Tag: Business Growth Technology

How To Use The Best Sales CRM Software To Segment Customers And Promote Your Brand

In a gist customer segmentation is a powerful strategy whereby you divide your customer base into individual groups that share similar characteristics which can be easily done once you are using any of the best sales CRM software for finding revenue growth. Segmentation of the customers is important because when you try to use the one-size-fits-all approach in your marketing strategies, even the best strategy will come up with mixed results. This happens because while some customers may like one campaign, others may not. Therefore by executing a customer segmentation strategy once you buy the best sales CRM software, you can easily use the tool to divide your customer base into subgroups with similar attributes, after which you can tailor your marketing plans and create contents around those subgroups and personalize your marketing messages to better communicate with different groups of customers for rapid sales and business growth.

What Is Customer Segmentation?

In a gist customer segmentation is a powerful strategy whereby you divide your customer base into individual groups that share similar characteristics which can be easily done once you are using any of the best sales CRM software for finding revenue growth.

The global mobile CRM market will grow 11% to $15 billion worldwide this year. - MarketingDive Click To Tweet

Segmentation of the customers is important because when you try to use the one-size-fits-all approach in your marketing strategies, even the best strategy will come up with mixed results.

This happens because while some customers may like one campaign, others may not.

Therefore by executing a customer segmentation strategy once you buy the best sales CRM software, you can easily use the tool to divide your customer base into subgroups with similar attributes, after which you can tailor your marketing plans and create contents around those subgroups and personalize your marketing messages to better communicate with different groups of customers for rapid sales and business growth.

Now as CRM is a business growth technology that helps in streamlining this workflow and process so that you can reach the leads and customers who are most receptive to your offering(s), here is why combining easy to use CRM software with customer segmentation strategy benefits your brand:

1. Analyze Patterns and Trends

Business CRM software is a tool that collects customer data and stores them in one place for easy reference. Now, since CRM is an important tool for your customer service teams, this lead management software harvests customer data, such as a prospects purchasing behaviors, location, interest and hobbies, age group and more for your marketing staffs, after which the tool can also analyze patterns and trends in this data for providing accurate results needed for proper nurturing of the leads without any guesswork.

2. Determine the Lifetime Value of Your Customers

Once you buy the best sales CRM software and implement it effectively, the application helps the users to create predictive models that aids in determining profitable customer-base based on the CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) of the customers.

Using a sales CRM, the users of this business growth technology can help the users to ascertain which segment of their market has the highest CLV and thereafter send marketing materials that resonate with those customers.

Now, since CRM also helps in discovering customers with a low CLV you can use this tool and use the information found in the CRM database of those customers to find methods that can increase their lifetime value with your brand and company.

For example, Facebook allows its users to filter their posts based on age, gender, interest, relationship status, location and more.

Hence using CRM and integrating it with social media tools you can create posts that target the bulk of your low CLV customer-base and reach a cross-section of your demography instantly and even address a specific audience on LinkedIn and other social media websites.

3. Increase Sales

According to certain research conducted by leading global market research organizations, all in one CRM is a software that boosts sales by 30 percent.
Hence, combining easy to use CRM software platforms with customer segmentation strategy can generate even more successful results.

This is because, using this approach you can easily get to the right customer with the right message at the right time, a thing that you just cannot do with generic “one-size-fits-all” marketing strategies.

For example, once you buy the best sales CRM software you can easily target your customers with suggestions on products and services based on their previous purchase histories.

In fact, one of the biggest brands across the globe relies on marketing CRM software solutions to sift through a plethora of customer data, something that marketers are unable to do manually, or by using spreadsheets, for up-selling and cross-selling their offerings.

4. Increase Engagement

For the most part, engaged customers are always more profitable customers for any business. According to research more than 86 percent of buyers will pay for a better CX (Customer Experience), while customers who are totally engaged represent on an average 23 percent of all premium customers for any brand when it comes to profitability, revenue and growth of relationship when compared to average buyers in the marketplace.

Therefore using easy to use CRM as a business growth technology solution for segmenting customers will not only help you to separate your buyer’s based on demography but also find out other common characteristics as per their sales cadence and collective characteristics so that you can engage your customers on a deeper personal level.

Conclusion

Enterprise CRM is a tool that not only provides you with useful insights into your customer’s attitude and behaviors by tracking interactions and collecting sales data, but it can also send powerful marketing material to smaller groups in the CRM database who share similar traits and comparable sales cadence, resulting in increased customer lifetime value and higher rates of engagements.

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Boxes You Must Check Before Adopting A Sales CRM Software For Small Business

The incredible impact that technology has on business growth is fairly recognized now, especially in marketing, support, and sales. However, for this, you have to choose the right business growth technology and tools for your company or you will surely run the risk of it not being used at all. Now, the most popularly used tool for marketing, support, and sales teams is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system because if you buy a sales CRM software for small business it helps SMB organizations to be more productive by working more efficiently and understanding the customer’s experience with your brand that boosts sales and revenue. However, to reap the full benefit of a business CRM solution, your teams must use the software application, even though it is often stated that the employee adoption of CRM is neither easy nor assured be it an enterprise-level CRM solution like Salesforce or other Salesforce Alternative CRM mostly used by small businesses and startups in the CRM space.

