Year: 2019

Marketing Trends- That You Cannot Ignore This Year For Your Business Growth

Since you are using best small business CRM software for helping your organization accomplish its sales and marketing plans, it is equally important that you must remain aware of the evolving marketing trends and changes ahead, those that predict to alter the shape of the marketing world in 2019 and beyond. Hence, understanding these new trends in marketing this year will enable you to adjust your marketing strategies accordingly and remain ahead of the completion in your marketplace, once you keep these trends in mind and formulate your strategies to ensure optimum success in your businesses.

Since you are using best small business CRM software for helping your organization accomplish its sales and marketing plans, it is equally important that you must remain aware of the evolving marketing trends and changes ahead, those that predict to alter the shape of the marketing world in 2019 and beyond.

94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their content strategy. Other popular platforms include Twitter (87%), Facebook (84%), and YouTube (74%) - Content Marketing Institute Click To Tweet

Hence, understanding these new trends in marketing this year will enable you to adjust your marketing strategies accordingly and remain ahead of the completion in your marketplace, once you keep these trends in mind and formulate your strategies to ensure optimum success in your businesses.

Marketing Automation

Now that you know what is CRM, as a user of the best small business CRM software, it is apprehended strongly that this year and going ahead AI-powered technological advancements will take personalized marketing a step further.

Marketing automation and lead generation that is supported by AI (Artificial Intelligence) will help organizations using best small business CRM software to enhance their customer profiling strategies, which, in turn, will aid in facilitating the development of more sophisticated and refined customer-centric marketing strategies, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and a decrease in churn rates.

According to research published by Forbes, it has been suggested that more than 50% of present-day marketers will adopt AI by 2019, for accomplishing their business growth.

So choosing the best CRM for small business like ConvergeHub , which is already working on developing such technologies for its all-in-one easy to use CRM platform , will help you to stay ahead of the game.

Chatbots

In 2019, most of us are aware of chatbots that we deploy on our company websites for business growth.

Actually, chatbots are interactive software applications that are created to mimic normal human conversations.

Apart from websites, chatbots can also be incorporated into apps, emails and SMS platforms.

This year and going beyond it is predicted that the use of chatbots will increase, as according to a study published by Gartner, it is prognosticated that 85% of all customer support interactions will be powered by chatbots by 2020.

Therefore, marketers in 2019 using the best small business CRM software should start leveraging on chatbots now by having them answer frequently asked questions online, or walk the customers through their buying processes.

Video marketing

It is also predicted that video ads will be on a rise this year.

In a recent study published by Cisco, it has been projected that more than 80% of all internet traffic will be videos by 2021.

As in the present times with the stellar growth in social media 90% of digital markets are already making use of videos as a key element of their online marketing strategy, it is no brainer to expect that live video feeds will continue to grow.

Video marketing is not only an excellent way to tell customers and prospects your brand’s stories but it can be also considered as a better way to share testimonials with leads and prospects, whereby you can broadcast your  happy customers talk about their experience with your company, or which of your offerings has helped them in their business growth .

Influencer marketing

The consumers in all industries will be putting even more trust in relationships and people they know, as well as high-quality contents.

In other words, in modern times, consumers are becoming more and more difficult to impresses with sordid sales pitches from company reps, as they are becoming increasingly resistant towards being sold.

Consumers in 2019, especially the Millennial(s) group of consumers who are gradually moving into decision-making positions in several organizations, just want brands to help them buy.

Now, when it comes to influencer marketing, present-day tech-savvy consumers are more aware of influencers who openly endorse numerous brands. Therefore you need to adopt a more transparent and subtle approach by building long-term relationships with selected influencers, who may not be a big-name celebrity, but someone who has a  following of more than 10,000 followers on social media to foster more organic endorsement with transparent communications leading to your business growth.

Semantic SEO

According to ComScore, it has been predicted that 50% of all search on the internet will be voice searches by 2020, credits to virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa.

In recent times with new updates on Google’s search algorithms search engines have started showing a preference for cluster of contents around topics instead of keywords.

This change in part on SEO requirements has happened due to the rising popularity of searches being implemented verbally, instead of typing on keyboards.

Therefore, voice search marketing and Semantic SEO that provides more value and depth around a topic are expected to become increasingly important in 2019 and beyond.

Mobile marketing

According to an article published by Google in 2017, it stated that more than 89% of online consumers are likely to recommend a brand after a positive brand experience on their mobile devices.

In another statistics revealed by Statista:

In 2018, 52.2% of all worldwide online traffic was generated through mobile phones, up from 50.3% in the previous year.

Since mobile users view contents in short intervals, contents generated for mobile marketing should be pithy, and easy-to-understand as possible.

Therefore, remember to optimize your landing pages and your website for mobile viewing so that you can engage your potential and existing customers, and evolve over time the contents that you share with your consumers for developing their brand awareness and scale up your business growth.

Conclusion

Although there are no best marketing strategies and no one can for certain predict the future with unflinching accuracy, nevertheless preparing yourself and watching out for these marketing trends will obviously help you as a user of best small business CRM software like ConvergeHub to achieve your goals this year and remain competitive in your marketplace for your business growth.

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Increase Brand Loyalty: Key Ideas For Generating Devoted Customers

Brand loyalty is just what it sounds like. However still then, here is our definition of brand loyalty: “Brand loyalty relates to the sense of loyalty your consumers feel for your brand.” Loyalty towards a brand can be generated in several ways, some of which we shall cover below. This is important, as by maintaining customers who are loyal to your brand can significantly affect your business’s bottom line, your brand’s reputation, increase customer satisfaction, and decrease customer churn. The value of focusing on keeping your customers loyal and happy towards your brand over the long run is often ignored by many businesses.

Brand loyalty is just what it sounds like. However still then, here is our definition of brand loyalty:

“Brand loyalty relates to the sense of loyalty your consumers feel for your brand.”

Loyalty towards a brand can be generated in several ways, some of which we shall cover below.

