Year: 2020

How Can You Best Use Customer Data in Your All In One CRM Software For Revenue Growth

In order to be successful in business nowadays, you have to go beyond selling your offerings and have to nurture and build your relationship with your customers. The good news is that thanks to technology like all in one CRM software solutions, there are plenty of opportunities today to understand your customer and their requirements, and remain engaged with them regularly. Customers in the present times interact with businesses more than ever before via email, phone, online purchases, or social media platforms. Moreover, brands often encourage their consumers to offer opinions and share purchase preferences, provide feedback, at every interaction in their journey. However, when customers think that those revelations are going unnoticed, they shift to more engaging brands in the blink of an eye.

In order to be successful in business nowadays, you have to go beyond selling your offerings and have to nurture and build your relationship with your customers.
The good news is that thanks to technology like all in one CRM software solutions, there are plenty of opportunities today to understand your customer and their requirements, and remain engaged with them regularly.

Mobile access to CRM increases sales force productivity by an average of 14.6% - Nucleus Research Click To Tweet

Customers in the present times interact with businesses more than ever before via email, phone, online purchases, or social media platforms.
Moreover, brands often encourage their consumers to offer opinions and share purchase preferences, provide feedback, at every interaction in their journey.

However, when customers think that those revelations are going unnoticed, they shift to more engaging brands in the blink of an eye.

Hence failing to listen to the customers has never been more injurious to the success of businesses than what it is now.

Nevertheless, the same technological advancements that permit so much customer interaction also helps smart organizations to manage and act upon the data resulting out of these communications.

Scalable and modern cloud-based storage options like CRM database, computing technologies, intuitive API integrations, and others have created unprecedented opportunities for businesses nowadays to know their customers, decrease the time needed to act upon this knowledge and thereafter finally create more profitable and stronger customer relationships.

Now, the key to doing this is to deploy the right technology and understand how to use it and so you need to understand how data stored in the customer database in CRM can help to build stronger relationships.

Therefore, here are three smart ways for data collection using cloud based CRM systems and its use that can help your business create meaningful and profitable relationships over time.

1. Provide a more complete understanding of customers

Many large organizations have already figured out means to leverage data to build better relationships with customers of their offerings.
Nevertheless, SMBs have been hampered by a paucity of resources to appropriately collect and manage customer-facing information even a few years back in the past.

Now as the tools to generate customer data proliferated with the growth of Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, many SMBs began collecting data only to become overwhelmed with how they can manage and apply that information for their businesses.

However, by centralizing marketing and sales activities in a well-integrated CRM database, you can even easily merge artificial intelligence through CRM integrations and recognize opportunities and intersections for sale, operation, and customer support reps once you are using all in one CRM software for your business growth.

This centralization of information not only allows enhanced personalized and accurate up-selling of products and services but it even aids in better and faster resolution of customer-facing issues that helps in building long-term relationships and trust between businesses and their customers.

2. Eliminate bottlenecks to better customer sales and service

No customers like to reply to the same question(s) times and over again. Conversely, no organization likes to deploy different resources to serve its customers because their internal business process discourages or prevents effective internal communications.

This is exactly where an integrated customer data in a CRM database solves both of these above-stated issues by aiding to eliminate or reduce internal barriers between siloed business responsibilities.

For example, an easy to use CRM software that enables all team members to securely input data make sure that at every step customers are treated with non-redundant and relevant interactions.

With the help of a small business CRM software, SMBs can not only note customer details which includes email communications, key conversations, customer preferences, project requirements, and more, so that every internal touch-points gains a comprehensive and holistic view of the customer, but it also helps to make the employees know their place in the process.

Hence consolidating information about the customers in a business CRM software solution’s database helps in streamlining the delivery of services which results in maintaining appropriate follow-ups when required which makes the customers feel that they have a cohesive team working on their behalf.

3. Encourage long-lasting relationships

Like any relationship, communication is the key for all businesses. However, maintaining an ongoing understanding of your customer’s requirements (and truly relate them with your business) is what helps in nurturing and maintaining long-lasting and meaningful relationships.

Now, customizing features in easy to use CRM software enables businesses to build these more productive (and more profitable) relationships with their customers.

This is because by using all in one CRM you can easily collect and use key data, such as customer interests, and also payment and financial information, if you are using a QuickBooks CRM and other relevant information, with available technologies like CRM and email integrations, mobile CRM apps, web forms, as these tools, ensures that all data in the CRM database are accurately tracked and reported throughout the pipelines.

Hence information in your CRM database not only aids in delivering custom offering(s) to your consumers but also makes them feel like they have a partner they can count on, which results in loyalty, referrals, and most importantly rapid business growth.

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How Automation In All In One CRM Can Reduce Documentation Works Easily

In modern times educated and connected customers expect the salespeople to remain available at any given point of time to provide, direct, immediate, and tailored responses to their issues. This is because investing too much time on activities apart from selling is no longer an option if sales reps are to meet their demands in the companies. Therefore to avoid falling behind, sales teams in all organizations must arm them with business growth technology and tools like an all in one CRM that aid in maximizing productivity and efficiency and allow them to concentrate on important things: the customer and driving in revenue.

