Chances are, you’ve got a lot on your plate. You’ve got emails to respond to, phone calls to make, meetings to run…
Thank goodness for your CRM (customer relationship management) software! Otherwise, how on earth would you get it all done?
CRM software can truly be a lifesaver—when it’s used correctly. Don’t forget about that last part. You might have the best car in the world. But if you don’t know how to drive it, you’ll probably end up in a ditch somewhere. The same goes for your CRM.
Here’s how to make sure that you are getting the most out of everything your CRM has to offer.
Why Does It Even Matter?
Whether you like it or not, your business revolves around people. Let me clarify: Every business revolves around people. Selling to people. Building and nurturing relationships with people.
CRM software helps you with the latter. And nowadays, a Rolodex just doesn’t cut it. Not if you really want to see your business grow quickly.
Why? CRM software not only helps save you and your team precious time, but it also helps to keep everyone organized, well-informed and on the same page. In other words, your business will grow because of it.
Have I made my point?
Make the Most of It
Now that you know why CRM software is so important, let me explain how you can make the most of it.
1. Collect Contact Data
This is probably a no-brainer, but your CRM is where you should be collecting and organizing all of your customer data. Use it to keep track of which sales representative spoke with which customer or lead on what date—and what the conversation was about. Take note of your customers’ birthdays and other personal information.
Segment your contacts so that you can further tailor your marketing efforts. Use a contact data API to collect information about your contacts, like their location, age, gender, job level, company size and interests.
2. Make Use of Social Media
By pulling information from social media, you can uncover a wealth of information about your contacts.
You can also use your CRM to post and connect with your leads on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. At SUCCESS agency, we use Hubspot to schedule our social media posts. Scheduling all of our posts for the week at once helps us save a lot of back and forth and eliminates the stress of having to remember to post something at a certain time.
3. Generate Sales Reports
In order to make sure that your team is heading down the right path, you should also be using your CRM to track your sales results. Use it to find out which product or service is most popular, which sales reps are performing the best (and why), and which ones need to step up their game. Look at what is being doing well and where the areas for improvement are.
For instance, maybe you will find that one sales representative is sending out 100 sales emails and making 300 calls a month, while another one is doing much less than that—but still having more success. Why is that? Could it be that the more successful sales representative is simply putting in more effort and scarifying quantity for quality? Your sales reports will help you find the answer.
4. Implement Lead Scoring
As you surely know by now, not all leads are created equal. Let’s say you have one lead who has opened an email, browsed through your website and attended a webinar. And you have another lead who has just read one blog post on your website. It wouldn’t be accurate to assume that these leads are in the same part of the sales funnel. Or let’s say you are a B2B organization and you have one lead who is VP of Sales and the other one who is a Sales Intern. It’s fair to assume that the former is going to provide more value to your business, right?
In a nutshell, lead scoring ranks your leads based on who they are, the interest that they have shown in your business and where they are in the buyer’s journey, so that your marketing and sales teams can best tailor your efforts.
5. Set Up Assignment Rules
To make sure that your leads are sent to the right reps, you’ll also want to create assignment rules within your CRM. That way, your leads will be sent to the right salespeople, based on their location, the area of expertise, or the type of product or service.
6. Send Automated Emails
Let’s not forget about marketing automation! Your CRM is also where you should be setting up workflow emails—or automated emails that are sent out after your lead takes a certain action (like after they download something on your site or fill out a web form). This saves you from having to respond to each lead individually.
At SUCCESS agency, we use both Hubspot and ActiveCampaign to set up and send out workflow emails. Then, we also use those platforms to analyze how the emails performed (the number of opens, clicks etc). If there was one email with a high open rate but a low click-through rate, then that probably tells us that the subject line was enticing, but either the email itself was not effective or was maybe even a bit deceiving (in other words, the content didn’t quite match the subject line).
7. Sync Data (and Notes) Across All Devices
Make your CRM as accessible as possible by syncing the data that you collect and the notes that you take across all devices. Otherwise, you and your team members might note something down in a notebook and then forget to record it in the CRM later.
8. Use It
What use is a CRM if no one on your team actively uses it (or only uses it once in a blue moon)? My thoughts exactly.
The solution here? Make sure that you find a CRM(s) that your entire team is comfortable with and knows how to use.
Bottom Line
From Salesforce to Zoho to Hubspot to Pipedrive, there is no shortage of CRM software out there to choose from.
But if you really want to reap its benefits, make sure that you are making the most out of it. That way, you’ll end up at your final destination—instead of in a ditch on the side of the road.
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