How to Convert Insightly into a Lead Gathering Machine

Your marketing efforts are really starting to pay off. You’re a lead gathering machine.

Each passing week brings in a record-setting lead volume, far exceeding your own expectations. Best of all, there’s not one particular lead source that is overly dominant. Everything you’re doing seems to be working, and that includes organic web search, paid advertising, trade shows, and word-of-mouth referrals.

As optimistic as you are about your marketing engine, you’re now dealing with a new problem: making sure that each lead is efficiently funneled into your CRM. With leads expressing interest via email, webforms, phone calls, and other ways, you need a quick and easy workflow to collect their information for follow up.

Luckily, if you’re using Insightly, you have access to a CRM that can accommodate even the most complex lead collection model. In this post, I’ll share a few tips for effectively gathering leads, thereby freeing up new resources for engagement (and bypassing all the administrative nonsense).

Start by Connecting Your Website to Your CRM

You’ve invested significant effort in your web marketing initiatives. A lightning-fast website, a new content team, and a revamped CPC bidding strategy are just a few of the priorities you’ve deployed this year.

These programs have your website buzzing with new inquiries. Prospects seem to be particularly fond of your whitepapers, eBooks, and other downloadable assets. And, with each new download, your website sends you (and select members of your staff) more emails to sort through. At first, these emails were helpful and even somewhat exciting to receive. Lately, however, they’ve become a serious distraction to your operations. They’ve also been known to get buried in your team’s inboxes, creating a significant lag in the follow-up sequence.

It’s time you created a more streamlined connection from your website to your sales funnel. Insightly can help you do exactly that by means of its intuitive web-to-lead connectivity. Here’s how to set it up.

First, have your CRM administrator or website manager go through the simple process of generating the HTML code.

During setup, you can even specify who (if anyone) will receive email notifications upon submissions. (Note: It might be wise to enable email notifications initially, to ensure everything still works to your specification. When your team is comfortable with the new workflow, you can then turn off the notifications.)

Once the code is embedded into a webpage, form submissions will start to appear as new leads. Best of all, they’ll be assigned to a specific Insightly user, ensuring the lead is contacted sooner rather than later.

Already invested in a third-party form builder? No worries, as Insightly connects directly to several of the leading online form builders (or indirectly via the Zapier platform). Check your tool’s integration options to see if an Insightly integration can be enabled.

Build a Workflow for Inbound Calls

Despite the many resources and webforms on your site, some leads just prefer to speak with a human being. That’s fine, as your inside sales team is happy to help.

Unfortunately, there’s no consistency in how your phone bank tracks caller information. Some reps prefer handwritten notes, while others create their own spreadsheets. Still others submit call summary reports via email. This inconsistency creates unnecessary confusion, and in some cases, has caused certain leads to be completely overlooked.

You need a more reliable method for capturing and tracking phone inquiries.

There are several possible ways to use Insightly for solving this problem. Of course, you could require each agent to be logged in to Insightly and add lead records for each incoming call. Adding new leads from the user interface is relatively straightforward.

Alternatively, if giving your phone agents CRM access seems like overkill, you could build a web-to-lead form specifically for their use. Generate and embed the code on a webpage that’s only accessible to your reps, bypassing their need for user licenses. Adding new leads becomes as simple as visiting a webpage (which, by the way, could be set as the default homepage on their browsers) and submitting a form.

For additional efficiency, consider enabling a workflow rule. As phone calls are converted to leads in the system, the workflow can ensure that specific users are automatically assigned or follow-up actions occur.

Supercharge Your Team’s Inboxes & Browsers

Although web traffic and phone calls account for a large percentage of your inbound lead collection activity, even the most automated systems have outliers. For example, your staff may occasionally be on the receiving end of:

Inquiries sent to your company’s general inbox
Unsolicited referral emails from existing clients
Responses from automated nurture sequences or newsletters

Again, Insightly can prove to be an invaluable tool for these types of unpredictable situations. For starters, each Insightly user has a unique mailbox address. When a message is forwarded to such an inbox, Insightly does some pretty nifty work behind the scenes. The system takes a look at existing contacts, searching for matching records. If there’s not a match, Insightly automatically creates a new contact and organization. It then links the email to the newly created records.