In modern times educated and connected customers expect the salespeople to remain available at any given point of time to provide, direct, immediate, and tailored responses to their issues. This is because investing too much time on activities apart from selling is no longer an option if sales reps are to meet their demands in the companies.
Therefore to avoid falling behind, sales teams in all organizations must arm them with business growth technology and tools like an all in one CRM that aid in maximizing productivity and efficiency and allow them to concentrate on important things: the customer and driving in revenue.

With 48% of Marketers using Marketing automation it is one of the 4 most popular methods to create personalized customer experiences. Click To Tweet

Now, this is no longer a secret that salespersons do spend a lot of time performing activities outside of selling.

According to a survey done by CSO Insights, only 36 percent of sales rep’s time is focused on primary sales functions as a large number of their working hours are instead spent on conducting admin and other manual tasks, several of which stem from the workflows and processes that are required to generate documents, and so in order to make sales teams more successful and highly functional this less impactful activities must be automated with the help of an all in one CRM tool for sales and revenue growth.

Therefore, since it is inevitable that if documents are created manually there is likely going to be issues and problems, hence here are a few common problems that generate from manual document generation processes:

Improper visibility into the status of the documents

Documents that are not stored and gathered in a centralized repository (like a CRM database) and hence cannot be tracked leads to compromised and improper visibility.

This is the reason why when many times sales teams are required to answer questions quickly it becomes a time-consuming, challenging, and unreliable activity when a central repository of data does not exist and so it requires searching through a plethora of resources such as local drives and sent emails.

Inconsistent document formatting and branding

When sales reps in your organization generate and distribute documents manually it is impossible to make sure that the documents will have a consistent feel and look which is in accordance with your company’s branding.

This is because when documents sent to customers and prospects are not consistent in their look and branding, this inconsistency most often erodes the company’s brand integrity and can diminish the company’s image and reputation among its consumers in the marketplace.

Copying and pasting

While this may seem natural, nevertheless copying and pasting to create contents for any document wastes valuable time and at the same instance makes way for introducing errors, which can not only cause delays but also creates reworks in the sales process, which becomes a cause of frustration for both sales and customers of your offerings.

Therefore, to help solve these issues, sales teams need a process that can automatically produce a document (Excel spreadsheet, Word Document, or an HTML email) that can help to streamline the entire sales process and eliminate the pain points by:

Gaining enhanced visibility into documents

Once you buy CRM and use it as document generation software it helps in saving a true-copy of the document generated in the company’s CRM database, that in turn permits every member in the organization to find more visibility into the documents (such as date and time when the document was created and sent) as well as provide transparency in referencing the document contents for more visibility across other departments in the organization.

Therefore, by storing documents inside their easy to use CRM platforms sales and support teams can easily locate and find a reference for quick access to document contents during customer interactions which increase sales, and boost customer relationship and productivity.

Creating brand consistency

Once you buy an all in one CRM company leaderships and sales teams no longer are required to worry about sending documents with irregular banding and inconsistencies thanks to the business growth technology that incorporates document generation functionalities within the CRM software.

Instead, CRM software can build common document types and store them for use in the CRM database that is predefined and can be easily managed, to make sure that the current version of the document is distributed to the prospects and the customers.

Abolishing manual copying and pasting of data into a new document

In this instance, one or more templates are created beforehand and used when a document is required to be developed, which easily eliminates the requirement to copy and paste data from other unreliable sources, preventing errors that can happen when it is done manually.

Hence once you buy business CRM to eliminate copying and pasting (which is also a labor-intensive activity) creating documents by using automation saves time and adds to productivity.

In a report published by Aberdeen Group, it has also been shown that using an easy to use CRM for abolishing copying and pasting even shortens the length of the sales cycles as it helps in generating quotes quickly and automatically in the target language of the customers with the correct set of terms and conditions making sure and providing accuracy and consistent world-class brand experience for the prospects and customers across quotes.

Conclusion

Therefore document generation plays a central role in the sales cycle and so once you buy CRM it empowers the sales teams to create sales process optimization through the support of document generation solutions helping sales reps to focus on the most important aspect of selling which in turn boosts business growth.

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Why B2B Sales Prospecting Methods Are So Tough To Realize – And How to Make It Easier For SMBs

To begin with, let us admit that B2B sales prospecting methods are not easy to accomplish. Rather B2B sales prospecting can be really tough to find the attention of the B2B (Business to Business) buyers in a marketing model that has altered a lot in the recent years, whereby increasing competition in the marketplace makes is more and more stand out from the crowd. Now prospecting for hot new products and services on the market is not a difficult thing. This is because direct and targeted approaches can create enough demand and thereby keep the sales funnel from getting depleted when a new offering fills a gap in the market. But what happens when the low-hanging fruit has been picked up by the knowledgeable buyers? What happens when the competition has caught on and caught up?

To begin with, let us admit that B2B sales prospecting methods are not easy to accomplish. Rather B2B sales prospecting can be really tough to find the attention of the B2B (Business to Business) buyers in a marketing model that has altered a lot in the recent years, whereby increasing competition in the marketplace makes is more and more stand out from the crowd.