The incredible impact that technology has on business growth is fairly recognized now, especially in marketing, support, and sales.
However, for this, you have to choose the right business growth technology and tools for your company or you will surely run the risk of it not being used at all.
Now, the most popularly used tool for marketing, support, and sales teams is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system because if you buy a sales CRM software for small business it helps SMB organizations to be more productive by working more efficiently and understanding the customer’s experience with your brand that boosts sales and revenue.

43% of CRM customers use fewer than half the features they have on their CRM. - CSO Insights Click To Tweet

However, to reap the full benefit of a business CRM solution, your teams must use the software application, even though it is often stated that the employee adoption of CRM is neither easy nor assured be it an enterprise-level CRM solution like Salesforce or other Salesforce Alternative CRM mostly used by small businesses and startups in the CRM space.

Therefore, it is always a smoother process if you can understand what your teams (especially sales) need once you purchase a sales CRM software for small business and so here are the four most important qualities your team members will absolutely want to see in a new easy to use CRM tool, since purchasing bad technology is even worse than none, as adopting a wrong technology for your startup or small business can rapidly scale down your business growth.

1. Buy CRM That Automates Your Processes

The best sales CRM software for small business should be both easy to use and automate processes for your sales, marketing, and support teams.
This is because; fancy features that are not essential for your business processes can be not only pretty distracting but it can also make the whole CRM adoption more complicated than it should be for your startup.

Hence, before you buy CRM for your company, think of the bells and whistles (which might seem attractive) if they are absolutely necessary for your business.

Rather, look for features in your best CRM for small business that will save you time and not take it away by complicating your business workflows.

Now, the ability to automate tasks and processes by using functions like Sales Force Automation is the most time-saving qualities of a CRM.

Therefore, buy CRM that is capable of automating your staff’s daily mundane and repetitive tasks.

Moreover, CRM also saves time by automatically pulling all customer data into one place which not only saves efforts but also provides the great benefit of establishing one source of truth about your leads, prospects, and customers.

2. Buy CRM that is user-friendly

We all are aware of the feeling of frustration that happens when you are unable to make out how a piece of software or an application works.
This is because, when something is difficult to use or confusing, we normally tend to quickly work it out or stop working with it if it takes too long to understand.

This same thing even applies to CRM software systems. Since the very moment, a CRM solution starts becoming a source of friction that very moment people also stop using it.

Hence look for a CRM solution that is intuitive, and has a clean design so that it can be easily used by your employees.

According to research, it has been found that salespeople spend more than 60% of their time using various business growth technology and tools and so they just cannot afford to use a CRM that they do not understand.

As an early warning sign check out if your preferred CRM comes with a long training guide, since the less training a CRM system requires, the more likely it is that the software will be easy to use and can be conveniently adopted by your teams.

3. Buy CRM that can be quickly implemented

Some businesses (mostly large enterprises) require a full-time staff member to implement, train, and manage the CRM software platform.
However, for startups and small organizations, this is neither realistic nor necessary with limited capabilities.

Therefore your organization’s best small business CRM software should not be complicated to set up and maintain.

Buy CRM that has an easy implementation process.

Moreover, it is never a great beginning to your team’s CRM experience, if it starts with a lengthy and drawn-out onboarding process.

Hence always buy a CRM with which your teams can get started right away.

4. Buy CRM that integrates with your existing software(s)

Think about all the business growth technology and tools that your teams already use along with the ones that you may also need in the days to come even before you buy your CRM.

It is most essential that you must check your best small business CRM software’s integrity with the tools that you use every day since if it does not, adopting a CRM for your business will only add to your team’s existing workload and that will naturally lead to further frustrations.

Moreover, when you use an all-in-one CRM that does bring in all the data from all your disparate silo software applications, the system helps your employee’s to find a bird’s eye 360-degree view of the information they need about their leads, prospects, and customers in a quick and easy manner.

Takeaway

Therefore to conclude for startups and small businesses, simplicity must be the key driving element behind your CRM software section process, since the less complicated the software is the more likely is it that your employees will understand the system and use it immediately.

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Why Should Realtors Use An Easy To Use Real Estate CRM For More Productivity And Growth

First off, adopting an easy to use real estate CRM software will make your business much productive. In fact, according to a study published by Software Advice in 2018, it states that 45 percent of buyers of business CRM software are either in consulting or insurance markets or real estate. Now, what do all these industries have in common? Well, they all need to centralize their contact management system. Actually, any realtor deals with a lot of business-related problems and issues, and so any business growth technology solution that will cut back on their stress and make their life more productive is a plus.

First off, adopting an easy to use real estate CRM software will make your business much productive.

In fact, according to a study published by Software Advice in 2018, it states that 45 percent of buyers of business CRM software are either in consulting or insurance markets or real estate.

Now, what do all these industries have in common?

Well, they all need to centralize their contact management system.

5.34 million existing homes were sold in 2019, according to data from the National Association of Realtors and 682,000 newly constructed homes were sold in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Click To Tweet

Actually, any realtor deals with a lot of business-related problems and issues, and so any business growth technology solution that will cut back on their stress and make their life more productive is a plus.