This is important, as by maintaining customers who are loyal to your brand can significantly affect your business’s bottom line, your brand’s reputation, increase customer satisfaction, and decrease customer churn.

Highly-engaged customers buy 90 percent more often and spend 60 percent more per transaction - Rosetta Consulting Study Click To Tweet

The value of focusing on keeping your customers loyal and happy towards your brand over the long run is often ignored by many businesses.

Nevertheless, as in a recent survey done by Forrester Research determined that 60% of consumers in the US marketplace tells their friends, families, and colleagues about brands and companies that have earned their loyalty, this amount of free word-of-mouth advertisement is worth considering and hard to beat.

Therefore, now that the significance of creating brand loyalty is clear to us, the pertinent question is how you can create brand loyalty among your customer base.

We have observed as a vendor of best CRM for small and medium businesses that companies build their brand loyalty through various means.

These tactics consist of delivering robust and faultless products. Devoting extra time to the customer’s requirements, treating the customers like partners instead of numerous faceless generators of revenue …and the list goes on.

Here are some of the key ideas for maintaining and generating brand loyalty.

Provide a world-class customer experience

Customer experience is an ever-increasing critical element for generating brand loyalty. In a report published by Walker Information, Inc. it has been predicted that by 2020 customer experience will overshadow price and products as the key driver of the purchase decision making process.

Now how can we define Customer Experience?

Actually, customer experience consists of all the interactions that a company or brand have with their customers.
These myriad interactions with the customers encompass everything from sales calls, customer support calls, how well your brand’s offerings serve your customers, the amount of time that your representatives devote to their requirements, and also the frequency of emails that you send them for updating their knowledge base.

Since when your customers’ feels valued and understand that you are proactively looking for their suggested opinions and conducting changes to enhance their experience with your brand, they start feeling loyal to your company.

Therefore, once you treat your customers as your partners, and involve them in your decision-making processes, it becomes a mutually beneficial relationship which makes their brand loyalty for your organization climb up to new heights.

Stay in constant touch with your customers

Although this seems to be obvious, but still this is an easy win that most companies overlook. Therefore, if you really want to make your customers feel that you want them to feel like your partners, it is beneficial to keep your customers informed of all new changes that are happening in your organization, as an when they arise. If you are a user of best small business CRM software like ConvergeHub, you can easily do this by sending quarterly or monthly newsletters to your loyal consumers using sales force automation in your easy to use CRM platform.

These periodic email updates to your customers can include news like changes in management, product and service updates, new contents that you have published, and others.

Another great tactic to keep your customers loyal to your brand is to reach out to each of your customers directly in a regular basis (once in every quarter), listen to their feedback and then take actions on common grounds that evolve out of these conversations.

Conduct a robust and thorough onboarding

The best time to start building up loyalty for your brand is when you acquire a new customer. This is because the first impression is always the most important impression that you leave with your new customers that heralds the tone for your relationship in the future days to come.

Never just sign-in a new customer and then let them fend for themselves.

Rather create and implement a very useful onboarding program that can train your customers how they must use your products or services, demonstrate to them the best practices for using your offerings, and allow them to ask questions that relates to their unique use cases.

Remember, once you help your customers from day one, they will even start to display loyalty towards your brand right from the beginning and stick around longer as your offerings are meeting all their needs.

Conclusion

Therefore, to put it bluntly, all the best practices above for creating brand loyalty depends cent percent on customer experience and customer satisfaction and it help create brand advocates, which is one the most powerful sources that drive businesses and escalates revenue growth.

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Selling to Millennials: How to prepare for the future with Easy to Use CRM software

It is pertinent that we should state in the onset that the title of this blog is a bit misleading since we are not yet truly prepared for the market as easy to use CRM software users, where Millennial(s) are going to be the key consumer demography for many businesses. Therefore, marketing and selling to the Millennial(s) is a completely new ball game, and it is really necessary to understand how to succeed at it. In 2019, Millennial(s) are gradually moving into decision-making positions in several organizations, and therefore as markets using the best small business CRM software, we must adapt to their unique requirements, buying behaviors, and tendencies.

It is pertinent that we should state in the onset that the title of this blog is a bit misleading since we are not yet truly prepared for the market as easy to use CRM software users, where Millennial(s) are going to be the key consumer demography for many businesses.

Therefore, marketing and selling to the Millennial(s) is a completely new ball game, and it is really necessary to understand how to succeed at it.

In 2019, Millennial(s) are gradually moving into decision-making positions in several organizations, and therefore as markets using the best small business CRM software, we must adapt to their unique requirements, buying behaviors, and tendencies.

At the end of 2018, CRM software revenues overtook database management systems to become the largest of all software markets- Super Office Click To Tweet

Most of the difference between these Millennial(s) and their predecessors revolve around the pervasiveness of technology and the Millennials’ familiarity and comfort level with it.

Hence, to adapt alongside the evolving business landscape driven by these Millennial(s), it is utmost important to understand how they are changing the playing arena and what you can do as a user of small business CRM to accommodate those changes.

Here are 5 tips covering the key areas, in which Millennial(s) are altering their buying approaches, and tips on adapting your strategy and find success when marketing and selling to these Millennial(s).

Millennial(s) will become America’s largest consumers in 2019

Baby-Boomers have all along been the largest consumer demography in the US. However, it will no longer remain so, as Millennial(s) are set to overtake them in 2019.

Millennial(s) have different buying behaviors and expectations that marketers need to take into consideration.

Tips for embracing this change:

Get to know the Millennial(s) and their interests, needs, goals, etc. Although you can use traditional research methods for finding these, but for getting a more accurate data for building your marketing strategies, you can send an online survey to all your Millennial customers and thereafter collate their feedbacks in your CRM database.

Millennial(s) have grown up with technology

Millennial(s) are extremely tech savvy as they have grown up with technology.

Unlike the previous generations who were accustomed to using landlines, and paper maps to provide directions, Millennial(s) have grown up with technology in their hands.