80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the meeting. Click To Tweet

Now prospecting for hot new products and services on the market is not a difficult thing. This is because direct and targeted approaches can create enough demand and thereby keep the sales funnel from getting depleted when a new offering fills a gap in the market.

But what happens when the low-hanging fruit has been picked up by the knowledgeable buyers?
What happens when the competition has caught on and caught up?

In this case when the executive suite will be still calling for action and revenue that is when fresh B2B prospecting methods and skills are needed as we as one of the popular vendors of easy to use CRM will discuss below.

Actually at the heart of the dilemma faced by the B2 prospectors lies the inability to create selling opportunities when their buyers (inconveniently) are not actually looking to buy. Therefore traditional prospecting methods and sales pitches may no longer be effective with B2B prospecting nowadays, and this is clearly a big problem with so many sales, marketing, and business development professionals having being bought up with old school business growth ideas on a diet of little else that hardly works in B2B marketplace today.

Who Are These New Breed of B2B Buyer

In present times the rules have changed for the B2B marketers since the typical new breed of B2B buyers has evolved in several ways.

Multiple Buyers

In modern times the individual buyers have largely given way to a “team approach” whereby multiple players are most often involved in purchasing decisions made by organizations, sometimes which spreads across different business functions, where people entrusted for buying often have very little experience of the procurement process.

An interesting report published by HBR (Harvard Business Review) in 2015, illustrated that the average number of buyers involved in a considered buying process is 5.4, however, what is more, alarming was the drop off in conversion rate as more people are added to that buying process.

Hence sellers that are keen on developing their B2B prospecting methods need to primarily ascertain who has the authority to make the buying decision in an organization, and thereafter if it is found that the person cannot make a unilateral decision, the next goal should be to help the decision-maker to get others on board and thereafter provide additional tailored information covering each buyer’s specific area of responsibility.

For example, an end-user of any B2B product or service will definitely have different information requirements and concerns vs. a financial authority working in the same company.

Informed Buyers

Nowadays with the rise in the internet which has led to a sporadic abundance of research information available online has given birth to the rise of “self-educated” buyers and so potential prospects are no longer sitting back waiting for a solution to be presented to them, as the buyers are proactively seeking information themselves nowadays and as a consequence are likely to be less receptive to traditional unsolicited approaches.

Buyers seek value not price

In a research done by SiriusDecisions, it suggests that the cost factor involved in a sale is no longer a main deciding-factor for the B2B buyers in making their purchase decisions, whereby in the present times the “unique business value” of a solution or that an organization can provide to its buyer has become the factor of primary importance.

Nevertheless, even in this era of progressively more complex solutions, it appears that old habits are hard to die, and so too many teams in sales are now still considering price and also features when in reality the focus needs to be on conversions about the distinct value that the seller can offer to set them apart from the completion in the marketplace.

SOLUTION– Going Beyond B2B Cold Calling

While this might require some time and long term training along with a cultural shift but what about here and now.  So what can organizations involved in selling can do to go beyond the realms of cold calling to reach out to their prospects and get things moving in the short-term?

So as one of the most acclaimed vendors of CRM for small and medium businesses and startups here we have provided a few suggestions for growing enterprises to get them started.

  • Deploy Effective Business Growth Tools

Every structure needs a firm foundation to stand on its own, this is the reason people who know what is CRM is greatly in favor of this business growth tool.

CRM helps to record and organize every interaction with the leads, prospects, and customers and make it available for analysis to every department in an organization –which results in ushering more effective communication, better organizational culture, and less waste of resources.

Using easy to use CRM solutions while the number of leads generated will be less than if it was done in a haphazard and unstructured manner, but the quality of the leads generated will be much higher which will better the conversion rate in the sales pipeline.

  • Have A Focus

The time and effort dedicated to prospecting in the B2B segment should be just on where it is going to be effective and not spread too thin.
This can be done by concentration on the best market segment (based on profitability) and personas as identified by the business CRM tool whereby the approach can be refined to appeal to a specific buying audience in the marketplace.

  • Go Social

Social media can be another robust digital tool in finding outreach and build relationships online. According to research, LinkedIn is the best haunting place for the B2B community, followed by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all other good platforms like Quora which are good places to connect and demonstrate expertise.

  • Shoot Email campaigns

Email still remains one of the most preferred modes of communication despite all that plethora of social platforms that we use. And that includes B2B buyers who are also considered as prime targets for a well-targeted email campaign that addresses their pain-points and provides solutions to those issues.

Creating separate email campaigns for the sales and marketing teams can help in prospecting B2B buyers where the sales campaigns are targeted towards the decision-makers and the marketing campaigns are covering all titles in the company involved in the buying decision of the purchasing process.

  • Do Networking

Joining networking groups online can be a source of new B2B contacts in real life as well as online, which can help to create relationships that can culminate in fresh businesses. Businesses can also consider putting their own networking events to raise their industry profiles.

