lead could be grabbed by a competitor, a sale could go unmade. Your CRM system can also help keep track of your work pipeline and provide an overview of what your sales team is doing.
With CRM, you can enact your larger plans with better precision, and you can better direct your teams to make sure that everyone is moving towards that larger goal. And best of all, you can make sure your sales team members get the messages they need, and it’s all in one place for those who need to know. Now, you won’t have to miss those sales opportunities because you’ll have your teams on the lead and on time.
Foster Better Relationships with Customers
A CRM can help you better keep track of the clients and customers who provide you with the best business. With the organizational power of a CRM, you and your teams can make sure that the best customers are getting the right attention, creating stronger relationships with customers and ensuring better sales and returns on investment.
What’s more, you’ll be able to see what customers are not doing so well, and you can better determine if those customers need more attention and effort to build better relationships.
Get Key Forecasting Through Organized Data
Some CRMs use the data it has to provide you with real-time updates on your sales forecasting, giving you a better look at the direction that your business is going and whether you’re doing the right things, or if you need to revise your strategy. Forecasting can be an invaluable tool in setting targets and aiming to hit them.
Don’t Miss Potential Growth: Generate More Leads and Sales
CRMs don’t just keep track of your leads and sales data. With the power of a CRM, you can find even more leads and create more sales that you wouldn’t have found or noticed without it. This could be done through automated email systems, organizing your leads to show communications that have been made between leads and your sales teams, or even generating lists of accounts with connections to your current customers to help generate referrals—these are all made possible with a CRM and can lead to even greater business growth.
Content
Now that you have a good idea of what CRMs can do and how they can even make your business grow consider CRM options. Remember, every CRM has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, so consider what makes them special to see which one best fits your business!
HubSpot and Salesforce are CRM powerhouses, yet WordPress runs three-quarters of all sites online!
Create Engaging Blogs to Encourage Your Leads and Customers
WordPress is the CRM for blogging, allowing you to make creative and dynamic blogs meant to engage your customers directly. Plus, you have an image library, and you can add videos via a plugin. Content is where SEO starts for sites, making sure to commit to a regular blog post and share it with your social followers via a WordPress sharing plugin.
Marketing Automation Platforms
Salesforce is the leading sales platform. However, Marketo is also a worthy contender with lead management, email and mobile marketing, and behaviour-tracking to help better understand customers and their interests. And there’s, of course, CRM integration!
Lead Generation
Salesforce and Marketo platforms manage customer data capture, using various methods, to the best leads to your business. However, there is no escaping the need to personally analyze behavioural data from Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. AI and machine learning will eventually replace workers when looking at data to identify leads and their source and customer discovery, including their needs and interests.
Advanced Email Marketing
Bulk email marketing servicer providers (ESP) like MailChimp have competition from the CRMs like Marketo. However, most CRMs like WordPress use APIs to integrate with the user’s preferred ESP for email marketing eDMs. Delivery and campaign management.
Conclusion
It all comes down to what kind of services you’re looking for in your CRM and marketing platforms. It’s like a recipe for your business, with your CRM and your marketing platform being the two main ingredients. Which CRM you choose, along with a compatible marketing platform, will help determine what your business is best at in organization, marketing, email campaigns, and more.