Hence a CRM solution that is built just for the real estate business can easily help to eliminate some of the daily issues and challenges faced by the realtors which include:

  • Helping agents who have to manage a bulk of information (all at once)
  • Respond to customers, sellers, and landlords who want instant responses to their queries
  • Help agents who are mostly on-the-go and need a cloud-based software solution
  • Help agents who wish to keep in contact with former clients to boost relationships
  • Assist agents who need to quickly identify what is working and what is not without mulling over Excel spreadsheets

For example, a typical day of any realtor will be a whirlwind of customer meetings, catching up with other agents, conducting an inspection of properties and open houses, and scrambling to fulfill other duties like data entry in between it all.

Now one thing is for certain that real estate agents do not have the luxury of sending their working hours in front of their computer, and so keeping on top of paperwork is often a challenge that most realtors face every day.

Hence the advantages of using an easy to use real estate CRM can be a godsend for realtors who are always on-the-move.

In recent times most CRM solutions like Salesforce and all other Salesforce Alternative CRM platforms used by SMBs are cloud-based tools.
Therefore once you use a cloud based CRM software as a realtor you will be able to effectively take your office with you and have any relevant data on hand, quickly.

Additionally, once you work in real estate, you will understand the importance of building strong relationships as they can provide you a head start on a new property before it gets listed. Moreover, good relationships also help you calculate a fair price or gauge which properties are hot in the market.

However for all these, you as a builder or a real estate agent need the right information, and that too at the right time, at your fingertips, be that on potential clients, available properties, or neighborhoods, so that you can pass on this information to as many potential customers as possible.

Now, this where again an easy to use real estate CRM software comes into play one that is easily customizable for your specific needs.

No matter what size your real estate agency is, dealing with a barrage of inquiries and listings can be a real drag.

Hence segmenting contacts in your CRM database can save you time, and the right real estate CRM will provide you the tools to do so in your lead capture forms.

Now even though, controlling where a new lead lands in your real estate CRM solution’s sales funnel and what list they will belong to is completely up to you as you can choose whether you want to segment prospective leads by their timeline, their budget, or even their address and zip code.

However, segmenting contacts from the very moment a prospective lead enters your funnel can act as a game-changer for your real estate agency.

For example, let us assume that you have got a property for sale in downtown Chicago and you are wanting to send an invite for an open house. Once you adopt an all in one CRM for real estate in just a few clicks, you will have a list of prospects who are looking to buy in that zip code available to you.

In addition to this following up with prospective house buyers or tenants is key to any realtor’s business growth, but it also takes up a good chunk of a realtor’s day.

Now, not all leads are considered to be of equal value in the real estate marketplace.

But one thing you must as a realtor keep in mind is that every lead in your sales funnel needs to be nurtured, which implies following up with the leads consistently.

An easy to use real estate CRM will permit you to automate all your important follow-ups using templates that are pre-made and comes along with the software, enabling you to keep your own style and tone.

Hence once you schedule your follow-up emails using a CRM tool you are good to go, since your easy to use CRM will not only remind you it will even follow-up for you with your prospects just in time.

Finally, the time has come to close the deal.

As a real estate agent, you have kept the buyer interested and your seller is also happy with how the deal is progressing.

Therefore if you are using a CRM for real estate the right CRM will not only provide you with the ability to respond quickly to additional last-minute inquiries, but it will also help in arranging meetings with the buyer and the seller and track the results of those meetings.

It will make sure that as an agent you are on the right track to conduct a final walkthrough with the prospective buyer of the property before you hand over the keys after signing the contract.

Now in the realty marketplace, the sales do not complete until your customer has also signed the after-sales paperwork, and signing the appropriate paperwork is the most crucial phase of the deal.

Now even though as an agent or a realtor you understand the jargons within those contracts it is most unlikely that the buyer or seller of the property will also understand it and so you must make sure that you take your time to explain to them any portions of the deal or any terms they are unsure about.

Many CRM software solutions are there in the marketplace which can get seamlessly integrated with digital document signing applications like “DocuSign” whereby once all the papers are signed, your easy to use CRM will automatically move the deal to the end of your sales funnel.

Last but not the least, you can even set up an alert in your sales pipeline to remind you when it is the move-in day for the buyers of your properties so that no deal is ever forgotten and you can send the new property owners a move-in gift and also send the seller a gift for a successful sale.

Now even though this might be a small touch, but it can easily set your realty agency apart- so buy an easy to use real estate CRM that can help you to stand out from the crowd in this ever-competitive marketplace.

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The Key Benefits Of Using A Sales Tracker CRM Software For Rapid Business Growth

Customers are very important when we think of any business; nevertheless, most businesses do not have a proper plan and clear strategy to capitalize on existing and prospective customers. This is where comes the role of sales tracker CRM software which ensures you provide the best possible service, keeps automated business practices in place, ensure customers never face billing-related problem keeping both reminders and bills on time. Hence a complete five-star service is what Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM brings for your business. The major benefits that your business can get from business growth technology like sales tracking CRM software include, as follows…

Customers are very important when we think of any business; nevertheless, most businesses do not have a proper plan and clear strategy to capitalize on existing and prospective customers.

This is where comes the role of sales tracking CRM software which ensures you provide the best possible service, keeps automated business practices in place, ensure customers never face billing-related problem keeping both reminders and bills on time.