Takeaway- Achieving The B2B Prospecting Challenge Today

B2B sales prospecting methods can be challenging and often discouraging in the face of the consumer’s demands. However, by undertaking long-term and short-term actions sales and marketing teams in the B2B industries can breathe new life into their prospecting methodology, and so we hope these thoughts will put coal and fire into your prospecting engine if it has stopped.

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6 Christmas Sales Strategy That Can Easily Boost Sales And Increase Engagements

This is the season for businesses across the world to see their bottom line on their income statement (profit and loss). Hence with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday just around the corner, this is indeed a great time to review your sales goals and develop a Christmas sales strategy to meet them through your holiday sales strategy for business growth. So what will your business do to ensure that your offerings are top of the mind of your customers as they make spending decisions during this holiday season starting from Black Friday through the end of the year? As one of the leading vendors of Salesforce Alternative CRM tools here we have illustrated six ways upon which your business can build its holiday marketing campaigns which can help you boost holiday sales this season for harvesting more than ever before revenue growth.

This is the season for businesses across the world to see their bottom line on their income statement (profit and loss). Hence with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday just around the corner, this is indeed a great time to review your sales goals and develop a Christmas sales strategy to meet them through your holiday sales strategy for business growth.

So what will your business do to ensure that your offerings are top of the mind of your customers as they make spending decisions during this holiday season starting from Black Friday through the end of the year?

Online holiday sales to increase 25%-35% for the 2020 season and reach $182-$196 billion for ecommerce sales in November, December and January - Deloitte Click To Tweet

As one of the leading vendors of Salesforce Alternative CRM tools here we have illustrated six ways upon which your business can build its holiday marketing campaigns which can help you boost holiday sales this season for harvesting more than ever before revenue growth.

1. Offer special discounts to loyal customers

Why not treat your customers to a holiday gift – from you to them, as a part of your Christmas sales strategy this year?

Hence offer special discounts to your most loyal and best customers on the things they buy the most, offering deals that they just cannot refuse on the things they buy, since as one of the popular vendors of easy to use CRM, we think this is a great way to say Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah to your most loyal customers.

Always, remember that it usually costs a lot more for any business to acquire new customers than to retain the existing ones.

Another way to approach holiday sales might even be to offer these loyal customers of your brand an even bigger discount when they refer your business to their family and friends… and those referrals ultimately make a purchase.

2. Personalize Emails

Mostly for online ecommerce stores, but for even for any other business that uses a sales CRM, has their email addresses and any other basic information on their customer’s base sales history, it is great to be able to personalize and send emails by including their names and pertinent details and even suggestion for an item that you might think they would like based on their order history stored in the CRM database.

3. Provide gift certificates

You maybe are a hairdresser, automotive repair shop, maid service, a web developer, or a professional organizer – so how do you gift these things?

With gift certificates, of course.

Who would not love a new hairstyle, a free oil change, and tire rotation, or a house cleaning during this holiday season?

Moreover, gift certificates are even a great opportunity to cross-sell, when you have tons of products and services for the consumers of your offerings.

Hence promote your gift certificates on social media channels or send them to your customers on your email list.

4. Cross-sell

The months that lead up to the holidays are an excellent time to suggest items to go with the products and services that your customers are already purchasing from your brand.

Maybe a customer has bought a beautiful set of earrings last year, so suggest the customer a matching necklace for this holiday season, or if you are a hairdresser you can cross-sell a salon-quality hair conditioner and a shampoo set since cross-selling is a great way to add value to your existing customers and so increase your holiday sale.

5. Send gift ideas

Another Christmas sales strategy that you can use this holiday season is sending an email filled with gift ideas tailored and customized to the people on your list with heading like “great gifts for co-workers”, “gifts for mon” or “gift for neighbors”, etc.

For this find out what are your brand’s most popular items and who buys them, and thereafter share that info with the people on your mailing list.

Remember people will be grateful for it since most people run short of gift ideas during the holiday seasons for several hard-to-buy-for personas in their list.

6. Offer free shipping or special deliveries

Who does not love a surprise?

Hence don’t be afraid to think out-of-the-box to boost your holiday sales.

Now if you are running a small e-commerce store, it is no secret that your business is competing with giant global retailers like Walmart and Amazon that are providing multiple choices for fast, free shipping.

Therefore, offering free shipping to your customers is another great way to craft the customer experience around waiting for and receiving their purchases during the holiday season which can increase your brand’s revenue growth.

Takeaway

Finally, to make your customers know that they are appreciated, send them a “thank you” card this holiday season that has nothing to do with trying to sell them anything- they will love you for it.

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Need For Sales Automation CRM Tools – The Forerunners of Your Business

Before we begin discussing future-CRM solutions and Sales Automation CRM tools there is no denying the fact that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become the build-block for all industries which is absolutely data-driven to make lives better for entrepreneurs and the consumers of the modern times. Now, every CRM users across this planet shall agree to this fact irrespective of where they use an enterprise-level or a Salesforce Alternative CRM solution for their SMBs that nothing much has changed in the CRM space since the 1990s except for the fact that it had moved from on-premise framework to the cloud. Still today in most enterprises, customer data is still isolated, and therefore manually entered in the software.