Although doing this technically creates a “contact” (and not a lead), it’s easy to add an opportunity to the contact for future follow up. (After all, qualified leads can be converted contacts and opportunities in a few clicks.)

If your staff checks email in a web browser (as opposed to a desktop client), the Insightly Sidebar can also be a viable option. Here’s a quick demo for setting that up.

By leveraging the Insightly Sidebar and/or mailbox tools, you’ll make it easier for staff to manage one-off leads (that might otherwise get lost).

Create Fingertip Access for Outside Reps

Before we wrap up this article, let’s not forget about your team out in the field.

Even if your reps spend most of their time calling on known accounts or existing customers, they’re always on the lookout for new prospects. By attending client meetings, networking opportunities, and industry events, your outside reps serve as a reliable source of new leads. Therefore, it’s important that you make it easy for your sales team to capture new lead information.

Since reps are usually away from their desks, be sure to invest time training your sales team on the Insightly mailbox. To further simplify the use of this feature, you might even have your IT staff set up contact entries for each rep’s unique mailbox address. (Tip: include an easy-to-remember keyword in the contact’s name, such as “Insightly” or “CRM.”) This way, when a rep is crunched for time, he or she can simply forward the email and start typing the name of that mailbox as the intended “contact.” The inbox should recognize the contact being referenced, pulling up the Insightly mailbox address.

For added firepower when on-the-go, the Insightly mobile app is also a great tool. From any web-enabled smartphone, your team quickly can add new lead records, notes, and other related information. Better yet, Insightly allows you to record and attach audio notes (up to 60 minutes per recording) to any lead record. Voice notes can serve as an excellent way to capture in-depth information, which would otherwise be difficult (if not impossible) to create with two thumbs and a smartphone.

And, once your reps have installed the Insightly mobile app, they’ll also be able to create new lead records simply by scanning in business cards. No more fumbling through a briefcase for the three dozen business cards gathered at a trade show. Scan them in with a few taps, and Insightly transcribes and saves the information in your CRM forever!

It’s Time You Turned Insightly Into a Lead Gathering Machine

Using your CRM primarily as a lead collection repository is a good place to start. However, the name of the game is to convert leads to lifelong customers – not to simply store their information in a database. By reducing the time and effort involved with lead collection, you’ll free up more time to actually engage with prospects.

As an Insightly user, you have access to a dynamic suite of lead gathering tools. Put this toolbox to good use and maximize the ROI from your CRM investment!

Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.

March 22, 2017

9 Things Holding Back Your Inbound Marketing

“Why are we not getting more leads from our website?”

Have you ever asked yourself this question? For a results-oriented business owner like yourself, simply getting a straightforward answer can even seem impossible. Everyone you talk to has an opinion, but no one can provide a definitive solution.

In my experience, there are nine common issues that business owners face when it comes to inbound marketing. In this post, I’ll share what each one means for your business.

Disconnected Sales & Marketing

As we’ve discussed in previous articles , sales and marketing are related – yet two entirely separate disciplines. Yes, they should go hand in hand, but unfortunately, that’s often not the case.

Unless you’re proactive, you may hear the following complaints or questions:

From your sales staff:

“Marketing is a waste of time and money.”
“The leads we get from marketing never call us back.”
“What does the marketing department actually do all day?”
“Why should I spend time on all these marketing reports?”
“The marketing team needs to move faster.”

From your marketing staff:

“The sales staff doesn’t like us.”
“Sales reps don’t communicate very well.”
“Why are inbound leads being ignored?”
“We feel disconnected from the customer.”
“Our content could be much better if sales would share feedback once in a while.”

How can you avoid such dissent from bubbling up in your organization? The first step is to take control of the situation. Don’t just assume that sales and marketing departments will naturally align on their own. If your goal is to improve your inbound marketing, you must make this crystal clear to all team members. Then, it can be wise to start a cross-functional team (comprised of sales and marketing leaders) whose shared mission is to facilitate a healthy, ongoing line of communication.

