CRM strategy is about a lot more than just a software or specific technology. Sure, software has made your CRM strategies easier and more effective than ever before. But at its heart, those CRM strategies are about your business’ overall interaction with your prospects, customers and clients. CRM is about how you make sales, market your products and keep your customers happy.
When a business puts together a CRM strategy for their sales team, there are a number of aspects that need to be given attention to in order to maximize profit in the shortest amount of time. Because of this, businesses can sometimes struggle with deciding what they should be prioritizing. If you’re unsure of where that attention should be for your business, it’s time to let you in on a little secret: CRM strategies should be at the center of your sales plan, no matter where you are in the cycle.
Why Are CRM Strategies So Important?
Your CRM Strategy Can Be One of the Most Affordable Types of Marketing
Today, businesses spend a lot of money on marketing. Whether it be through rebranding a product or paying for Facebook ads, it’s all costly. Spending so much money on all of this can be a bit preemptive, too, as one can never really know how those investments will pan out over time. Therefore, it’s important to find ways to expand your marketing strategy, without needing to take such a huge risk financially.
This can be done through your CRM strategy. It’s a known fact that good customer service doesn’t need to cost a thing. You can use your CRM to make sure that your customers are always satisfied.
Once customers are satisfied (or even better, delighted), they are more likely to refer your business to others. And, with the way social media and review websites have taken over, this can be a great way to market your business essentially for free.
You’ll Know Which Leads are Worth Focusing On
If you’re having even the slightest growth in your business, then you probably already have a good idea about which leads have been successful and which ones have fallen short. Any person can gauge easily what strategies are working and which ones need improvement. But, instead of going back to the drawing table altogether, don’t get too discouraged; you just need to keep doing what you’re doing well — and, if you take a second to think about what that is, you’ll realize quickly that it’s your CRM.
So, when you look back on your successful leads, what was it specifically that you did right? Did you spend more time talking with someone before making a sales pitch? Did you provide a lot of value to someone for free via your content strategy? Or, did you give them incentives to join, like a discount or sign-up promotion?
It doesn’t take a marketing expert to see what all of these things have in common!
Because Without a Great CRM Strategy, Nothing Else Really Matters
It’s obvious why CRM needs to be the center of your sales plan. Customers are the sole driver of profit to your business. Without them, your business wouldn’t even exist in the first place. They are the ones in need of your products or services, and if you can’t make them feel special, they aren’t going to give you the time of day.
Having good and reliable customers can only be achieved when you prioritize your CRM above everything else. While it may seem that other aspects of your business need attention, CRM is truly the root of all of those other things — from your marketing to your content strategy, to your website’s accessibility, etc.
It’s Easy to Prioritize CRM with Email Marketing and Marketing Automation
In addition to CRM being the most affordable form of marketing, it can also be the least time-consuming. Because you can easily incorporate a solid CRM strategy into your email marketing, you can give your customers what they want in a click of a button. From sending welcome messages to shopping cart reminders, or birthday discounts, they should drive that content completely. This will give momentum to your business and keep the sales cycle going.
Luckily, creating all these emails is a walk in the park with marketing automation. Putting your customers at the center of every email you send out is simple. Set everything up how you want to well ahead of time. Then, automate it so you can go about business without needing to check your computer all the time. When you’re done, take a look at your reports. If you made sure that CRM was the focus of each email marketing campaign, it’s likely you’ll see positive results.
5 CRM Strategies to Utilize Your CRM to the Fullest
Your CRM strategies are one of the most important factors to think about when it comes to making sales. If you don’t have a meaningful relationship with your customers, then they won’t possess the trust needed to confidently make a purchase or investment. A good CRM strategy allows you to collect and analyze data about your customers in order to create meaningful relationships. However, just having a good CRM software isn’t enough, unless you know what to make of it. That’s where these primary tenants of CRM strategies come in.
1. Consistently Train Staff
No matter what kind of business you are running, think of it as a classroom of kindergartners. If you don’t have a consistent routine in your business, things will get chaotic pretty quickly. When it comes to CRM, all staff should be on the same page as far as managing the workflow, if they aren’t already trained on the software.
A certain protocol should be clearly outlined, so that everyone knows what to do, how to do something, and what people should be contacted when. How annoying is it when you call customer service and you have to explain the same story to five different people? The customer service experience should therefore be one your customers can rave about. CRM software can help you do that.
2. Know What Your Customers Are Saying
Would you buy a product if you saw that it had no reviews, or the reviews it did have weren’t so positive? Probably not. One way to increase your CRM usability is to be aware about what your customers are saying. Most of this usually occurs on social media. However, part of utilizing your CRM software is keeping track of customers’ complaints and questions. To better serve you, have a plan to offer answers and complaint resolutions if a problem arises, before it makes its way onto Facebook or Yelp!.
3. Gather Information on Your Customers
The reason a CRM strategies are so important is that you can collect information on your customers with ease. Having detailed information about who your customers are and what they want can help you personalize marketing and cater specifically to your customers wants and needs. Making ads about new products, initiatives, or even sending out updates via e-mail can really make all the difference. Even knowing your customers’ birthdays can help if you want to send out an annual “gift!”
4. A Solid Contact System
Customers want to be able to call you on their lunch break, without having to give up their actual lunch. We all know how irritating it is when you call to ask one question, and the automated system has you going for at least twenty minutes. When customers call to get information, it should be a simple experience. They should also have the opportunity to contact through a variety of avenues, whether it be live chat, through e-mail, or by phone. Additionally, customers should be able to get answers to simple questions by providing them with a detailed FAQ page. Utilize your CRM to be able to implement this successfully.
5. A User-Friendly Experience On Both Ends
Whatever platform you are using to promote your business or product should be user-friendly. It should be so easy to use that a grandpa or five year old could figure it out. No matter what your target audience is, gaining and losing customers could have a lot to do with the ease of your website. Make it user-friendly. Likewise, your CRM software should also be easy to use, so that it can be accessed by your staff from anywhere at anytime. Especially if someone can’t get to a computer, and he or she needs to access software from a mobile device.
CRM Strategies Are About More Than Just Software
When a CRM strategy is utilized properly, it can transform every aspect of your business for the better. It will help your sales team, your management staff, your customer service reps, and even your marketing team.
CRM’s unique ability to enhance all of these aspects of your business explains why many companies are spending an unprecedented amount of time and money trying to find the right CRM technology to automate all aspects of their business. Yet, as we’ve mentioned before, successful CRM adoption rates are only somewhere around 30%.
The primary reason for this is the mistaken assumption that the right CRM strategy will cure any business’ ailments. CRM strategies are only as good as the people behind it. People run a business, not software, so no matter how fancy or expensive your CRM system is, be sure that you have good people behind it, who also know how to use it properly.
So many businesses are trying to automate every aspect of the sales and marketing process. By utilizing big data and intelligent CRM, many businesses have taken the human element out of the entire process. While drip email campaigns and personalized content are excellent ways to reach out to your customers, it’s important not to remove the personal aspect of doing business entirely.
CRM strategy allows businesses to streamline their sales tactics and processes and cut costs while simultaneously ramping up the contact they make and keep with customers – it sounds like a surefire win-win. Yet it’s important not to lose sight of the human aspect of conducting business. When your employees interact with customers they gain valuable insight, develop ideas, and implement improvements that are simply not possible with a software.
If you have any questions about how to properly implement a CRM strategy for your business, let us know in the comments. At Mission Suite we’re always happy to help businesses improve their workflow any way we can.
Want to learn more about how you can use marketing automation to improve your CRM strategies? Request a demo with The Mission Suite now!