Hence a complete five-star service is what Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM brings for your business.

With 44% of businesses planning to increase IT budgets in 2021, up from 38% in 2020. This is not just to keep up with their competitors, but also as a result of improving sales. Click To Tweet

The major benefits that your business can get from business growth technology like sales tracking CRM software include:

1. Understand customers better with enhanced and increased knowledge

When you have more and better information about your customer you are better placed to take a decision on what service you can deliver delivered irrespective of whether it is selling an offering or communicating something to your customers.

2. Improve process to find a better return on investment

Once you buy a sales CRM and set up your business processes aided by an easy to use CRM the main improvement that you can see is more conversion of the leads, better interaction with customers leading to a more satisfied and happy customer base.

3. Better coordination between sales and marketing teams

The functions of the marketing team lead to better sales output. The major gap between sales and marketing teams has always been a lack of a dedicated channel of communication. Easy to use CRM is a business growth technology that bridges the gap and creates connections that result in a more cohesive operation between the employees in your company.

4. Create a world-class customer experience

As a vendor of award-winning small business CRM software, working with several businesses we have learned how to bring better customer experience and how it can change the ways most people do business in their company. In fact, a sales tracking CRM software builds standard processes that help not only the in-house employees in business but also networking partners and external agencies associated with the company.

5. Empower customer service team

It has been a worry of most customer service desk of not able to provide support because of the lack of a unified and answerable system operating for all departments within the company. CRM is a business growth technology that makes every department within the organization liable to deliver its job on time and builds a better and coordinated system to help customer service teams to provide world-class services to the consumers of their brand’s offerings.

6. Plan the ways marketing budget is spent and improving on the existing ways

Want to check how your email marketing working or how the sales team converting the prospective leads? Want to know whether leads are being followed up in time and with correct details? Buy CRM to end all your worries and get them solved overnight. Additionally when SFA (Sales Force Automation) is integrated with easy to use CRM it helps in creating a better-planned marketing campaign and thereby aid in improved business functionalities.

7. Help in accurate decision making

Easy to use CRM empowers you to take correct decisions based on many facts and data stored in the CRM database. With the power of data, this business growth technology helps you to know the working styles of the employees and whether their service gets delivered in time, which helps the management to take on time, better and accurate decisions for consistent revenue growth.

8. Find better and new prospects with the use of modern technology

These days easy to use CRM can be integrated with social media which helps you to stay connected with your prospects and customers. Social media listening enables CRM platforms not only to ushers a more cohesive work culture in the organization but it also increases point to point delivery of the work faster bringing more liability on each head. This is how better and improved prospect finding starts and continues for sales growth.

9. Build long term relationships

CRM brings many important things on Sales Force Automation which your customers need like an immediate and timely response of their queries, easy availability of information, and automation of business process helping them stay with you for more by keeping them happy and satisfied over time.

Takeaway

Therefore with the clear intent to keep customers happy and to keep all other related processes well placed and automated buy a sales tracking CRM to keep your entire organizations focus on not only keeping customers satisfied but also reduce churn leading to increased business growth.

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The Four C’s Of Customer Relationship Management Process That Helps in Business Growth

Simply speaking, the customer relationship management process consists of certain activities that grow relationships with existing customers and new ones. This is because customer relationship management implies nurturing and continuously expanding relationships with the customers while moving prospective customers through your CRM software solution’s sales pipeline. Now CRM is a cutting-edge, intelligent process that happens internally within your organization, however, its impacts are directly experienced by the customers.

Simply speaking, the customer relationship management process consists of certain activities that grow relationships with existing customers and new ones.

The global mobile CRM market will grow 11% to $15 billion worldwide this year as businesses seek to connect with their customers through their mobile devices. Click To Tweet

This is because customer relationship management implies nurturing and continuously expanding relationships with the customers while moving prospective customers through your CRM software solution’s sales pipeline.

Now CRM is a cutting-edge, intelligent process that happens internally within your organization, however, its impacts are directly experienced by the customers.

What Is Involved In The Customer Relationship Management Process?

While CRM is a term that most often relates to the software by the same name (which is created to help businesses stay on top of their deals) the Customer Relationship Management process also involves such skills as attention to detail, listening, and consistency.

Therefore an effective CRM process results in your customers experiencing that you value them and their time.

It is a process that not only helps businesses to establish trust but it even adds value to the relationship by offering the best products and services for their unique and respective needs.

Easy to use CRM software irrespective of whether it is enterprise-level CRM or any other robust and affordable Salesforce Alternative CRM tools mostly used by SMB and startups is just a platform that can be used as a part of the process to do these things more efficiently.

Here is an example:

If a part of your businesses’ CRM strategy is to use the business CRM software to manage prospects and contacts and keep track of your company’s project deliverables, you can organize your contacts by their company name using this cutting-edge and intuitive business growth technology platform.
On the other hand for projects, CRM is a software that can help you get notifications and calendar features integrated within the system to keep your projects on the necessary timeline.

As a consequence, it is a tool that can allow businesses to grow a solid foundation with the correct stakeholders and hand over their deliverables in time, whereby by progressively streamlining the entire workflow, your easy to use CRM can strengthen customer relationships over time.