An Unmanageable Website

Even the largest of companies can have surprisingly terrible websites. (In fact, over the years, I’ve observed that there’s often an inverse relationship between company size and website quality.)

If your gut tells you that your website needs an overhaul, you’re not alone. Beyond your intuition, what specific factors contribute to an unmanageable website? Here are some signs that you’re dealing with one:

You can’t log in and make changes (at least not without calling a developer for help).
Your website hasn’t changed (or has changed very little) in a year or two.
When you look at your website, it makes you feel kind of queasy.
You don’t have a blog – and, even if you did, you wouldn’t know how to add a post.
It takes several seconds for any of your webpages to load – even on the fastest of Internet connections.
Your site isn’t responsive (in other words, it looks bad on a mobile device).
Very few leads originate from your website.
When you look for your company on a search engine, your domain is nowhere to be found.

Do any of these sound familiar? If so, perhaps it’s time you considered an upgraded web presence. As you formulate your plan, just remember that a website is more than a digital brochure. It also needs to be flexible and functional for your business needs. Partner with an agency that brings together a mix of graphic design, technical, and marketing know-how.

Poor Content

Even if you have a manageable website, it doesn’t mean that anyone will be able to find it. In fact, a beautifully designed website with little or poor content is destined for page three (or worse) of the search results. Search engines will only recommend your site to your intended audience if you use detailed, strategically targeted content.

How can you create better content for your website? Try these simple ideas:

Think Like Your Customers: What would you search for if you had never heard of your business? Try to be as specific as possible. Jot down a few keywords that come to mind. For example, if you’re a fitness repair company, your customers are likely dealing with a specific equipment-related issue. So, targeting words like “broken treadmill repair services” or “rowing machine maintenance” could yield positive results. To validate your assumptions, you might also try using a keyword research tool (there are many free and low-cost research tools to choose from).

Set Some Minimum Standards: I usually tell clients that effective articles contain at least 400 words and maintain a natural flow. Sure, you want to work in the occasional keyword, but do so casually. Also, be sure to define best practices for structuring your URLs and meta tags. Search engines use this information to properly index your content.

Make Content Part of Your Routine: Writing a blog article may seem like a lower priority. However, each new article is actually a piece of real estate your business can claim in the search engines. To beat the competition, find creative ways to capture and produce content ideas. For example, dictating into your phone (while on the go) can be an efficient way to get started.

Ineffective Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

We live in an increasingly nonpersonal ecosystem. People prefer text messages to phone conversations. They opt for one-click eCommerce rather than a local store clerk. The same is true for your website. Don’t assume people want to call you on the phone.

A call-to-action (CTA) is usually a button or hyperlink on your website, directing a visitor to take action. Offering a variety of well-crafted, strategically located CTAs can increase engagement and help you convert more visitors to leads.

What are some good CTA examples? Of course, it can vary by business model and niche. Here are a few quick examples:

Software companies

Free 30-day trial
Request a demo
Chat now (online chat)

Insurance agencies

Free quote
Request a call
Talk to an agent

Handyman services

Free on-site estimate
Ask a question

What CTAs make sense for your business? Once you’ve answered this question, design a landing page for each call-to-action. Then, as you craft compelling content, link from each article to the correct page. You might be surprised at how this simple step lifts your web marketing ROI.

Too Many Generalists

Many marketing professionals position themselves as a “jack-of-all-trades.” Social media plan? No problem. Relaunch a website? I’ve got it. Design a brochure from scratch? No worries.

To market your business in today’s competitive online environment, you need a diverse set of skills. Although there’s an important place for marketing generalists in your company, you also need a team of go-to specialists. These might include:

Graphic designers
Web copywriters
PHP / .Net developers
CMS consultants
Social media experts
Technical writers
Email marketing specialists
Video producers
Animation specialists
Marketing strategists
CRM consultants
Project managers

An effective marketing manager will gladly pull such resources together, rather than doing it all alone. By combining the collective genius of generalists and specialists, your team is much more likely to arrive at a robust web marketing program.

