As a small business owner it’s time consuming to keep track of all emails, forms and data which come at you from various sources, and figure out how best to use this information to tailor the latest marketing offers and services. Along with dozens of other important actions ‘curating’ customers needs to be prioritized in line with the day’s activities and reactive requests.
Despair not, there is a system which processes all the actions into a contact database system which both hands back the power to you, and simplifies your sales and marketing operation. It’s called: CRM (customer relationship management).
Here are five reasons as to why NOW is the best time ever to invest a CRM system which will power through personalized marketing campaigns and keep valuable customers updated on the best that is happening at your end:-
# 1. It’s simple
Once you’re trained up in a CRM system it’s a case of practice makes perfect. There are regular steps that can be taken every week to improve your versatility, such as making sure a web form ties up with the CRM to capture web leads and track new prospects, and group similar prospects in suitable database contact lists.
# 2. It’s intuitive
You always need meaningful reports to make good actions which will further empower your business. Live dashboards on topic areas such as customer segments; growth; sales patterns; sales performers; revenues; and possible forecasting strategies created from deep data make the whole process of sifting for insights as easy task and can be performed as routinely as needs be by yourself, and approved users.
# 3. It’s come of age
CRM is now 25 years old. In the ’90s businesses relied on databases to input their contacts and integrate it with various existing or external systems held by other people or departments. What it meant was lots of sources, with lots of data some of it obsolete, duplicate, or irrelevant which was hard to sort through to the time pressed administrator or marketer. The data issue began to get worse as email became a priority route for small businesses trying to keep up and manage the whole new set of data sources. Following a hiatus at start of the recession in 2008, CRM has reinvented itself to keep up with the pace of business and the demands of every day users.
A big trend for CRM in 2013 is the integration and management of social media profiles and business features which connect with mobile devices and apps. This means you can produce brand Tweets, LinkedIn and Facebook updates together with porting important files from the remote office system whilst out with a client all from a single system and scheduled dashboards. You can also issue campaigns based on your social media data so your offers reflect the value of your listening strategies.
# 5. It’s in the Cloud
The watchword for businesses these days is to get ‘into the Cloud’. The Cloud is where you can back up all your data and contacts virtually. CRM in the Cloud is becoming a popular method integrated into existing licenses. In reality you can easily port all critical contacts to it as well as quickly get access to whichever contacts you need should you experience any type of problem.
So, the advice is get started with CRM – Now.
Here’s a quick run down of a number of well-known CRM packages available which will suit your budget, growth plans, social and mobile needs:
- Zoho
- Salesforce
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Oracle
- SugarCRM
- Maximiser
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Images: ”3d illustration of crm (Customer Relationship Management) button / Shutterstock.com“
