After a significant interest in our previous blog post received, we decided to release a new one related to our e-commerce knowledge.
Getting customers to know about your business is important, but keeping them is what makes your business sustainable. On average, returning customers are spending twice as much as what new customers do, so it’s in your interest to keep your first customers happy!
Customer Relationship Management or CRM is a term mentioned regularly in the digital marketing industry but too often misused or misunderstood. Let’s take this opportunity to walk you through what it takes to build a winning CRM strategy and how to best execute it.
So what exactly is CRM?
CRM is a mixture of practices, strategies and systems that help you collect and understand your customers throughout the customer life cycle. It is focusing on building meaningful relationships and sustaining business growth while driving sales.
How to build your CRM strategy
If there are 4Ps in the Marketing mix, there is just one in CRM and it is Priority. Even though we are used to think of CRM as just a software solution where everything is automated, there is some strategy work needed to be done beforehand.
- Set up clear goals – define your business objectives and formulate them so they are specific and measurable.
- Identify your MVCs (most valuable clients) – we all want to treat clients equally well, truth is, already acquired customers are more valuable than prospects.
- Keep your employees updated: let your employees know about any new CRM change you’re implementing. This will keep them involved in the process and they’ll have a better strategic overview.
- Implement a CRM system: An Excel spreadsheet might be a short-term solution to keep your contacts organised but once you start scaling up as a business, having a proper CRM system is invaluable.
- Reevaluate frequently: Go back and review all of the steps from time to time, nothing is set in stone.
Systems to implement for a winning CRM
There are multiple tools out there on the market that you can integrate in your business, but which one is the right for you?
What CRM systems are doing is giving brain to your spreadsheet of contacts. They record each interaction between you and your clients and provide insights on ways to keep them happy. We selected 4 of the most famous CRM systems:
Hubspot
Even though Hubspot has been around since 2006, they only released its CRM system in 2014. What is good about Hubspot is that it is catered mainly for startups and small businesses. There is a free version available which helps you improve your customer relationship management. It is open to multiple users and up to 1 million contacts. With Hubspot you can get a task dashboard to increase productivity, sales pipeline and lead management – everything that you need to have as a small business.
Another great feature of Hubspot is that once you feel you can scale up your business even further you can upgrade to a premium version.
Pros: Has a free version
Cons: The offering can be outgrown quickly
Salesforce
Salesforce is probably the most widely known CRM system. It provides functionalities to cater your business from the start-up stage to fully grown enterprise, something other systems simply can’t provide. This system is especially suitable for small enterprises that want to service different departments. With Salesforce you can track changes in real time, share files, dashboards and see conversions of your sales team that will help you create better weekly forecasting.
Pros: The most sophisticated and widely used CRM system.
Cons: There is no free version, however, you can sign up for a free trial to test the features.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive was designed from sales and dev professionals so they understand exactly your needs. What makes Pipedrive stand out from the competition is the app. Through the app, sales rep can find promising leads and focus on them, it also allows e-mail and Mailchimp integration and unlimited user and records.
Pros: Lower price than Salesforce, great reporting
Cons: no bulk contacting
Insightly
Insightly is designed mainly for small businesses but also offers solutions for larger companies. Through the system, you can easily track deliverables and communications with clients and boost productivity within the company. Insightly also offers additional integrations such as Mailchimp and Evernote.
Pros: unlimited storage and great cost
Cons: not easily customized for individual business needs
Still feeling overwhelmed? Reach out at contact@taksudigital.com and we’ll help you navigate the best CRM strategy for your business.