Don’t let your “marketing guy” (or gal) convince you otherwise.

Sloppy Inbound Lead Management

In time, an effective digital marketing plan will start to bear fruit. More people will begin to discover your website and calls-to-action, leading to a greater volume of inquiries. You may go from very few inbound leads to dozens within months (depending on your niche).

Be ready to handle the surge in activity; there’s nothing worse than turning away (or ignoring) new business that you’re not ready to handle. Here are a few suggestions.

Connect to Your CRM: Many CRMs (including Insightly) offer a web-to-lead feature, allowing you to seamlessly capture inbound requests as new lead records. If you’re already using a different form software or plugin, check to see if you can create an integration.

Enable Follow-Up Automation: Countless studies have shown that leads lose interest shortly after leaving your website. Consider enabling autoresponders that go out within moments of each form submission. Before enabling such a feature, spend time crafting a compelling, helpful message that adds value to the recipient. Prospects will appreciate the personalized service (and probably won’t realize it’s an automatic response).

Hold Your Sales Team Accountable: Some people are just stuck in their ways. I’m not saying this is the case with all of your reps; but, there’s a good chance some are at least skeptical of web leads. Create accountability by closely monitoring lead reports in your CRM. For greater clarity, you might even enable an automatic report that shows up in your inbox each morning.

Conflicting Lead Quality Data

Speaking of skeptical team members, your sales team may be telling you that inbound leads are much colder than the “normal” deals they’re working. This is helpful information, but it’s largely anecdotal. You need a way to actually measure the quality of incoming leads.

Get the answers you need by diving into your CRM. For example, if you’re an Insightly user, you might create a custom lead report containing the following criteria:

Lead name
User responsible
Lead source
Lead status

If, after filtering by source, you see that most web leads are stuck in “open – not contacted,” you may be dealing with a workflow or training issue. Are certain sales reps accidentally overlooking inbound leads? Or, do they not understand where to look in your CRM? Perhaps enabling email alerts would improve the situation?

On the other hand, your reps may have a valid point – especially if most web leads are quickly disqualified after creation. If this is the case, should you consider revisiting your web copy and calls-to-action? Perhaps your website needs a slight repositioning to more closely align with the sales process.

Ignoring Web Analytics

Your CRM isn’t the only place you should look for marketing insights. In fact, many businesses make the mistake of overlooking a wealth of data housed in their web analytics software.

Sure, most businesses at least go through the motions and enable an analytics package (such as the extremely popular Google Analytics service). Unfortunately, few take the time to dive in and get the most from it.

I could talk for hours on this subject. However, in the interest of being concise, I would simply pose the following questions. If you don’t have answers to these questions, it’s time you did.

How often do you personally receive web analytics information?
Does your company track “goals” (such as form submissions, chat sessions, etc.)?
Are your “goals” logically structured?
What is your goal conversion rate?
On average, how many visitors does your website receive?
What percentage of visitors are returning? …new?
What is the top referring source of new visitors?
Which landing page is most effective at converting visitors to leads?
What is your process for using web analytics data to shape your inbound marketing strategy?

Start with those questions, and you’re likely to come up with a dozen or two of your own.

The Next Emergency

If you’ve ever worked in the corporate world, you may have heard someone say, “The first things to get cut during a downturn are marketing and human resources.”

You’re obviously not a mega corporation. But, there is a thread of truth to this in your own business. Despite your efforts to make web marketing a priority this year, you always get pulled into the latest customer drama or crisis.

I wish I had an easy solution to this problem, but alas, I don’t. I would simply advise that you use your calendar strategically and proactively incorporate new marketing initiatives into your routine. Unless you’re motivated to improve your online footprint, there will always be something more pressing to grab your attention.

(Of course, hiring a marketing consultant – like me (shameless plug) – could also help hold yourself accountable. I’m just saying….)

Develop a Plan of Action for Your Inbound Marketing

Here’s the good news: inbound marketing (like most aspects of marketing) is an iterative process. Whether you’re struggling to develop compelling copy or dealing with poor lead management, there’s always hope that tomorrow will bring new efficiencies.

