Customer relationship management (CRM) has been growing steadily for years, and by next year, the industry is expected to hit $36.5 billion worldwide. If your business isn’t using it to build stronger customer relationships, you could be missing out. More than 80% of customers will research your business online before they make a purchase from you. CRM can help you convert those prospects into buyers, and those buyers into loyal customers.
Keep Your Company Organized
CRM provides a central point of information for everyone in your organization. Beyond customer contact information, CRM can integrate with a number of tools you’re already using, including: Google Apps, Dropbox, OneDrive, QuickBooks, MailChimp, Hubstaff, Zapier, Proposable, Wishpond, and more. Data from these applications is imported to save time and hassle of logging in and out of multiple accounts, and keeps data available at a glance.
Align Sales and Marketing Teams
With CRM, your marketing team can easily see where leads are coming from, so they know where to invest more time and money. Your sales team can see how many hot leads are in the system, and keep marketing updated on which leads are converting, and which ones aren’t. When the teams work together, operations becomes more efficient because everyone’s working from the same playbook.
If Susie in marketing has a lead for Robert in sales, Susie can make notes in the CRM, making it easier for Robert to follow up with the lead. Robert can also leave notes for Susie to provide information for use in additional marketing campaigns.
Personalize Your Marketing
Integrating CRM with your email marketing campaigns allows you to personalize your efforts. Not only can use you use the customer’s name in your emails, you can look at their past sales history and develop a special offer, unique to the customer or a segment of customers.
Using a contact’s name in your email subject line produces an average of 17% higher click-through rates. The majority of consumers (81%) say they’re likely to shop with companies that send emails tailored to them based on past purchases.
Struggling with getting all the data you need to personalize your campaigns? 67% of American adults say they’d provide basic information in exchange for better products and services. 35% of them are willing to provide demographic information, and 34% are willing to share contact information to get more personalized products and services, so all you have to do is ask. Beware, though, as the survey also showed only 16% of customers are willing to trade online privacy for a better customer experience.
Gain Insight for Research and Development
Over time, your CRM will collect customer interaction data that will allow you to see who your most loyal customers are and what they’re buying. When integrated with analytics and email marketing, you’ll also get insights about what could be making customers leave your website, causing them to delete your emails, or read them without clicking through to your website. Though it can be difficult to decipher all this information at first, reporting features simplify the process, so you can look at the patterns and see where to make adjustments.
Are all your customers clamoring for a similar feature? It may be time to add it to your product. Are they all gravitating toward a certain part of your product line? It may be time to cut your losses on low performing options and focus efforts into what’s already selling well.
Boost Profits
CRM boosts profits by reducing your sales and marketing expenses, saving you time on data entry and project management, and increasing conversion rates with tailored campaigns. Studies show that for every dollar you spend on CRM, you can expect an average of $8.71 in return. When you opt to use a CRM with mobile and social features, your sales reps may see an increase in productivity up to 26.4%.
Insightly is an excellent CRM no matter the size of your business. A TechValidate survey of users showed 67% of customers paid back their investment in our CRM within one to three months. Our features enable you to take control of your business to keep you organized and on track so you can spend more of your time focused on connecting with your customers.
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