Now every organization should put forethought into thinking and redefining how they will manage their CX (Customer Experience) since for retaining their customer brands and businesses need to continually create new connections, monitor and track sales opportunities, underrated the customers, and finally their team’s efforts effectively.

Hence your customer relationship management process will not only allow your business to take a proactive approach to understand the requirements and challenges of your prospects but it will also help to actively engage them in your sales strategies.

Now regardless of your industry, each interaction with your current and future customers, once you use a CRM process, will be defined by these four C’s of the customer relationship management process which includes:

  1. CORRELATE

This element of the CRM process includes a series of transactions and interactions that take place between the customer, channel, end-user, and an organization. The data should be collected from all the contact points and also involves communication outside the organization. The information collected from all the sources will provide a better understanding of the customers.

  1. COMBINE

This element of the CRM process includes the mapping and management of the interaction point’s beta customer and the organization. The points of interaction should be carefully managed to ensure the achievement of the goal, for which CRM is processed in an organization.

  1. COGNIZE

The capture and analysis of the detailed information help in getting an insight which helps an organization in creating continuous learning about customer products, channels, markets, and competition from the data warehouse and knowledge base. The overall learning is available through the analysis of the information available.

  1. CONNECT

The insights available in the cognize element can be applied to create relevant interaction or communication with consumers, channels, suppliers, and partners that help to build a valuable relationship.

Conclusion

Now the choice of CRM strategy would be based on the type of customer service to be offered by your business.

It would also include the decision relating to the type of relationship management that would work better for your business and the customers.

There are various strategies available for a customer relationship manager, whereby the customer relationship management process can be co-created with the help of customers. Hence businesses can have a dedicated online CRM community or may also involve the handling of customers with hands-on assistance i.e. the traditional way of dealing with customers for finding business growth.

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How To Strategically Track Leads and Create Effective Engagements Using Marketing CRM Platform

Finding new leads and acquiring customers that are new is the lifeline of all businesses irrespective of their size big or small. Moreover, in modern times, many organizations think that satisfied customers and referrals are the best sources for acquiring new leads especially when they are using a marketing CRM platform for finding revenue growth. Hence the above-stated fact is undoubtedly a sound principle and is also a marketing strategy to strive for. However, unless you are tracking and measuring the sources of your leads, this tactic is anecdotal and becomes a little more fanciful idea than company lore.

Finding new leads and acquiring customers that are new is the lifeline of all businesses irrespective of their size big or small. Moreover, in modern times, many organizations think that satisfied customers and referrals are the best sources for acquiring new leads especially when they are using a marketing CRM platform for finding revenue growth.
Hence the above-stated fact is undoubtedly a sound principle and is also a marketing strategy to strive for.

The average CRM user adoption among sales professionals is 73% and the average ROI period is 13 months. Click To Tweet

However, unless you are tracking and measuring the sources of your leads, this tactic is anecdotal and becomes a little more fanciful idea than company lore.

Here are a few tips that will help you in your lead tracking activities using easy to use CRM as a business growth technology for your company:

Get the Facts Right

Generally, leads are generated by innumerable sources, such as self-generated leads by the sales and marketing teams, or referrals from employees, vendors, clients, and business partners of an organization. Therefore, without thoughtful plans and campaigns to cultivate and get engaged with these lead sources, it is very natural to lose control what are the lead sources that work best for your organization and has the ability to meet your goals.

Giving some thought to these best practices for lead tracking, we are sure, you will for sure quickly see gaps that need to be addressed as noted below:

  • Primarily, make sure how many leads you desire to generate by source. To take this step further you can set a monthly/weekly goal for your marketing and sales teams for each kind of leads that you want.
  • Next, communicate your lead acquisition expectations to your marketing, sales, and customer support teams. For in case they are unaware of what you are shooting for, they cannot support you or align their daily activities, with what that are needed to meet your set goals.
  • Conduct outreach and create marketing campaigns using a marketing CRM platform for engaging with each lead acquisition groups, through SEO, social media, event marketing, and traditional inbound marketing programs.
  • Finally, buy a business CRM to conduct lead tracking, measure, and analyze your results. Since this is the only way by which you will be able to know your campaign’s success and make you understand if your leads are coming from the expected sources and to the extent that you expect them to meet your company’s needs.

Track and Measure in CRM

Enterprise-level CRM platforms like Salesforce or Salesforce Alternative CRM solutions mostly used by small and medium businesses have quite a few functionalities for tracking and comparing real-time lead results to your lead source objectives.

Here are a few steps that you can follow to set up all the needed elements that can ensure an accurate and meaningful analysis of your lead acquisition skills.

  • Establish your primary lead sources with an all in one CRM Apart from traditional lead sources such as banner ads, trade shows, referrals, and SEO, be sure that you also include marketing campaigns to measure the overall effectiveness of your lead acquisition plans and tweak accordingly to improve upon the end results.
  • Create deeper levels of details for activities that produce a lot of For example, trade show leads can be broken down to names of all the trade shows that forms a significant part of your businesses’ event marketing strategy. Similarly, referral leads can be subdivided into vendors, customers, and business partners once you segment the leads inside your CRM database.
  • Establish your goals by entering the expected numbers of leads that you require from each source.
  • Once you a marketing CRM platform associates every contact and new accounts entered in the software, with a specific campaign or lead source.
  • Identify by lead tracking as proof around your effort, which lead source tracks best from opportunities through to sales.