Try not to get overwhelmed. Rather, accept the situation you’re facing today and look for incremental enhancements. Give preference to solutions that will add the greatest value for the least amount of effort (or resources).

Try a few things, monitor the results, and continuously adjust. You can do this!

link to my article “How to Avoid Turf Wars Between Your Sales & Marketing Departments”

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

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December 19, 2016

How to Get More Inbound Leads into Your CRM (Part 3)

So, you’ve decided that generating more inbound leads is a top priority for next year’s marketing plan. And, you’ve also determined that a major focus of your efforts will be expanding your company’s visibility in the search results.

This post is the right one for you. In it, I’ll share some practical tips for getting started with organic search marketing.

Why Search Engines Exist

Some business owners mistakenly think that simply having a website will make their companies “get found’ on the search engines. Still others assume that visibility is only achieved by investing thousands in pay-per-click advertising. Such assumptions are incorrect.

To get your business found online, you must first understand why search engines exist. Let’s start with a few obvious truths. Search engines generally strive to fulfill the following goals:

Create structure in an otherwise unstructured Internet environment
Help searchers find exactly what they’re looking for
Build trust and loyalty with searchers
Earn a profit & satisfy shareholders

By achieving the first goal of structuring web content, search engines are able to present information to users in a more digestible format. In doing so, they can then create long-term synergies with consumers, which enables unique monetization opportunities (through freemium or paid services, subscription models, and advertising placements).

With all of this in mind, how does your company’s online presence help search engines achieve its goals?

The Elements of an Organic Search Strategy

So, how do you help search engines achieve their goals, thereby increasing your own visibility?

Start with a well-structured site – An old car with flat tires and a busted engine won’t take you very far down the road. Likewise, a slow, poorly crafted website won’t serve as a good foundation for your marketing efforts. Invest time to identify which content management systems provide the best mix of back-end functionality without sacrificing front-end user experience. From your standpoint, you want a site that makes it easy to publish content (without having to pay a developer all the time). From the end-user’s perspective, the site should look good on all devices (including smartphones), offer convenient menus and sitemaps, load quickly (aim for one to two seconds), and use logical URL and metadata structures.

Be helpful – What is in your brain that other people can benefit from? You likely spend much of your day educating customers. Unfortunately, a verbal conversation or an email exchange only benefits the intended recipient. By publishing your knowledge online, you’re able to magnify the impact of your expertise. In doing so, you’ll help many people at once – and improve your chances of establishing trust.

Commit to a schedule – Being helpful once is a good start. However, to maximize your online reach, you’ll need to consistently share useful information online. Of course, the more often you produce content, the more online real estate you claim. In addition, you also show search engines that your website is serious about serving its niche. By committing to a content schedule, search engines become more familiar with your site and, in return, are more likely to recommend the content you produce.

Build credibility & awareness – Producing good content is an important first step. But, it will only get you so far. You need someone to vouch for you (other than yourself). Think about the last time you interviewed for a job. You submitted your application, sent your resume, and then went through an interview. Somewhere in this process, the prospective employer likely asked for references. The same is true for your website. Search engines appreciate the effort you’ve made to build a great website and engaging content. However, they need unbiased proof that you’re credible. To foster credibility, look for ways to build organic links to your site. In addition, asking customers to leave online reviews is a worthwhile effort.

Low-Hanging Fruit

If you already have a decent website, building useful content and inbound links might be the best place to start. You can always enhance the look and feel of your site in a future iteration. However, if your website is clunky and inaccessible to your content team, you may be better served by focusing on a makeover.

Either way, look for small victories and stay committed to continuously enhancing your online presence. The search engines – and their users (your future customers) – will thank you.

link to part 2

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

November 30, 2016

How to Get More Inbound Leads into Your CRM (Part 2)

In part one of my series about increasing inbound web leads, I shared a few introductory web marketing tips.

Now it’s time to familiarize yourself with the entire lifecycle of a lead. Where do leads come from? Which channels offer the best return on investment for your business?

Let’s examine each question and decide what to do next.