Therefore, Millennial(s) are extremely tech-savvy and they carry their mobile devices everywhere they go, which provide a distinctive opportunity for digital marketing professionals to engage them on digital channel platforms.

Tips for embracing this change:

As Millennial(s) carry their smartphones anywhere and everywhere they go, hence they are always reachable. Therefore using easy to use CRM with social marketing capabilities is a great way to engage Millennial(s) as most check their accounts daily.

Hence, to market to the Millennial(s), businesses must maintain a robust presence on social media and make sure that their contents, website, and emails are always mobile responsive.

Millennial(s) do not respond to irrelevant ads and messaging

Companies like Amazon and Netflix that excels at personalized marketing has changed the game. In the recent times, personalizing the experiences so that customers and leads see what is needed and relevant is the need of the hour, as Millennial(s) have also come to expect personalized interactions and are turned off by irrelevant messages and ads.

Tips for embracing this change:

Using an easy to use CRM software solution like ConvergeHub that offers a 360-degree view can help businesses to acquire maximum insights into individual customers and thereafter personalize their outreach in a way that touches on common grounds.

It is easier than ever for Millennial(s) to leave you for a competitor

In the present times, cutthroat competition in the market also implies that customers can easily leave you for your competition if you fail to meet their needs. Therefore, if you do not maintain enhanced customer satisfaction level with your Millennial customers they will very soon look for vendors that do.

Tips for embracing this change:

Focus on delivering world-class customer experience using an easy to use CRM software. Remain in constant contact with your Millennial customers and check in routinely to remain sure they find everything they need. Since low level of customer satisfaction can kill your Millennial customers in a flash.

Millennial(s) share more on social media

In 2019 Millennial(s) place a lot of value in brand recommendations; they receive from their friends, peers, and colleagues on social media.  Moreover, they will also never hesitate to share it with the world, if they have a bad experience with your company.

Tips for embracing this change:

Use social monitoring and social listening tools in your best small business CRM software, to alert you immediately when someone talks about your brand on social media networking websites.

Keep your Millennial customers always engaged and respond as soon as possible to thank them for commenting, or sharing your content marketing efforts in a way that makes sense.

Takeaway

Consumer interests, behaviors, and buying patterns are evolving and will continue to change as new generations grow up, join their workplace, and become active consumers.

Therefore, marketers in 2019 must understand their Millennial audiences and adapt these strategies to embrace emerging trends and adapt to changing times for growing their business over time.

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Tried-Techniques For Getting Sales Referrals With CLM CRM Software

Ask a customer for a referral after keeping him happy for months and years using CLM CRM software to assist you in the process, is like asking a friend to help set you up on a blind date. You must be a little nervous since you are admitting that you are incapable of finding this new person on your own. However, you are also hopeful that you might just find your true love- or a big deal, from the referrals that you receive from your customers. Nevertheless, the probability of success in this process depends on whom and how you ask.

Ask a customer for a referral after keeping him happy for months and years using CLM CRM software to assist you in the process, is like asking a friend to help set you up on a blind date.

You must be a little nervous since you are admitting that you are incapable of finding this new person on your own. However, you are also hopeful that you might just find your true love- or a big deal, from the referrals that you receive from your customers.

Nevertheless, the probability of success in this process depends on whom and how you ask.

The average return on investment for CRM is $8.71 for every dollar spent-Nucleus Research Click To Tweet

For this, not only you need to phrase your inquiry correctly, but you also need to focus on referrals throughout your sales process using CLM CRM software platform, so that your customer is primed to say- ‘Yes’.

Use reciprocity

You must be aware of the Reciprocity Theory, which illustrates that when someone voluntarily does something good for you, you feel obligated to return the favor.

There are several sales reps who say: “I am doing a great job, so why still my customers are not reciprocating with referrals?”

Well, to any customer in all businesses, the sales rep’s “reward” for performing his job is the – Sale.

Therefore, to take benefit of the inclination of humans to reciprocate, you need to be above and beyond your usual job.

Try to stand apart from a “typical sales rep” by expressing an interest in your customers, by asking a lot of questions to them, demonstrating your curiosity and thereafter using a CLM CRM software like ConvergeHub build a relationship with your customers in the longer run.

Set up a referral rewards program

The most common reason as to why many referral-programs do no succeed is because they tend to generate sub-par leads.

Maybe Person X will never have referred to Person Y…if you are not offering a generous 10-15% discount on his next purchase, or his next monthly subscription if he is using your services.

We suggest to the users of CLM CRM software, the best way to get around this issue is by refraining from announcing to your customer that you are providing a bonus. Rather, wait till any of your customers have referred someone and then reward them subsequently.

Although this might seem counter-intuitive, nevertheless, we have seen it works.

More to say, by generating positive word-of-mouth around your referral campaigns, we have observed you will surely prime people to generate positive word-of-mouth around your offerings.

Incorporate referrals into your sales process

While it is true that you would not want to annoy and upset your customer base with never-ending referral requests, however, you can always make it absolutely clear that you would appreciate introductions or new leads.

But how can you express this desire and build it into your sales communication process?

One of our best sales reps identifies who he would like to be introduced to, even before his first meeting with a prospect.

He visits the LinkedIn page, sees whom his prospects are connected to and notes the names of those connects who he would be interested in working with. Thereafter, he asks the prospective customers if they can introduce him to those connections, at the end of his meeting.

To make a referral as a part of your sales process, it is important that you must schedule “referral request” as an activity in your easy to use CLM CRM software, and plan on asking each customer in your CRM Database , for referrals, one to three times every year.

Make referring easy

We have even observed that there are several customers who will simply reject your request for providing you referrals just because it takes efforts and energy.

Therefore, to boost your referral rate, it is suggested that you should make the process as effortless as possible for your customers.

To do this it is best to help your customers understand whom you are willing to meet.

Here is an example, you can say if you are selling Salesforce Alternative CRM software like ConvergeHub: “I am looking for a small business or a startup owner who wants to buy a CRM for SMB and is not willing to use Salesforce”.

But saying this you will not only provide specific help to the person doing the referring, but it will also improve the quality of your lead.