Before we begin discussing future-CRM solutions and Sales Automation CRM tools there is no denying the fact that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become the build-block for all industries which is absolutely data-driven to make lives better for entrepreneurs and the consumers of the modern times.

63% of companies outgrowing their competitors are using automation. Online competition will always be tough, but with automation, study has shown that companies can have the edge. Click To Tweet

Now, every CRM users across this planet shall agree to this fact irrespective of where they use an enterprise-level or a Salesforce Alternative CRM solution for their SMBs that nothing much has changed in the CRM space since the 1990s except for the fact that it had moved from on-premise framework to the cloud.

Still today in most enterprises, customer data is still isolated, and therefore manually entered in the software.

Hence given the fact that this new “Experience Economy” is entirely becoming sales-driven where prioritizing the customer is becoming more tough and crucial every day –CRM software is still considered inefficient and there are ongoing researches which are trying to make the future-CRM of tomorrow relying more and more on AI, Big Data, Deep Learning, NLP (Natural Language Processing), and other bleed-edge technologies.

In other words, it might also imply that CRM has not been evolved or rather its total capabilities have not been yet explored and leveraged as of date.

Now undeniably easy to use CRM is a vital tool in sales and marketing which has already changed the perception of the consumer world.
This is because retailers now can analyze data and apply it in real-time in several areas, which has given rise to seamless and easy processes, which otherwise would have been really difficult to quantify and measure.

For example, finding purchasing behaviors and making market predictions are now within fingertips of the marketing executives using marketing CRM for their enterprise.

Financial organizations using CRM software for financial services industry are also able to pinpoint and stop fraudulent transactions in seconds.
Additionally, health care services are also using CRM to keep an effective track of their patients enabling easy treatment and diagnosis.

Nevertheless, in spite of its dynamic features and instant benefits that an easy to use CRM provide to various industries, the CRM software by large still remains ineffective as major tasks are done manually.

For example sales executives who are relentlessly monitoring their high-volume deals in their sales CRM solutions pipeline have to invest extra hours to enter a large volume of data manually.

Clearly, it is a cry for help, a stark indication to the future of CRM software- more Sales Automation CRM functionalities is the need of the hour now.

How Will Sales Automation Help?

With CRM software, sales management is still a burden, as far as time and energy are concerned. Thus, Sales Automation CRM can generate a process where a salesperson can connect with potential customers and accelerate the journey throughout the sales pipeline.

Prioritizing customers will be the sole purpose to drive growth while the sales automation will take care of the administrative task.

Hence Sales Automation in CRM is all about removing the barriers for human contact and make sales a more integrated process. Thus, the benefit is two-fold.

The future is digital and the future is now – so there is no better time for the need of CRM automation like the present.

The features of the sales automation in CRM perfectly fit the need as it should be more directed towards the broader concept where the data must serve an organization and not the otherwise.

This is because it is important for easy to use CRM to shift to the more focused and human side of selling where more data and algorithms should be working for people.

Enterprise workflow needs to be smart and easy. This would allow the sales reps to use the automated CRM more often and leverage its complete set of features.

Some of the necessary features of the automation include customer-targeted recommendations based on, personalized communications, activity records, and much more. This would even ease the tricky job of lead generation for the sales representatives.

Predictive analytics is another helpful feature that can be used in the process of sales.

We say this as research shows that higher customer retention depends on the right customer information and their habits – which ultimately even drives the sales. Hence predictive analytics can have a big role to play in giving the valuable customer information that the sales reps can use to their benefit.

It can also be said that the future of CRM is also determined by the ability of software to determine, which steps to take.

The future holds great potential for CRM software with the specific knowledge and understanding of each industry and the business process is crucial for functioning and workflow.

As the aim of every company remains the same- to get and keep customers, all-in-one CRM software with such smart features will readily be accepted by the industry, which will be the key to customer retention as it is the returning customers that mostly spend more money than the new customers.

Wondering what is the role of predictive data and artificial intelligence in the future of CRM?

They are helpful when the CRM requires data-driven solutions to influence the productivity of the sales representatives, whereby the salesperson will get more time for the crucial tasks while automating repetitive tasks that can be taken care of by AI and predictive data.

With the right Sales Automation CRM salesperson can now invest more time in other definitive work processes like studying customer behavior and build a relationship with them. This will also help to reveal the more humane side of their business.

Conclusion

Thus, the future of CRM software lies in customer relationship automation, which can take customer experience and support to a new level.

The sales reps can leverage the future CRM’s potential by compiling different data from disparate sources allowing them to have all the information about the customer while approaching them. The approach will also be more personalized than formal.

And the right approach at the right time will help the sales surge potential increase exponentially.

This is the reason, features like artificial intelligence and predictive analytics will give the sales reps a crucial understanding of customer information to work with by creating a business CRM software, which is more proactive and so helps in saving time and increase productivity.

Hence the future of easy to use CRM is the need of the hour, since it will not only simplify the sales process and but it will also make customer relationship management a much more exciting and humane job.