Where Do Inbound Leads Come From?

Despite what your analytics software seems to imply, each visitor to your website is a unique person with specific goals. Some visitors may be ready to engage with your company. Others might just be collecting information. Still others may be in the wrong place. Unfortunately, until they ask for more information (or leave without identifying themselves), it’s difficult to know for sure.

The good news is that most analytics packages allow you to gain partial insight (even for anonymous visits). An especially important piece of information involves originating lead source. As with any marketing initiative, it’s important to track what works, do more of that activity, and continuously repeat the process. Traffic source data is a fundamental metric that every business owner should consider before making any budgetary allocations.

In my experience, most inbound leads originate from the following sources. (For each source, I’ve included a simple example for illustrative purposes.)

Organic search results – A prospect types in a keyword (or your company name) into a search engine. After viewing the results, he clicks into your website and begins browsing.

Links from third parties – An industry analyst writes a blog post and links over to your website. Readers of the article can now click through and learn more about your company.

Paid promotion – Your company buys advertising on an industry website. Prospective customers click your banner ads and read about your amazing products and services.

Social media – A happy customer shares his positive experience with followers on social media. His friends and family like or share the post, creating a viral effect and increasing the likelihood of traffic to your site.

Forums & review sites – A forum moderator asks members to comment about their interactions with your business. Several people post favorable ratings and link to specific pages on your website. The thread is indexed by search engines, further compounding the effect.

Word of mouth referrals – An influential thought leader mentions your brand during a webinar. After doing some additional research, attendees find your website and request more information.

Which Lead Sources are Most Viable for Your Business?

If you’re starting from square one, you may not have much historical data to reference. This makes it difficult to make informed marketing decisions. With no source data to go on, which initiatives yield the most favorable results?

All businesses are different, so it’s impossible to say that one lead source will be guaranteed to be more effective. However, from my perspective as a technology consultant, I often see the following tradeoffs for each traffic source.

Spend time evaluating the viability of each lead source for your business. You may also consider hiring a marketing consultant (shameless plug!) to make sense of it all.

Your Next Logical Focus: Organic Search

After weighing the options, many business owners decide to focus initial lead generation efforts on organic search. Unlike paid advertising that delivers short-term value and minimal long-term gain, organic search results can provide new revenue for many years to come.

So, how do you increase your placement in organic search?

Stay tuned for my next post!

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

November 22, 2016

Night of the Living Dread

Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 4 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, a tip on improving your sales, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips!