Secondly, if you are using easy to use CRM software like ConvergeHub, you can create a template and send it to your customers over email campaigns that they can use to make their connections.

This template should typically include an explanation as to who you are, how your customer knows your brand, and why your customer is introducing you to his or her referral.

Doing this exercise not only helps to reduce effort and time required for your customers to refer new businesses for your organization, but it also aids you to send your customer’s referral, your own company’s message.

Final thought

In a research study published in 2011 by American Journal of Marketing, it was found that referred customers have a greater retention rate and are hence more valuable than customers bought in through the traditional methods

Therefore, if you are trying to increase your numbers in sales, finding and banking on referrals will definitely help you to grow your business in the long run.

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Unbeatable KPIs And Sales Metrics For Modern Sales Teams

In the present day’s highly competitive business landscape, small businesses and startups find it increasingly difficult to compete without the ability to find data-driven decisions, and therefore, sales metrics and analysis provided by modern technology like best small business CRM software solutions make it easy. In 2019 it has been observed that most small businesses are moving to an all-in-one easy to use CRM solution like ConvergeHub and others because they provide marketing, sales, support and also accounting modules all on the same platform.

In the present day’s highly competitive business landscape, small businesses and startups find it increasingly difficult to compete without the ability to find data-driven decisions, and therefore, sales metrics and analysis provided by modern technology like best small business CRM software solutions make it easy.

In 2019 it has been observed that most small businesses are moving to an all-in-one easy to use CRM solution like ConvergeHub and others because they provide marketing, sales, support and also accounting modules all on the same platform.

Effective sales organizations are 81% more likely to be practicing consistent usage of a CRM or other system of record- Aberdeen Group Click To Tweet

Which means that all data and information from every department within the organization can now be stored in one central CRM database that in turn help increase the accuracy and volume of the data and metrics at your disposal, allowing businesses to make enhanced data-driven decisions.

Key sales metrics to measure and analyze

A converged all-in-one CRM software like ConvergeHub (which is also the most popular QuickBooks CRM solution in the US markets) help track loads of sales metrics, which we will cover now that modern sales teams should leverage and embrace to drive more sales resulting in growth of their businesses.

  • Month-over-month total sales

Keeping track of overall sales by reps, every month, is not a new concept, as sales teams have been doing it since ages and it is still one of the most important sales metrics even today.

Best small business CRM software like ConvergeHub provides robust CRM reporting that allows you to easily keep a tab on how each of your sales reps are performing with regards to sales, against their monthly benchmarks.

Using CRM data once you find that your rep’s total monthly sales volumes are plummeting, you can easily identify the reason behind the drop, and use the information in the CRM database to help improve your sales rep’s performance and get them back on course.

  • Sales funnel flow

Another true and tried sales metrics that are critical to the success of modern sales teams is sales funnel flow that helps managers to view which sales-reps are moving leads through the sales funnel at an expected velocity and those who are falling back.

The great thing is that as data collection and analysis takes place automatically in most best small business CRM software solutions like ConvergeHub, you can easily check your CRM’s dashboard and simply check how many leads each rep have in their funnel.

This kind of granular details allows sales managers to find bottlenecks at any particular stage of the funnel and if needed makes changes to fix the issue and allow leads to flow smoothly through the funnel once again.

  • Conversion rates

Sales reps receive MQL or Marketing Qualified Leads from the marketers, for those leads that have shown a propensity to buy and are therefore ready for sales outreach.

However, once the marketing teams pass an MQL to the sales, they can get converted into a customer or even fail to do so.

Hence, by measuring your businesses’ conversion rate by taking the number of leads that you have converted to customers and dividing it by the total number of Marketing Qualified Leads you have received from the marketers you can easily find if your conversion rate is low or at-par with your businesses’ expected growth.

Low conversion rate could signify that your marketing teams are qualifying the leads too early, or your sales reps are not effective at closing deals, which can be analyzed easily by the sales reporting features provided by most easy to use CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub.

  • Outreach activities completed

Every sales rep engage in prospecting outreach, which consists of sending cold emails, making cold calls, etc.

Logically speaking, the more prospects your sales teams meet, the more likely they are likely to convert them to customers.

This is the reason why it is important to track the number of cold prospect emails, and the number of cold calls, done by the reps and set an outreach benchmark and measure each rep’s outreach against that to identify those reps that require support to improve their efforts.

Using best small business CRM like ConvergeHub, your reps can use inbuilt sales email templates to expedite their email sending process, or use auto-dialer and pre-recorded voice mail drop features to make more calls in less time.

  • Opportunities lost

Finally, the last but another most important KPI that needs to be considered is to track the number of opportunities that got lost, as well as the ratio of opportunities created to the opportunities lost for each of your sales reps in your sales team.

Since, if you find that your reps are creating lots of new opportunities but are also losing most of them, you need to look into it and understand the reason behind that.

In most best small business CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub, you can easily customize the CRM’s dashboard that can help sales managers and reps check in daily and find the right insight they require at a glance.

As a pro tip, you can use the call recording feature found in most easy to use CRM software platforms to record each sales calls made by individual sales reps so that your managers can listen to them and spot the weak points in the rep’s approach and instruct them to improve upon those areas.

Conclusion

Although most of these sales metrics and KPIs may not be new, nevertheless these are all tried and true parameters to be analyzed that can help modern sales teams to thrive and help grow their business by using information collected in the CRM database to make strategic and informed decisions for increasing productivity and bring faster revenue growth.

Therefore, by constantly measuring sales metrics and KPIs, you will see more deals won with data in front to validate those winning decisions, without making unrealistic expectations by overlooking the information stored in your easy to use CRM database.

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How To Do Predictive Lead Scoring With Best Small Business CRM

The way in which you can score leads using best small business CRM software has come a long way. When marketing automation system or sales force automation functionalities came along in most best small business CRM software platforms, modern lead scoring with the help of easy to use CRM software platforms become a function that is based on the firmographic and demographic behavior of the leads, but also involved the lead’s behavior on the brand’s website. As in 2019, the number of organizations that are adopting inbound marketing and marketing automation strategies is increasing by leaps and bounds, this should also increase the addressable markets for predictive lead scoring in the days to come.