Takeaway

Therefore if you already know what is a CRM, now applying these best practices will not only help you to find superior control over lead generation skills but it will also aid in improving the effectiveness of your sales and support reps using this business growth training and tools in finding your best and most loyal customers.

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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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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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COVID-19 And Ways To Enhance Experiences In Customer Lifecycle Journey During This Pandemic

All of us want to treat our customers and prospects the best we can, which is more true during this pandemic when businesses are forced to wade through unchartered waters and face these turbulent times. Hence over here as one of the most popular vendors of easy to use CRM tools in the marketplace with thousands of customers using our cloud-based CRM platform, here are some of our observations that can make your brand’s customer lifecycle journey a more meaningful, productive, and a pleasant one even in these troubled times. Now even though there are several advices that you can find online about creating the perfect customer journey and customer experience, nevertheless as your brand’s customer lifecycle journey needs to be carefully managed especially during these trying times, following these four effortless practices consistently is sure to bring your business unforeseen success and growth.

All of us want to treat our customers and prospects the best we can, which is more true during this pandemic when businesses are forced to wade through unchartered waters and face these turbulent times.

Hence over here as one of the most popular vendors of easy to use CRM tools in the marketplace with thousands of customers using our cloud-based CRM platform, here are some of our observations that can make your brand’s customer lifecycle journey a more meaningful, productive, and a pleasant one even in these troubled times.

65% of companies start using a CRM system in their first five years of business - Capterra Click To Tweet

Now even though there are several advices that you can find online about creating the perfect customer journey and customer experience, nevertheless as your brand’s customer lifecycle journey needs to be carefully managed especially during these trying times, following these four effortless practices consistently is sure to bring your business unforeseen success and growth.

1. Send follow-up messaging to one sender

Always remain sure that your business processes align with the requirements of your prospects and customers.

We all are of the same opinion and agree to the fact that businesses are nowadays keen upon deploying business growth technology solutions like easy to use CRM tools that can help automate processes that can increase employee efficiency and productivity- which is of course a brilliant move.

Nevertheless, businesses must primarily take into account the CX and the buyer’s journey when they are ready to build a process even before automating their workflow.

Hence as one of the most popular vendors of Salesforce Alternative CRM platforms, we would advise that businesses should limit the number of automated emails that they send to their customers and prospects during these troubled times.

That means, brands should not send multiple emails from different sales or support reps with inconsistent messages to the prospects and customers since doing this can easily get the recipients confused and annoyed and thereby even delay the buying or resolution process considerably.

2. Ask, discover and listen

The basic goal for any business is to make revenue by satisfying its customers.

If you are working in sales, your goal is identical. Whereby you need to enquire for information, send a quote, and thereafter set up a meeting with the prospective customer or schedule a demo for conversion.

Similarly, if you are looking after customer support activities then again your goals remain the same since over here you even need to satisfy the customer by reverting back to a tough question or crack a problem for your customers.

Therefore, during this pandemic, any employee and representative in businesses should remain well-equipped with the right knowledge and tools to help their prospects and customers.

They must also primarily listen to what they are being told by their prospects and customers since most people are in a habit of not listening when they are talking- so be quiet, listen and then comprehend your customer’s needs.

It is also a good practice to always repeat what you have heard from them back to your callers since that can make sure of a mutually agreed-upon understanding between both the parties involved in the interaction, which help decrease miscommunication that can result in a delay in finding the right resolution or the best answer to the customer’s issues.

3. Ensure continuity while resolving the issues

Even though it might sound simple apparently, but it is not easy to find out what your customers or prospects need and get it to them consistently every time.

We say this every time in our  business growth training and ideas, as the path to any resolution can be really challenging, complex, and complicated, and hence everyone in your business must see it through.

For example, in response to an issue may be the person who first responded to the problem might not be the person who has the answer and so was unable to resolve the problem at the end. Nevertheless, the first person in the chain should always remain responsible and act as an interface with the prospects and customers to see that their problems are solved by someone more efficient and knowledgeable in the team. This is because it can always happen that the first person may have to hand off the prospect to another representative to help them find the necessary solution.

But even in situations like this one, it is absolutely important that a three-way introduction is required before the handoff occurs between the inquirer, the first contact, and the person thereafter entrusted to take over the pending responsibility for solving the issue.

4. Remain empathetic and timely in your approach

Finally since during this COVID-19 pandemic times, your 6-hour or 12-hour automated response providing time might not be the perfect or the desired solution for your customers, so remain timely in your approaches while solving your customers’ issues.

Always remember that any world-class CX and a positive customer experience in the customer lifecycle journey through a brand depends a lot on those who take care of their consumer’s pain-points, challenges, struggles and are dedicated to making their customer’s life better by using innovations and creativity while resolving problems faced by the prospects and customers during these troubled times.

This is because going by what we always say as one of the most popular vendors of easy to use CRM solutions if your business truly apprehends the problems faced by your consumers, you will soon understand that one solution never fits all, and so in order to provide a world-class customer experience businesses must make use of appropriate timings in order to respond according to the individual customer’s needs to increase customer satisfaction of their brands.