	Remember to Convert Leads to Opportunities
	Your content marketing, paid advertising, and cold calling all have one common goal: increasing the number of leads in your CRM. Each new lead could represent thousands of dollars in potential business. To realize this potential, however, you need a highly efficient workflow for processing new leads. Insightly makes it easy to organize your leads, thanks in large part to an intuitive conversion process. What is lead conversion? Here’s a simple example. Let’s say you own a small heating and air company in Missouri. To create awareness for your business, you advertise in the local newspaper and send out postcards. Your advertisements encourage consumers to visit your website and request a free consultation. As a result, it’s not uncommon for your sales manager to have several new leads in Insightly each morning. Upon establishing contact with the lead, the sales manager asks several questions to gauge interest. If the prospect is willing to schedule the free consultation, his lead record is then “converted” in Insightly.
	Keep an Archive of Work Instructions
	Speaking of guidelines, does your company have a centralized repository of policies and procedures? If not, perhaps it’s time you set one up. For many years, quality assurance has been a major topic in the corporate world. Take a page out of the big business playbook and adapt this approach for your organization (with less red tape, of course). What’s the benefit? Work instructions reduce your risk of employee turnover. As one employee leaves, his or her replacement can hit the ground running. Work instructions do not need to be overly complicated. A typical work instruction document could be as brief as one or two pages (including screenshots and explanations). The main goal is to provide a summary of the work being done. Though each department could feasibly have dozens of different work instructions, here are a few possible ideas for your sales team: When to add a new lead Rules for qualifying a lead Requirements for marking an opportunity as won De-duplicating records Adding new user accounts If you’re an Insightly customer, the Help Center can be a great reference for answering many of the “how” questions you may have. Just be sure to also clarify the “why” when building your in-house work instructions.
	Shake Up Your Work Patterns
	It’s easier to stay motivated on certain days than others. If you find yourself feeling especially under-motivated, perhaps it’s time you shook things up. Here are a few approaches for keeping your workday fresh: *First things first* – Write out a list of all the stuff that you must get done today. If you’re using a task management system, consider filtering so that only today’s due dates are visible. Next, turn off all email notifications and sign out of your instant messenger. Begin working through those items until you’ve completed the list. As you cross through items on your last task, you’ll likely feel a tremendous boost of motivation. There’s nothing better than getting everything done. *Fun things first* – It’s a simple fact that some work tasks are more fun than others. It’s occasionally OK to frontload your day with the stuff you actually enjoy doing. For example, if you decide to put in a few extra hours on a Saturday morning, you might choose to book your upcoming flight and hotel before doing your month-end report. Get some momentum by saving the worst for last. *Dreaded things first* – What’s hanging over your head? Wouldn’t it be nice to get it done and stop worrying about it? On days like this, it can be effective to start with your most dreaded task. Need to talk to your boss about a mistake you made on an expense report? Confront this situation head-on so you can move onto a better part of your day.
	Establish Best Practices for Using Leads
	At a very basic level, qualified leads become opportunities (for a more in-depth explanation of terminology, read this article). As simple as this seems, your staff may occasionally feel confused and not know which record type to use. In addition, they may have uncertainty for knowing when to convert leads. To avoid such confusion, it can be wise to set some basic ground rules for using leads. Here are a few questions to consider when developing your best practices: What buying signals must be present before a lead can be converted? Which criteria will be used for determining lead rating? What happens if a lead record is mistakenly created for an existing customer? When should a contact actually be changed to a lead? How will we deal with duplicate lead records? When should we (if ever) delete a lead? Should we set up a team that is specifically focused on lead management? When converting leads, how can we ensure accurate record linking? By considering these questions and defining some basic guidelines, you’ll empower your team to take action without constant handholding. In addition, you can rest easier knowing that your data structure is in good hands.

Send Us Your Tips. Would you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card! Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email.

About the author: Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.

October 19, 2016

Insightly Features You’ll Use on the Daily

Efficiency is a serious matter for SMB owners. If you’re running a small or medium-sized business, you know the conundrum all too well. How do you stay involved in the critical aspects of your business without working around the clock – or somehow making the day longer than a mere 24 hours? The right technology tools can make a big difference.

With these six super powers in their pockets, Insightly SMB customers can win the day, every day.

Leads on mobile

You can’t hit pause on the sales process just because you’re on the go. This feature allows Insightly mobile users to view, add, and edit information about leads. Once those leads are qualified, you can convert them into contacts or sales opportunities from your mobile device, as well.

Insightly mobile calendar

Get all your events, tasks and due dates right in your mobile app. It’s easy to navigate the calendar from your iOS or Android device, add and search meetings, and see what you have on tap for the day or week ahead.

Task widgets

However your device manages widgets (either on the Home screen for Androids or in the Notification Center for you iOS folks), Insightly apps let you use widgets to get quick, easy access to your task list and an entryway to the Insightly app. Apple users can also complete tasks from the widget and use it to jump to their Contacts and Organizations screens.

Audio notes

Your mobile device has a great little microphone in it; use it to record and save audio files to your notes. The recording option lets you capture up to an hour of a meeting, interview or other event and store it for easy access later.

Business card scanning

Business cards are still a thing, but storing them on a desktop Rolodex no longer makes much sense when all of your critical customer and prospect information is filed and organized digitally. Bridge the gap between the past and the present by scanning cards directly into Insightly through this feature in our app. Add a new contact or lead, then take a photo of that person’s business card. The app will transcribe the contact information for you.

Mobile tags

Speaking of business card scanning, we’ve made that feature even more attractive with mobile tagging. Insightly users can add tags from the business card scanning feature or anywhere else in our apps to edit records and make them easier to sort and find.

