CRM is critical to a successful sales and customer service effort. But CRM has another great power. It provides valuable insights into customer interests, personalities, and behaviors to improve your marketing strategy.
Unfortunately, many companies (large and small) are not fully leveraging CRM for marketing, either because of the learning curve or the overwhelming amount of data available. Don't be one of them! Here are six tips to help you get the most out of your CRM in your marketing efforts.
People resist change, even if it makes life easier, like a powerful new CRM. Also, even employees and contractors who value CRM are prone to error. They may not be able to use CRM consistently. CRM Consulting can provide you the guidance and focus your team needs. It is also a good idea for you to hire an expert CRM software consultant.
The solution is to create a consistent training program for new employees and existing team members and a list of rules or best practices for using CRM. The training program doesn't have to be complicated either. Generate a series of short video tutorials on key aspects of your company's CRM use.
Complement this with a "cheat sheet" for busy salespeople and contractors to make it easier for them to follow your best practices. Also, remember that even the best training plans without follow-up are vain. You or another team member must be responsible for implementing these changes. Utilize tagging.
Storing all customer data in one place (CRM) is an excellent first step. However, using this data to personalize your marketing content will get a huge ROI. Use grouping, tagging, and segmentation to assign suitable labels to your contacts.
Classify them as follows: age gender job title income level or revenue interests critical issues at work preferred social media channel, and more. After that, in sync with your marketing team, develop personas based on this demographic and use them to guide you in creating marketing content.
You can learn so much from studying user behavior on your website. Imagine one of your contacts looking at your "Prices" page three times a day but soon forgetting your product and continuing to research with your competitors.
Conversely, suppose you have configured your CRM to send automatic follow-up emails to users who visit your pricing page repeatedly. Now, minutes after the prospect reads the price, you'll receive an email from a friendly sales representative asking if you want to know more. Behavioral data can be helpful for other purposes as well.
It helps you comprehend which components of your campaign are working and which are not. Examine the bounce rate, average session time, CTR, page views, and pages per session to identify areas for improvement.
Use CRM data to create one (or more) custom email drip campaigns based on the unique interests of your subscribers. For example, if you want to send a newsletter to all your contacts, make a note of the reaction. Who opens your email, and who clicks? Target these leads with medium-sized or low-range email drop campaigns to guide prospects to customers. For more information on creating effective drip campaigns, see our blog post on this topic.
CRM is more than just a place to store data from email subscribers. Maximize reach by synchronizing CRM with all channels to connect with new leads, from personal and professional email accounts to sales team email accounts. You can also download contact information from LinkedIn and other professional networking sites and add that information to your CRM to extend your reach.
Most CRMs have some degree of automation, such as email marketing automation and reminders sent to the sales team to follow up on specific prospects. Research CRM automation capabilities and, if needed, use tools such as Zapier to set up workflows that will help your business. CRM is a treasure trove of information that can teach you how to serve your current and future customers better. It takes time to customize to your specific needs, but it's worth the investment in the long run. It is also an essential part of digital business transformation.