The way in which you can score leads using best small business CRM software has come a long way.

Before the popularity of marketing automation with easy to use CRM software, lead scoring in Customer Relationship Management systems was calculated as per the user-maintained values in various fields of the software.
For an example, if the user of the CRM selected “Hot” from his CRM’s ‘Rating’ pick-list field, it implied that this activity would increase the score of that lead in the CRM database.

Those using lead scoring had a 77% boost in lead generation ROI over those not using scoring- Marketing Sherpa Click To Tweet

However, the biggest issue with this kind of lead scoring is that it is after-the-fact, which implies that the user of the CRM or the sales reps involved had to spend a substantial time trying to contact a lead, research the lead’s firmography and demography and thereafter update the lead’s data field- only to determine that that lead is someone who is very likely or unlikely to purchase their offerings.

Present Marketing Automation System Lead Scoring

When marketing automation system or sales force automation functionalities came along in most best small business CRM software platforms, modern lead scoring with the help of easy to use CRM software platforms become a function that is based on the firmographic and demographic behavior of the leads, but also involved the lead’s behavior on the brand’s website.

A relevant example of where marketing automation lead scoring works well is if a website visitor downloads a whitepaper, registers for a webinar, or watches more than a certain percentage of a specific product demonstration video, the visitor’s lead score goes up as a certain number of points can be automatically added to the lead score.
This kind of lead scoring using marketing automation in best small business CRM software platforms is very useful engagement information for any salesperson in modern times, as depending on the nature of the downloads, registrations, view of the video, they can immediately find the likelihood of the visitor to ultimately convert to a customer. Even though, this lead scoring metrics found with the best small business CRM software platforms cannot predict the amount this lead will spend on the brand if it becomes a customer.

Therefore, on the downsides to marketing automation lead scoring with best small business CRM platforms is that if the visitors on the company website viewed a large number of pages that lead will typically get point added to their scores. The more pages or contents they view or download, the higher the score.

But what happens if these visitors engaging on your website with this type of behavior are just mere “lookie-loos”, people who are very unlikely to get converted to customers?

Hence, neither of these above-mentioned lead scoring techniques factors-in external intelligence about the leads and the site visitors on your website.

The Introduction of Predictive Lead Scoring

It is Predictive Lead Scoring with best small business CRM software that has turned this method literally into a science.

Organizations like Infer (a company based in CA that deliver a predictive-first platform that helps companies win more customers, uses historical data from easy to use CRM apps) have hired PhD-level data scientists to automatically scour the internet for finding relevant data-points.

According to a senior spokesperson working with Infer:

“Predictive lead scoring is an automated, data-driven way for businesses to determine which prospects are most likely to convert, and which are going to have the biggest revenue impact.”

For example, using a predictive-first platform with best small business CRM software, if a website visitor gets converted to a lead enters his/her corporate email address, a plethora of signals can be collected based on the visitor’s domain. A few examples of these signals are the lead’s social presence, his or her organization’s employee count, job postings, website traffic, and even which technology vendors the visitor’s organization is using for accomplishing his/her jobs.

As an edge case example, if your organization sells an Office 365 app add-on, a lead whose organization uses Google Apps will not purchase your offerings unless you can get them convinced and converted to Microsoft Apps.

In more general cases, this information can be used by the sales reps to focus their efforts on other marketing qualified leads or MQLs that are most likely to get converted to customers and/or more likely to generate greater revenues.

Marketing likewise, can use this information to ascertain which drip programs to add to which leads or who they should target for their upcoming events.

Using predictive lead scoring apps with best small business CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub CRM is also a win for analyzing website visitors, since if a visitor is not a well-qualified buyer and is visiting your website just for kicking tires, such visitors will receive fewer phone calls and email communications- or at times none at all.

What Internal Applications Are Required to Support Predictive Lead Scoring?

If you wish to implement Predictive Lead Scoring technology for your startup organization or small business it can only work in conjunction with an intelligent and intuitive best small business CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub. Whereby, even if a lead is created by web-to-lead form t generate leads from your business website, the email address of the visitor can be used to reach out into the world of Big Data and pull back a score into the easy to use CRM software platform. Moreover, existing records of leads and customers in the CRM database can also back-filled with the help of predictive lead scoring apps.

The advantage to having an online lead management system and marketing automation software in place like ConvergeHub, which is also well-known for its MA capabilities is that markets can better leverage the predictive score via Marketing Automation functionality in the CRM.

Though many CRM vendors do not tell it explicitly, the higher is the relative lead volume, the more accurate value a predictive lead scoring app will deliver to an organization.

As in 2019, the number of organizations that are adopting inbound marketing and marketing automation strategies is increasing by leaps and bounds, this should also increase the addressable markets for predictive lead scoring in the days to come.

Do you want 2019 to be the year where you achieve massive revenue growth?

Then start planning NOW.

Create your revenue growth strategy for 2019.

If you would like to get some ideas or brainstorm on how ConvergeHub can provide the right technology to achieve your company’s marketing and sales goals, acquire more leads, and retain your existing customers by enhancing customer’s experience with your brand, you can reserve a confidential consultation with one of our experts.

On this 30-45 minute call we will:

  • Take a deep-dive into your business process
  • Pinpoint areas with most growth potential
  • Discuss how to implement an effective marketing automation system that lets you focus on the most important tasks

Click here to check out how you can achieve your sales growth plans in 2019!

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New Trends to Boost Your Best Small Business CRM in 2019

With the arrival of 2019, different kinds of easy to use CRM software (even Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions) are predicted to go through substantial overhauls and renovations- in terms of better intelligence, enhanced automation, new integrations and much more. Hence, the transformation in the cloud based CRM industry for small businesses is as good as its ability to gear up with the latest trends in the software industry, which consequentially makes us look at a number of new features that will surely revolutionize the way we use easy to use best small business CRM today.