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The Market Segmentation Process And Its Role On A CRM Tool

Once you are creating a market segmentation process let us tell you that segmenting the market works wonders if you are capable of targeting the right customers. In fact, so much so that if you can send specifically targeted email campaigns, you can easily see more than 100 percent higher click through rates comp to non-segmented email campaigns, and so you essentially double your chances using the market segmentation process in your easy to use CRM software. Now it is not only advantageous for your business to tailor your campaigns, but in the present time customers also prefer personalized communications from brands and businesses.

Once you are creating a market segmentation process let us tell you that segmenting the market works wonders if you are capable of targeting the right customers.

Because CRM software greatly improves data accessibility, sales reps at companies using a CRM can shorten their sales cycles by 8-14% - Nucleus Research Click To Tweet

In fact, so much so that if you can send specifically targeted email campaigns, you can easily see more than 100 percent higher click through rates comp to non-segmented email campaigns, and so you essentially double your chances using the market segmentation process in your easy to use CRM software.

Now it is not only advantageous for your business to tailor your campaigns, but in the present time customers also prefer personalized communications from brands and businesses.

If you know what is CRM tool, you must also be aware that it is a software platform that houses a plethora of useful information with respect to your customer’s preferences, demographics, and the purchasing habits of your consumers that can be used to fragment your marketplace.

Hence any business CRM irrespective of whether it is an enterprise-level software or a Salesforce Alternative CRM most CRM offers segmentation and features like campaign management for targeting the best demography for business growth.

In other words, a market segment is a number of consumers that are grouped together by the marketers, which can be segmented using a cutting-edge business growth technology solution like a CRM tool, according to several criteria which can include the consumer’s needs, their purchasing habits, age, lifestyle, preference, interests and more.

Therefore as one of the most cherished vendors of cutting-edge CRM for small and medium business and startups here are the roles of market segmentation on CRM:

Redefining Market Segments

The marketing segments must be big enough to meet the financial needs of the company and the offering(s). Segments may be chosen based on demographics, the generation of the consumer, or geological location. For sales CRM, the segment must also be reachable by promotional means.
In most cases, business marketers have already selected and grouped the products market segments before the implementation of the CRM. Hence, part of the market segmentation process is a secondary form of market segmentation, with existing customers further segmented so that post-purchase promotions may be personalized accordingly.

Targeting Market Segments

Using the market segmentation process, marketers study the typical characteristics of the segment members to determine potential product features and to figure out how to reach the segment members. Different segments may be more prone to specific media types, such as emails, e-magazines, web pages, even television or radio. Marketers target market segment members by tailoring products and commercials to suit the needs and tastes of the segment members and then displaying the advertisements on the market segment’s preferred media channels for finding better outcomes.

Managing CRM Database

Easy to use CRM goes farther than initial segmentation and target marketing because the marketer has more information on the segment’s characteristics.
This extra knowledge comes from a consumer database full of information on customer preferences and purchasing habits. This information is collected as part of a company’s consumer transactions and sales activities. Some companies administer customer surveys and store the results in their databases. Other companies nowadays have membership cards that record every customer purchase.

Promote to Market Segments

CRM marketers take the information in the databases and create promotions designed to meet specific customer wants and needs. This further segmentation helps retain customers, and customer retention is vital to business profitability. Typical CRM promotions include customer loyalty programs, personalized action between customer service personnel and the customer, and the ability to customize the product to suit the exact needs of the customer.

Conclusion

Hence in a nutshell market segmentation process not only provides you with useful insights into customer behavior and attitudes by tracking interactions, collecting sales data, and analyzing trends among specific segments. You can send powerful marketing material to smaller groups who share similar traits, resulting in increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), stronger sales and higher engagement rates.

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4 B2B Sales Business Plans To Find More Customers and Revenue

Sales can be hard to find if you do not have the right B2B sales business plan and the appropriate strategy for finding business growth. This is because B2B sales is a transaction that requires intricate sales strategies to get more qualified leads to keep your sales pipeline healthy or convince all parties involved in the business-to-business deals. Hence in this article as one of the leading vendors of easy to use CRM software tools, let us share with you four tied strategies that have helped many of our customers overcome their challenges and stay on the top of the game using B2B sales business plans which can bring more customers and revenue.

Sales can be hard to find if you do not have the right B2B sales business plan and the appropriate strategy for finding business growth.

This is because B2B sales is a transaction that requires intricate sales strategies to get more qualified leads to keep your sales pipeline healthy or convince all parties involved in the business-to-business deals.

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

Hence in this article as one of the leading vendors of easy to use CRM software tools, let us share with you four tied strategies that have helped many of our customers overcome their challenges and stay on the top of the game using B2B sales business plans which can bring more customers and revenue.

Business Plan #1

Strategic selling

Strategic selling is a tactic that can help businesses to win complex deals with an insight-driven and scalable approach which was first introduced by the Miller Heiman Group.

The fundamental approach to this type of selling lies in being able to identify different points of contact for the company that you are prospecting, which can be based on the influence on your B2B sales process, where after you need to determine the level of support these contacts can offer during the decision making at the prospect company.

For example, imagine a situation whereby you want to sell a business growth technology software for project management and automation tool to a firm.

In this case, your first point of contact could be the marketing manager or the operations manager, who has been looking for a productivity tool to increase the team’s efficiency while at work.

