Posts Tagged ‘customer relationship management software’
Customer Relationship Management Starts with Marketing
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009One of the advantages of customer relationship management software is its ability to break down the barriers and data silos between departments and develop an integrated approach to front-office functions and processes.
The undeniable appeal of CRM’s ability to streamline and automate sales cycles and enable more efficient, higher-quality customer service can sometimes overshadow the marketing department’s potential to derive compelling value from CRM. The right CRM system, implemented with a thorough understanding of marketing needs, offers the opportunity to improve marketing processes and returns while decreasing costs, ultimately generating more sales leads–and thereby benefiting all departments.
At the heart of marketing is the customer. And that customer has changed radically in the past 10 to 15 years. The customer of today is tech-savvy and discriminating. Today’s customer demands increasingly diverse options, more personalization, and more help and service than ever before. That customer is able and willing to hold companies and their marketers accountable for their claims.
On the other hand, corporations are increasingly capable of tracking the amount of money spent to win and keep each customer, thus demonstrating their return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent. In the crunch are the marketers or marketing department as they scramble to learn new tools, new channels, new technology, and new skills without loss of time or leads in the process.
What does a marketing department need from CRM software? They need a solution that gives them tools, data, and insight to perform in today’s fast-paced, high-tech marketing world. They need to be able to understand and analyze markets, segment and target specific groups, and run effective campaigns. And marketing managers need to be able to monitor and track the results of the campaigns and ROI from each marketing campaign, spot trends and issues, and close the loop on marketing’s contribution to revenues.
Marketers need a customer relationship management system that was built with them in mind. It needs to help them identify their targets and quickly and effectively deliver relevant communications through electronic channels, generating leads that feed smoothly into the sales funnel. Seven features marketers need in the CRM system are:
1. Detailed customer and prospect data.
2. Well-ordered, intuitive screens.
3. Clear and concise information on trends, issues, and customer data.
4. Segmentation of the market by various combinations of data.
5. Easy methods for crafting personalized marketing messages.
6. Effective, secure data management.
7. Automation of creation, management, and follow-up of marketing campaigns.
Improved Business During a Tough Economy Part 2: Track Your Future Customers
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Track your prospects with web based CRM software
If you desire to find an animal, you must look for it. Let’s say you want to find a deer. First you have to dress for a time period outdoors (usually in cold weather). Then you have to use your eyes to look for the deer. Not only do you look for the deer itself, but you look for signs of the deer such as its tracks. Once you find its tracks, you begin to follow them.
To find prospective customers, you have to do some preparation. Just like dressing appropriately for a period of time in the cold, you will have to plan ahead. Use referrals, testimonials, and case studies to get your message out to more potential customers. During an economic downturn is not the time to cut the advertising budget! In fact, it is the time to increase that particular budget and work especially hard to understand where potential customers will be. For example, if you are selling a product to farmers, you should realize that nearly all of them listen to the radio in their tractors and trucks. Use a testimonial in a radio advertisement. Or, if you are selling to women, you need to figure out what television shows the women will watch or what magazine they will still pick up when money is tight. If you sell to other businesses, take advantage of trade shows and trade magazines. Use the information your satisfied customers have given you as ammunition and show their faces or their companies as proof of what they’ve said about your company.
Marketing is not the deep, dark secret that many companies think it is. You do have to spend time and effort tracking down a deer by following its footprints. In prospecting for new customers, sophisticated analytics are useful in tracking responses to marketing campaigns. Some tracking tools even capture every “touch” with the prospective customer.
Track what you have done and track your inquiries (leads) using customer relationship management software. You will have a built-in method for know what works and what doesn’t. You will also be able to carry on conversations by e-mail and phone that leave a trail so that you know what is talked about and what interests they have.
Use the internet to attract new customers. Build a better web site. During an economic downturn you can use your extra time to evaluate what is working and what is not working with your web site. Have it professionally evaluated. Spend the time and money to improve it and get it search engine optimized so prospective customers can find you. Tie your web site to the analytics of your customer relationship software so that you know how effective it is.
Consider social media. Start a blog. Your blog can be about your products or services or it can be things of interest to you. Have two or three people in the company participate in writing blog entries two to four times a month to keep it fresh and interesting. Start a business page for Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Get and keep people interested in your company by using short sentences about your products or services. Set up your customer service software to connect with people through these channels.
Follow up each touch with a phone call or e-mail contact to assure that each prospect has all the answers necessary or can get an online or personal demonstration when necessary. Use your CRM software to route leads to the representative who is most qualified to help that prospect according to the availability or qualifications of the rep or the particular marketing effort that brought in the lead.
Lead-qualification scripts can be embedded into CRM systems and pop up when keywords are said or typed to help understand and sell to each prospect. Your sales process should be able to build a 360-degree view of the customer to whom you are selling. Using your web based crm, you should be able to match campaigns and messages to individual prospects or prospect-types. Become very focused. Customize your messages and offers to address specific issues within an industry or for a specific customer-type based on a specific customer.
Integration of sales software and service software through web based customer relationship software keeps the contacts with a prospect seamless as he moves through the process from prospect to customer to high-priority customer or customer-with-a-problem. Each person who deals with that person can see his entire history with the company or product line and understand exactly what his experience has been thus far.
Marketers, sales managers, and help desk managers should have current statistics and analytical tools at their fingertips. These should not bring up overwhelming amounts of data with no meaning, but should analyze the data and give meaning to it. They should be able to use web based crm software to know if an ad campaign is generating a good percentage of qualified leads and how many of those are being turned into customers through purchases they are making.