Best small business CRM software solutions in modern times are all about better supporting and serving the customers during their journey.
Modern CRM for small businesses software platforms empower startups and small business establishments to form an emotional bonding with their prospects and customers by looking out for their best interests as a consumer of their offerings. Additionally easy to use CRM software solutions also ensures the customer-facing employees of an organization to find the right information and data from their best small business CRM software about their customers at the right time, so that they can better focus on nurturing relationships.

The Service Desk Institute has found that more than 80 percent of IT departments are using self-service as a way to meet this need. Click To Tweet

Just like any other advancements in technology with every passing year, easy to use CRM software is also undergoing futuristic transformations, bringing new innovations and simplifications to this three-lettered workplace, within an entire organization.
Therefore, be it marketing, sales, accounts, operations, or even event management and collaborations, modern best small business CRM like ConvergeHub can only get better and smarter.

With the arrival of 2019, different kinds of easy to use CRM software (even Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions) are predicted to go through substantial overhauls and renovations- in terms of better intelligence, enhanced automation, new integrations and much more.

Hence, the transformation in the cloud based CRM industry for small businesses is as good as its ability to gear up with the latest trends in the software industry, which consequentially makes us look at a number of new features that will surely revolutionize the way we use easy to use best small business CRM today.

  1. Automatic Workflows and Intuitive User-Interface Reconfiguration

Using AI (Artificial Intelligence), modern best small business CRM software platforms will be able to adjust workflows more effectively and perform with lesser turn-around time.

This will be done by using technologies like AI and machine learning- two of the most advanced technologies that can simulate human behaviors using a non-human entity.

By learning and understanding the usage patterns and trends of the users, easy to use CRM software for small businesses and startup organizations will automatically take over mundane repetitive tasks and even adapt the user interfaces to individual usage based on their usage patterns.

Manash Chaudhuri (CTO of ConvergeHub- The #1 Easiest Converged CRM for SMB) remarks:

“At ConvergeHub, we are in the process of incorporating AI and Machine Learning into the future of our sales and marketing tools. Using AI in the sales and marketing processes creates a more tailored and user-specific experience for the buyers and can help small business organizations get found by more prospective customers, convert more new leads and thereby sell their products and services to more customers.”

  1. CRM at the Center of an Omni-channel Approach

Nowadays, more than six touch points are needed before any typical sale, which happens across several channels.
According to us as small business CRM vendor and consultants, we have realized that simply initiating touch points across multiple channels is not enough- rather the consistency of customer experience is what that really counts as much as the breadth of engagement.

Therefore, the fewer touch points that you use the better will be your sales process as a small business organization.
Hence, in 2019 easy to use CRM platforms will proactively look towards ramping up their integration algorithms and API with the objective of attaining leaner and tighter integrations with external services and tools.

In the modern times, easy to use cloud based CRM software systems are therefore evolving to serve as the never center for this omnichannel approach, unifying mobile marketing, landing pages, social campaigns, customer support ticketing, sales calls, accounting processes and other channels into a coherent whole.

In the recent times in 2018, ConvergeHub has integrated QuickBooks online, with its CRM systems, and is now one of the most popular QuickBooks CRM in the small business CRM marketplace, offering QuickBooks CRM integration free.

  1. Self-Service via easy to use CRM platforms

One particular channel that will witness a stellar growth and deeper integration with CRM for small and medium businesses- is self service.

While Gartner predicts that by 2020:

“A customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human, so make sure to give your customers the direction and tools they need to accomplish tasks themselves.“

In another whitepaper published by ZenDesk states:

“50% of customers think it’s important to solve product or service issues themselves and 70% expect a company’s website to include a self-service application.“

In 2019 it is predicted that more than half of the modern consumers are likely to abandon an online purchase if they cannot get an answer to their questions quickly.

According to Forrester Research:

“The Service Desk Institute has found that more than 80 percent of IT departments are using self-service as a way to meet this need.”

Therefore, the link between easy to use CRM and self-service is a natural one as CRM application when integrated with ChatBots is capable of customizing self-service interactions and render a customer care feedback loop that sales, marketing, and support teams can also tap into in real-time as and when it is needed.

Hence, small and medium business CRM software vendors like ConvergeHub have also taken into notice the need for customer-service integration and self-service in particular, which is on a rise.

  1. From CRM to Social CRM

The transition to easy to use social CRM is imminent. Engaging customers by creating virtual communities is a more pertinent way that will be the new trend in social media marketing.
Therefore, it is predicted that in 2019 and beyond these communities and social media as a whole will take a greater shape as an important element within all best small business CRM software platforms.

Since being social will not only help businesses interact more closely with their consumers, but it will also provide hitherto unseen insights into customer’s buying patterns and their behaviors, which in turn will enhance to the lead nurturing capability of the easy to use CRM for small business in a big way.

  1. Enhanced Mobility

Customers of easy to use CRM for small businesses are no longer bound to their PCs and are constantly accessing data on the go. Therefore, customer support resources and front line sales and marketing employees will be increasingly empowered by mobile devices for support.

In 2019 we should also see NLP (Natural Language Processing) making its way into best small business CRM software platforms as a precursor to adding functionalities such as recording minutes of the meetings, updating records, and several other voice-based interactions that can revolutionize the way we interact with cloud based CRM software technology today.

Finally- On-premises CRM has become the exception

Adoption of cloud based CRM for startups and small and medium businesses used to be a tough sell.
However, that is no longer the case.

According to our research, we found that 80 percent of all new CRM purchases are in the cloud.

This is because not only finding sufficient talents and vendor support to maintain these on-premise legacy systems will become more difficult to find over time but the increasing need to access the CRM software from multiple locations and devices has also led to the rise of using cloud based CRM solutions in small businesses.

Therefore, if privacy protection was an obstacle to cloud based CRM adoption in the past, after the enforcement of the GDPR rules, this year may be the time to look again for cloud based CRM in the market for better and deeper interactions with your leads, prospects, and customers.