All of these features are available for Insightly apps on iOS and Android devices.

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

September 26, 2016

How to Get More Inbound Leads into Your CRM (Part 1)

Every business owner wants more inbound leads. The question is, of course, how to get more of them (with the least amount of cost and effort). In this post, the first in an ongoing series, I’ll share some initial tips for ramping up your lead generation efforts.

What is an “Inbound Lead”?

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s establish a common understanding of the word “lead.” If you’re an Insightly user, you may have noticed that the software actually differentiates between leads, opportunities, and contacts. Lead records can become opportunities and contacts, but not all opportunities and contacts originate from lead records. Likewise, not all leads will convert to opportunities (or contacts).

Being even more specific, an “inbound lead” is one that requests information (usually via your website or other online properties) without outbound solicitation by your company. Inbound leads typically submit web forms, but they could also call, email, or interact via social media.

This all may seem a little confusing to CRM newbies, so allow me to provide a very simple example:

Inbound Lead: A person you’ve never spoken to visits your website and fills out a form. A new lead record is automatically created in Insightly CRM. You call the person back to learn more about his needs. After a brief discussion, it is clear that he needs your professional assistance. You both agree to chat again next week.

Opportunity: After hanging up the phone, you open the lead record in your CRM. You click on the convert button, which prompts you to input the name for your new opportunity record. Now that you’ve established a potential customer need, you’ll track this deal as an opportunity. (The original lead record now shows as “closed-converted.”)

Contact: Don’t forget the other half of the equation! For any potential deal, there’s usually at least one person with whom you must engage. During the conversion process, Insightly creates a new contact record based on the lead’s name. Going forward, anything relating to this person should be captured on this record.

As you generate more quality inbound leads, it stands to reason that opportunities and contacts will follow. The ultimate goal is to convert opportunities to revenue and contacts to clients.

So, how do you generate more quality leads? Try thinking like one.

Think Like a Lead

For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a prospective customer. This can be difficult, especially considering the intricate knowledge of your own business. Start by asking yourself these basic questions:

What problems are prospective customers trying to solve?
Do prospects typically find my company via search engines, social media, online review sites, or traditional media?
What message does my current website portray?
Does my online footprint create doubt or reinforce a positive image?
Is it clear what prospects should do once on my website?
What information do buyers need in order to shorten the buying cycle?

These are not always easy questions to consider. In fact, after careful review, you may determine that your branding needs a facelift. Generating inbound leads is contingent on your ability to build trust with minimal face-to-face salesmanship. A poorly constructed website, negative online reviews, and a sloppy social media presence do not communicate trust. Spend time on the basics before going much further.

What Can You Offer Leads Today?

Once you have a solid marketing foundation, it’s time to move on to an important question: what can you offer leads today?

Remember, an inbound lead’s first interaction with your company will most likely be via a web form. If you only have a generic “Contact Us” form on your website, you may not be speaking to the complex needs of your customers. Perhaps some customers would prefer to schedule a demo of your service. Others may appreciate the option to live chat. Still others may be looking for a price quote.

Try to think of a few simple “calls to action” that you can offer leads. Again, try to imagine yourself as a consumer of your company’s products or services. One or more of these may resonate well with your audience:

Request a quote
Request a call
Book a demo
Ask a question
Chat now

Look for quick victories that provide value, yet are not overly difficult for your marketing team to implement as landing pages. (In a later post, we’ll discuss more complex calls to action.)

Next Step: Defining Your Inbound Lead Roadmap

You’ve gone through some fundamental, yet important steps. Now it’s time to really crank up the lead flow. Much like any other activity, you must be strategic and develop a plan.

In my next post, I’ll share suggestions for building a rock-solid plan. Stay tuned!

At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.

Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Remember to Convert Leads to Opportunities

Keep an Archive of Work Instructions

Shake Up Your Work Patterns

Establish Best Practices for Using Leads

What is an “Inbound Lead”?

Think Like a Lead

What Can You Offer Leads Today?

Next Step: Defining Your Inbound Lead Roadmap