Now having connected them, you might find that that the marketing manager of the company is the right fit to promote the introduction of your software in the firm a.k.a. “coach” while the manager for operations is the one who will decide and make the final decision, a.k.a. “economic buyer” and so place your value proposition accordingly to the marketing department’s need during your outreach and so this way can begin a conversation on a meaningful ground.

After this you can provide the manager for marketing with the type of information and data required to convince the manager of operations or make sure that you get a meeting with both these two managers together, perhaps also accompanied by the IT manager in the company, who will be the “technical buyer” and thereafter with the aid of the marketing manager, ensure that the IT manager provides his/her approval and finally the operations manager signs off the deal.  That is strategic selling.

Business Plan #2

Solution selling

This second type of B2B sales business plan as the name suggests focuses more on the requirement of the prospective B2B customer than it does on the actual product sales process during the sale.

To explain it more precisely, in solution selling the salesperson focuses more on helping to identify and dragonize the needs of the prospect along with their challenges and goals.

After this, the salesperson recommends the product or service that can help them to overcome these challenges.

Now, this type of selling tactic is most useful when your company offers customized solutions to its target B2B market.

For example, if your company sells a cloud-based easy to use CRM primarily you need to research the prospect’s pain points and the solution they have been looking for, thereafter ask the prospect open-ended questions and find whether the prospect fits your businesses’ ideal customer personas, the educate the prospect so that they qualify for the solution that you offer and provide them with a tailored solution based on their needs ( along with case-studies) and finally negotiate the terms and close the deal.

Business Plan #3

Account-Based Selling

According to predictions stated by Gartner, this sale tactic among all other B2B sales business plans would be adopted by more than 75% of B2B companies by 2021.

Now, account-based selling is all about treating every account in your B2B sales pipeline as a market of one and so includes a multi-channel and multi-touch strategy, executed across the company, to establish contact with several stakeholders at the prospect’s firm.

Looking for an example?

Let us imagine you are selling a solution for service management to a logistics company.

Firstly for this type of selling you need to list down all the logistic companies that your business offers its solutions and thereafter based on the selection criteria you need to recognize your present prospective customer. Next, you need to delve into the data and perform research on the common challenges the previously mentioned companies face across various processes on multiple levels, recognize the key influences and decision-makers of your prospect’s company, tailor your value propositions with different variations to address the challenges and goals of the different stakeholders in the prospect’s firm and finally reach out to all the stakeholders you have identified to begin a conversation for finalizing the deal.

Typically, account-based selling is best suited for businesses that have lengthier sales cycles, complex sales interactions that require the approval of several decision-makers and have a higher chance of up-selling and cross-selling in their targeted marketplace.

Business Plan #4

Social Selling

According to Forrester Research, more than 68% of the B2B consumers conduct research for the solution they require on search engines and multiple social media platforms.

Now, social selling focuses on the latter whereby you primarily need to establish your business in the defined target markets and then focus on building relationships with your prospect’s company leveraging social media networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others to share appropriate and relevant contents in order to engage the potential customer or nurture the existing ones.

Now the vital dissimilarity between social selling and the other B2B sales business plans which we have discussed before is that while the former selling tactics focus on building a one-onto-one relationship with the prospects across these social channels the latter kind of marketing is all about broadcasting messages from one to many.

For example, let us take a look at how one of the co-founders of our partnering companies uses LinkedIn.

With a profile optimized to discuss clearly what our company is building, which is CRM for small and medium businesses, our above-mentioned partnering company networks with social influencers on a pre-understood footing a thereafter add “Making easy to use CRM human” to his profile tagline which creates a conversation-starter.
Next, he shares sales-related content actively with his network to generate discussion around this topic, whereby the goal is not to directly sell, but more focused on building contextual relationships.

In other words, the goal over here in this B2B sales business plan is to be able to establish ourselves as experts in the industry who wants to have a conversation with businesses, and not just sell to them, since the better the conversations, the higher the number of conversions.

Therefore in social selling by promoting content that is relevant to the prospective buyers across the channels that they remain most active on the salespersons are more likely to have profound conversations with prospects about things that they really take care of.

Moreover, this type of selling even helps to keep a watch on the competitors in the marketplace and find how they are approaching the target markets or how many people interact with them and what their customers are saying about your competitor’s company.

Conclusion

Now if you are eager to know which of these B2B sales business plans and strategies you should use, the answer is: to each his own.

This is because not every B2B sales tactic is suitable for every business.

Hence even before you choose a strategy to implement for your company, look into your current sales process, define your target markets, find which mode of engagement they prefer, how long you can afford a sales-cycle to be, how many decision-makers are typically involved, and lastly the resources available to you before selecting your sales business plan.