Do you want 2019 to be the year where you achieve massive revenue growth?

Then start planning NOW.

Create your revenue growth strategy for 2019.

If you would like to get some ideas or brainstorm on how ConvergeHub can provide the right technology to achieve your company’s marketing and sales goals, and retain your existing customers by enhancing customer’s experience with your brand, you can reserve a confidential consultation with one of our experts.

On this 30-45 minute call we will:

  • Take a deep-dive into your business process
  • Pinpoint areas with most growth potential
  • Discuss how to implement an effective marketing automation system that lets you focus on the most important tasks

Click here to check out how you can achieve your sales growth plans in 2019!

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Managing Never-Ending Customer Journeys With Modern CLM CRM Software

If you know what is CRM or Customer Relationship Management software, a customer journey is something that tells the stories of your customer’s experience with your brand, beginning with their initial contacts and continues through all succeeding interactions, via all touch points in the CLM CRM software. Therefore a marketer using CLM CRM (Customer Lifecycle Management CRM) software platform’s job is to understand the various touch points when the customers getengaged with the organization, respond to marketing messages, purchases its products,and services, to make certain the most successful usage of each such chances and opportunities.

What is a Customer Journey?

If you know what is CRM or Customer Relationship Management software, a customer journey is something that tells the stories of your customer’s experience with your brand, beginning with their initial contacts and continues through all succeeding interactions, via all touch points in the CLM CRM software.

Therefore a marketer using CLM CRM (Customer Lifecycle Management CRM) software platform’s job is to understand the various touch points when the customers get engaged with the organization, respond to marketing messages, purchases its products,and services, to make certain the most successful usage of each such chances and opportunities.

Unlike, traditionally established marketing funnels, which were linear, modern interactions with the customers at each stage of the funnel, can jump around from one stage to another, even at times skipping particular stages or trace backward in a typical customer’s journey through the funnel.

80% of all sales, occur after approximately 5 followups- Gartner Click To Tweet

Nevertheless, the goal of managing and defining customer journeys include the customer experience with the brand, identify the greatest potentials and dangers in the various stages of the journey, and make certain that every customer receives the right message via the right channel, at the right time.

The Traditional Vs Modern Customer Journey Approaches

Most markets before the intrusion of Web 2.0 in the CRM world used a flowchart-based or map-based customer journey approach, one that enabled the marketers to take advantage of the customer journey through the funnel to plan their actions in order to maximize customer engagement and satisfaction. These customer journey frameworks were built using data-driven researches that were capable of expressing the most critical and important stages of the most common journeys of the customers and how to best engage the customers at each one.

However, the traditional flowchart based approach had numerous limitations which made it unsuitable for managing the journeys of most of their customers, such as:

-Journeys were static

Although pre-planned customer journey frameworks could cover the paths that customers take, traditional customer journey approaches failed to address unusual or unplanned customer behaviors.

-Limited flexibility

As pre-planned customer journeys could not cover every scenario, traditional customer journey approaches left many customers behind as it treated customers too generally.

-Assumed a single journey for all customers

Using the traditional flowchart based customer journey mapping approach, it was extremely difficult o manage or modify or combine different journey maps, since many customers deviated their behaviors from one path to another during their journey.

Therefore traditional journey mapping of the customers simply did not work with individual customers in the context of their actual behaviors, activities,and preferences.

Hence, in the modern times with the advent of CLM CRM software technology, with easy to use CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub that offers 360-degree view of the customers and their unique touch points, a far more comprehensive, complex and newer customer journey mapping approach that is gaining popularity among advanced marketers is taking a different track.
In this approach instead of pre-planning the customer journey (that a customer might take), this modern micro-segmentation approach centers on enthusiastically segmenting very much alike customers on their comparable ‘behavioral DNA’.

Actually, these micro-segments of customers (which can even be just one or two customers), who matches a set of criteria defined by the marketers; is utilized to map the customer journeys in real-time using a CLM CRM software platform to maximize this information for customer satisfaction and engagement.

The factors that define this modern approach in mapping the customer journey can include a combination of factors, such as:

  • Longevity (the length of time that the customer is in the CRM database)
  • Specific app/website activity or behavior of the customer
  • Spending pattern of the customer (frequency and amount)
  • Product affinity and preferences
  • History of responses to previous marketing campaigns
  • The predicted propensity to churn and the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) of the customer, etc.

Now, since every customer in your easy to use CRM database must fall into any of these micro-segments at any point of time, all customers will receive the most relevant and appealing offers and messages at the particular point in their never-ending customer journey through the CLM CRM software, which is the main rewards of the ‘micro-segmentation’ approach to manage customer journeys.

The key benefits of using the micro-segmentation approach for managing the customer journey using best small business CRM software like ConvergeHub, which is also considered as one of the most popular CLM CRM software platforms, are that micro-segmentation approach is:

-Adaptive and Dynamic

Because customers are treated based on the micro-segments in which they are presently located, individual customer journey continues to adapt itself to changes in the behaviors of the customers in real time.

-Easy to evolve and scale

By just including more and more micro-segments (for catering more effective communication) the number of customer journeys handled can increase exponentially, without having to restructure anything that was built before.

-Enhanced customer coverage

Focusing on myriad customer micro-segments enables the marketers to easily cover numerous customer-related events and scenarios collected in the CRM database , without being limited to imagining and planning out pre-defined paths in advance.

-Greater volume of customer marketing

Because none of the customers are left behind, the micro-segmentation approach for monitoring customer journey helps to blast relevant messages to individual customers, or groups of customers, using marketing automation in the CLM CRM software, at every point in their journey.

Creating the Ideal Customer Journey Model using CLM CRM software

Therefore, unlike traditional customer journey flowcharts, which simply present a fixed number of actions along the path, dynamically micro-segmenting very similar customers on their ‘behavioral’ DNA helps in creating an infinite customer journey which is more challenging to visualize and communicate.