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How To Create Custom Value Of Your Offerings Using The Best Marketing CRM Software

Would not it be a welcoming fact if you owned the only shop selling your customer’s preferred offerings in town? Now unfortunately when it comes to buying their offerings, consumers are spoilt with several choices nowadays. Hence in order to make your customers feel interested in your offerings, they need to find value as the main deliverable factor of your brand to get them motivated to purchase. Now, this does not imply that your offering(s) need to be the least expensive one found in the marketplace. Since the reality is that the price tag that you put on your products or services constitutes only a small part of its value. We say this as one of the most popular vendors of the best marketing CRM software platforms since the real value of any offering reflects its usefulness, importance, or the worth of something to the buyer of that offering.

Would not it be a welcoming fact if you owned the only shop selling your customer’s preferred offerings in town?
Now unfortunately when it comes to buying their offerings, consumers are spoilt with several choices nowadays.
Hence in order to make your customers feel interested in your offerings, they need to find value as the main deliverable factor of your brand to get them motivated to purchase.
Now, this does not imply that your offering(s) need to be the least expensive one found in the marketplace. Since the reality is that the price tag that you put on your products or services constitutes only a small part of its value.
We say this as one of the most popular vendors of the best marketing CRM software platforms since the real value of any offering reflects its usefulness, importance, or the worth of something to the buyer of that offering.

91% of US businesses with more than 10 employees now use CRM - CRM Magazine Click To Tweet

Therefore, when applied in the context of business, a value is reflected as the worth in monitory terms of the offering, in addition to the social benefits that the consumer finds in exchange for the money or the price paid for getting that product or service in the marketplace.

According to Peter Drucker the famous management guru of the 21st Century:

“The starting point has to be what customers consider value.”

Now to create a way to gauge this metric, we must primarily understand clearly what is meant by the term ‘value’, which Gautam Mahajan (the president of Customer Value Foundation) defines as:

“The perception of what a product or service is worth to a Customer versus the possible alternatives. Worth means whether the Customer feels s/he got benefits and services over what s/he paid.”

How Can You Crack the Customer Value Equation

At its most fundamental level, James Anderson suggested the following equation to explain customer value:

Customer value = Benefits – Costs

Hence, prices and values are the set values and prices of the market offerings presented by the supplier. Now as the differences between that value and the prices proportionately equals to the customer’s willingness to purchase, therefore, the value equation fetched by the customer implies that the customer’s incentive to procure an offering must always exceed the willingness of the customer to buy the next best alternative available in the marketplace.

Hence to formulate a value metric of the customer you need to be capable of answering these four important questions:

  • Why among your existing customers purchase repeatedly and how often?
  • What do your customers breakout by volume, frequency, or the number of products owned?
  • What is the rate of deflection of your customers?
  • What is the likelihood of your customers to buy again?

Maybe to find the right answers to these questions it might take some research, but it is worthwhile to invest time in finding these answers as they provide valuable and actionable metrics that can enable businesses to make better decisions about their customer’s investments.

As one of the most popular vendors of the best marketing CRM software platforms we know customer relationship value is an important leading indicator in any business since once you have these data you can easily create customer relationship value metrics, which you can start by using these three variables:

  • The complete list of all the interactions that the customer had with your company
  • The cost involved in each of these interactions
  • The direction and degree that each of these interactions impacted on moving the relationship forward or backward between the customer and the company

How to Define the Fundamental Mission of Marketing

Marketers communicate, develop, and thereafter deliver value to the customers. Hence creating customer value is the primary mission of marketing, and so the marketing department’s job in any organization is to build the value element of your offerings and your brand and thereafter communicate it to the consumers in the marketplace.

This is because value elements are anything that affects the costs and benefits of your products and services.

Therefore an offering which is of good quality and low cost represents good value, there are even non-price value elements to be considered in the benefits side of the value equation, which includes but are not always limited to:

  • Reliability
  • Customer service and experience
  • Domain, subject matter, industry expertise
  • Delivery
  • Guarantees and warranties

Therefore, we can say in other words that marketing indeed plays a very important role in your businesses’ ability to create customer value, as you marketers are the ones who must reflect how everything that your company does must deliver value to your customers.

Now given the fact that your brand’s marketing teams should always focus on finding and growing the value of your offerings to your customers they are unable to connect with the consumers or do what is needed to create customer value of your offerings, you may need to ask yourself as to why they are feeling this.

Hence under this circumstance, it is advisable that businesses must use a business growth technology like an easy to use CRM software which is in the modern times the best available platform that can aid marketers to better understand the market and also your customer segments by collecting data and creating an analysis of the customers.

We say this as one of the leading vendors of the best small and medium business CRM software as it has often been observed that dissimilar value propositions find relevance to different customers and so marketers need to develop these propositions by analyzing data of previous sales and thereafter creating supporting messages for the future customers, to communicate the value of your products and services through the right channel and at the right time during the customer journey.

Hence your marketing teams once they use CRM software like Salesforce or even any other Salesforce Alternative CRM must understand the various buying processes and customer personas, which can help in finding the right solution for business growth.