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The Benefits Of Using The Best CRM For Real Estate For Enabling Developers To Expand Their Business

The rapid economic development, enhanced income levels, and growth of urbanization are some of the factors that played a major role in increasing demand for housing real estate spaces across the globe in recent times. In fact, according to a report published by Grand View Research, it states that the real estate market (globally) is predicted to generate a revenue of $ 4,263 billion by the year 2025. Now the real estate market involves selling, buying, and renting leasing of homes and properties for personal and commercial use. Perse, according to another report published by the United Nations, it has been predicted that approximately 50 percent of the global population that lives in the urban areas of the real estate market that involves selling, buying, renting, and leasing is set to reach more than even 65 percent by 2026 due to cities turning into megacities with bustling modern urban and social amenities, and lifestyle. Hence forward-thinking companies within the real estate sector are looking to create competitive advantage nowadays through differentiators such as better management and servicing of their customers, whereby strategic business growth technologies such as the best CRM for real estate can play an important role in this space.

The rapid economic development, enhanced income levels, and growth of urbanization are some of the factors that played a major role in increasing demand for housing real estate spaces across the globe in recent times.
In fact, according to a report published by Grand View Research, it states that the real estate market (globally) is predicted to generate a revenue of $ 4,263 billion by the year 2025.

Now the real estate market involves selling, buying, and renting leasing of homes and properties for personal and commercial use.

Perse, according to another report published by the United Nations, it has been predicted that approximately 50 percent of the global population that lives in the urban areas of the real estate market that involves selling, buying, renting, and leasing is set to reach more than even 65 percent by 2026 due to cities turning into megacities with bustling modern urban and social amenities, and lifestyle.

Hence forward-thinking companies within the real estate sector are looking to create competitive advantage nowadays through differentiators such as better management and servicing of their customers, whereby strategic business growth technologies such as the best CRM for real estate can play an important role in this space.

The global real estate market is predicted to generate a revenue of USD 4,263 billion by the year 2025 - Grand View Research Click To Tweet

Therefore as with an abundance of projects to invest in, modern buyers have a plethora of choices to make for their real estate investment decisions, for the developers, the main challenge today lies in identifying the market segment they want to target, and thereafter focus on targeting through marketing campaigns, create sustainable follow-up efforts to build a strong sales pipeline and ultimately convert those footfalls into customers.

Moreover, with purchasers having a greater choice to choose from, to get the buyers to invest a premium for a specific property, it is critical for the real estate developers to go for a “value selling” approach instead of a “commodity selling” approach for sustaining their business growth.

So in this article let us deep dive and explore how the best CRM for real estate sector can help the developers to expand their business by reaching the right audience or targeting buyers that are prospective to showcase their value by professionally positioning their differentiators and offerings.

The Role Of CRM In Real Estate Marketplace

1. Managing promotions and marketing campaigns

Easy to use CRM enables a holistic and disciplinary approach to planning and budgeting, as with a business CRM it is possible to create a marketing calendar integrated with the financials that can help provide a centralized view to schedule and manage all relevant enterprise marketing plans and campaigns for sales and business growth.

2. Market segmentation

Leveraging the data from external lists and the CRM database, targeted campaigns based on several customer attributes can help to enhance marketing productivity, increase conversion rate, and incidentally reduce campaign execution cost.

3. Managing customer leads/inquiries

Irrespective of whether it is an enterprise-level CRM or a Salesforce Alternative CRM tool mostly used by small and medium businesses, the right CRM can play an important role in generating highly qualified leads and thereafter nurture them with follow-ups for quick conversions.

It is a tool that allows leads to be generated from several customer interaction points and enables high-quality lead conversion rates by prioritizing leads based on intelligence.

4. Managing communication with prospects

The best CRM for real estate, is also a wonderful software solution that offers several functionalities to track and manage communications with prospective-leads and customers and also provides productivity tools to boost the effectiveness of sales by adopting a structured sales process that includes management of quotes and contracts.

5. Account management

For any real estate company, in their typical sales cycle, the developers have to communicate with their customers on numerous occasions like milestone completion, maintenance-related communications, demand letters for payment, and more.

Now several of these communications are so sensitive that any redundancy, delinquency and errors can cause serious damage to the customer relationships.

With an easy to use CRM system, it is possible to configure triggers and automate communications through email/mobile messages, based on transactions taking place in the prospect/customer account.

6. Loyalty Management

Several details about the prospects and customers are typically captured in the CRM software and it is possible to use this information effectively by using automated workflows in the system.

For example, you can send out wishes on special memorable occasions like birthdays and others to your prospects and customers using workflow automation found in the CRM tool.

Now for existing customers, this could also imply sending up updates on new properties or sending them referral schemes for your business growth.

7. Service Management

How the real estate companies manage their customer relationship or rather customer servicing can become a strong differentiating factor for sustaining in this competitive marketplace.

Easy to use CRM is a tool that can provide means to facilitate effective customer servicing by making all the relevant data available to the real estate service and customer care teams related to its key customers.

Additionally CRM helps to accomplish the customer segmentation exercise with relative ease, and so by using a plethora of filters based on the data available about the prospects and customers the real estate firms can effectively plan their communications and even make informed decisions for sending promotions to their customers.

Conclusion

Hence some of the direct and indirect benefits that the best CRM for real estate can provide to the users of the software not only helps to plan effective promotional campaigns, but it even aids in analyzing sales efforts, provide way better customer servicing and so plays a big role in “cross-selling” and “upselling” lands and properties more effectively in the real estate markets.

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