In other words, using a CLM CRM software solution, (as the adage goes, “there is more to it than meets the eye”), micro-segmenting the customer journey often provides more value in what you can see than what you could not have seen using conventional journey mapping of the customers.

Therefore, using a CLM CRM software, the micro-segmentation approach does not compel the marketers to consider “hard-coded” journeys, but instead using this approach marketer only need to take into consideration and attend to the customer’s above stated “behavioral DNA” at any specific and exact point of time, without worrying how the customer reached that point.

Conclusion

Finally, the use of this micro-segmentation approach becomes even more robust when it is combined with predictive analytics software, which helps in sending offers to customers based on what it appears that they are going to purchase in the near future, which aids in up-selling and cross-selling to the customers in the CRM database , boosts your brand’s image, and increases your revenues.

Do you want 2019 to be the year where you achieve massive revenue growth?

Then start planning NOW.

Create your revenue growth strategy for 2019.

If you would like to get some ideas or brainstorm on how ConvergeHub can provide the right technology to achieve your company’s marketing and sales goals, and retain your existing customers by enhancing customer’s experience with your brand, you can reserve a confidential consultation with one of our experts.

On this 30-45 minute call we will:

  • Take a deep-dive into your business process
  • Pinpoint areas with most growth potential
  • Discuss how to implement an effective marketing automation system that lets you focus on the most important tasks

Click here to check out how you can achieve your sales growth plans in 2019!

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Reasons Why Customers Will Rush To Do Business With You In 2019

Before pressing on the ‘reset’ button for scaling up your business, understand the simple truth quoted by Simon Sinek, the author of the book Start and Why: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” A quote that will make you think differently now, behind why a consumer of your offerings chooses to do business with an organization. Although there are plenty of reasons to consider, however as the award-winning vendor of one of the best small business CRM software solution, here we are putting together a very short list of some of these ‘Whys’.

If you wish to reach your business goals (who does not?), do not get seduced into making New Year’s resolution once again in 2019.
Why?
This is because researches say that resolutions do not work.
Nevertheless, paradoxically, if you do not make them, chances are there you may be more likely to achieve and maintain your goals.

According to Statistic Brain Research Institute based in California, USA:

“41% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions in the first place. But here’s the thing — only 9.2% of us are successful in achieving them.”

Therefore, before pressing on the ‘reset’ button for scaling up your business, understand the simple truth quoted by Simon Sinek, the author of the book Start and Why:

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

A quote that will make you think differently now, behind why a consumer of your offerings chooses to do business with an organization.

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.- Simon Sinek Click To Tweet

Although there are plenty of reasons to consider, however as the award-winning vendor of one of the best small business CRM software solution, here we are putting together a very short list of some of these ‘Whys’:

1. Price

Let us clear this factor out of the way first. There are several individuals those who chose pricing as a primary factor before deciding on their purchases.  However, those companies that get customers just because of low price will lose customers when someone else has a cheaper price.
Therefore, the loyalty of these customers to the company is because of price, not the brand itself.

2. Convenience

Who does not want a frictionless and easy buying experience? Moreover, customers are often willing to pay higher prices if their customer experience is convenient.
Therefore, if you know what is CRM, use an easy to use CRM software like ConvergeHub to enhance your customer experience and skyrocket your revenue this year.

Here is the good news, by signing up for a FREE 30-minute Rocket Launch 2019 session you can take the first step towards creating massive growth for your company in 2019.

During the Rocket Launch session, Team ConvergeHub will do a deep dive into your business along with you, and brainstorm how ConvergeHub can help you acquire leads, automate your sales process, improve your conversion and get more referrals from satisfied customers.

3. Customer Service

When your employees are friendly, quick to respond, and knowledgeable, your customers will like the way you treat them.
They will understand that like they are there to take care of your brand, you are also taking care of them by doing business with them and providing them service as per their unique needs.

4. The Culture

Every organization has its own culture, whether by default or by design. The culture is the personality of your brand and your company. It is the sum of your organization’s beliefs, expectations, ethics, values, mission, and goals.

According to an article published in Forbes, it states that a great corporate culture that engages employees is a drug for improving customer experience since customers want to remain affiliated with organizations when their values are congruent with their brands.

5. A Cause

You should believe in what your customers believe in. At a level this ties into your organization’s values and culture. However, this is also about giving back and your company’s community involvement in events which can be your organization’s participation in a charity event or any other cause that is important to you, everything from saving Rhinos to alleviating world hunger.

6. Trust

Trust your customers and do what they say, every time. This is because if your consumers do not trust your brand, they would probably not be doing business with your company anyway.

7. Reputation

Your consumers may have heard good things about your organization. Maybe it is just from their colleagues at work or friends, or maybe there are plenty of good reviews about your brand on the internet. Whatever be it, your company’s reputation plays a big part in securing the decision of your customers.

8. Consistency

Consistency is most often tied with reputation and trust of your customers for your organization. Outside of lying, if there is something that erodes the trust of your consumers quicker than anything, isyour businesses’ lack of consistency.

Therefore, if you want your customers to use the word ‘always’ to describe their customer experience with your brand, like ‘They are always knowledgeable, helpful and friendly..’ remain consistent with your good behavior with the customers.

9. The Way

The way you do your business is one of the many reasons why customers chose to come back. This is all about your business policies, processes, the hours you remain open, your location and more. Although these are mostly tangible reasons, nevertheless, these factors count to get a customer in your door.

Finally- The Why

Let us end this article where we started with Simon Sinek’s quote, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

Although all these reasons (and more) may contribute to the decision as to why a customer may choose your brand over others this year, figuring out a customer’s ‘Why’ and scaling it to meet their reasons can help you bring customers back again and again in 2019 and for many more years to come.

Using a small business CRM software like ConvergeHub that provides a 360-degree view of your customers stored in its CRM database, is an ideal tool for measuring your customer journey and thereby increase CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) as it is often quoted that:

“Acquiring new customers costs 5 to 10 times more than selling to a current customer, and current customers spend 67% more on average than those who are new to your business.”

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