Does Customer Value Increase Customer Lifecycle Management

CLM or Customer Lifecycle Management is the measurement of several customer-based metrics which when carefully analyzed over a specified period of time, helps in indicating the performance of any business. Therefore, while implementing the best marketing CRM software it is advised that companies must encompass all domains and departments of an organization so that it can help in bringing all the sources of dynamic and static data, marketing and value-added services to a centralized decision-supporting platform like a CRM looping in different phases of customer acquisition, customer retention, up-selling and cross-selling, for creating consistent customer value of your offerings which translates to business growth.

Since at all cost, it must be remembered that business should always focus on creating customer value of their offerings as market value is derived from what exceeds the willingness of the customer to buy the next best alternative available in the marketplace.

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The 5 Elements Of A Sales Funnel: A Guide For New Marketers

Until you start exploring the world of digital marketing and sales, it might be true that you may not have ever heard of the term “sales funnel”. Nevertheless, sales funnel is actually a concept that relates to all types of action-based persuasions (not just sales) that occurs in the digital realm. Hence as we referred in the title of this blog, we as one of the most popular vendors of easy to use CRM software we will go over the four main elements of the sales funnel and how to illustrate even further to show how they relate to the sales journey while digitally marketing and selling an offering.

Until you start exploring the world of digital marketing and sales, it might be true that you may not have ever heard of the term “sales funnel”.

Nevertheless, sales funnel is actually a concept that relates to all types of action-based persuasions (not just sales) that occurs in the digital realm.

A survey of CRM users reported that the most exciting opportunity users cited for acquiring CRM technology is the ability to improve the customer experience. That ranked higher than content marketing, mobile access, personalization,… Click To Tweet

Hence as we referred in the title of this blog, we as one of the most popular vendors of easy to use CRM software we will go over the five main elements of the sales funnel and illustrate even further to show how they relate to the sales journey while digitally marketing and selling an offering.

In other words, it is a marketing strategy that helps businesses to convert strangers searching for their desired needs into leads and thereafter turn those leads into prospects and ultimately convert the prospects into customers.

The sales funnel consists of three sections:

  • The Top of the Funnel
  • The Middle of the Funnel
  • The Bottom of the Funnel

Now the goal of the funnel is to get prospects into the top of the funnel and out through the bottom, which makes a completed sales process that results in a closed deal- which is exactly what you want for the growth of your business.

What is the difference between a sales funnel and a sales pipeline?

While most find confusion between these two buzzwords the basic difference between these two terms is that while the pipeline depicts the sales process from a salesperson’s perspective, the funnel shows the same process but from the perspective of the buyers while they are looking for finding their requirements in the marketplace.

Therefore like an upside-down pyramid, the funnel helps to identify and thereafter break down the buyer’s journey which can help businesses to perceive where customers have taken their actions and also where the opportunity lies for getting engaged with leads during each of the five stages in the funnel that include:

AWARENESS
INTEREST
EVALUATION
ENGAGEMENT
PURCHASE

Hence now that we have a brief idea about what is a sales funnel, let us take deep dive into the five stages of the funnel and try to understand how reps should get them engaged during each of these five stages with leads for closing their deals and find business growth.

AWARENESS

The awareness stage in the funnel is where the consumers find a new product or service in the marketplace.

Therefore at this stage sales reps can help drive the awareness for their product or services by using promotional tactics like cold calling, outreaching through emails, or even offer a free trial of their offerings on their business websites.

INTEREST

In this second stage of the funnel which is termed “interest”, over here the leads show real concern and interest in a brand’s products or services available in the marketplace.

Hence this is the right opportunity for the sales reps when they need to nurture these prospective leads by educating them more about their brand’s offerings which can be easily done by sending the prospects (over email drip sequence) case studies and testimonials, which can be used for building the prospective lead’s appreciation and trust for their brand.

EVALUATION

Now as the prospects mover further down and enters the third stage of the funnel, it suggests that the prospective lead is further interested to evaluate and know more about the desired product or service.

Therefore over here the sales reps can find an opportunity to fill any gap in the prospect’s knowledge about their offering and illustrate more on the solutions that can solve the problems and pain-points of the prospective customer.

ENGAGEMENT

As the prospective leads move now to the second last stage in the sales funnel, it shows that the prospect has ultimately reached the final decision-making stage in their buyer’s journey, and are ready to buy the offering.

Hence at this stage salespersons working with these leads can continue to support the lead and send them additional contents for keeping up the engagement, so that it can help the prospects to travel the final few yards of the funnel and close the deal.

PURCHASE

This is the final stage in the funnel, which shows that the lead has ultimately completed the purchase and has become a customer.

Now, this must be remembered that even though the prospect got converted and has come out of the funnel, the sales reps must continue to build a relationship with the customers after the close, to identify further opportunities for cross-selling and upselling to the existing customer and thereby boost their brand’s customer retention rate.

Conclusion

As one of the most popular vendors of Salesforce Alternative CRM tools, we have often found several people asking us- Why I should use a funnel to depict a sales process?

The answer to this question is- Because the sales funnel represents the number-game dynamic of the sales­ ­– since only a very small percentage of your overall leads turns into sales-ready prospects and after then only a small percentage of those turn into a sale.

Hence the funnel shape makes sense (which is wider at the top and narrow at the bottom) since the more you put on the top of the funnel, the more business comes out of the bottom and the sales funnel is a tool that helps reps visualize the buying journey from the perspective of the consumers.

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