The small business is no more confined to a small space in the real world where it will be a small office or s store front that will attract only a certain number of eyeballs. Now, in the digital world, the small business is as big as the bite that it decides to take from the plethora of opportunities available in front of it. And this where a technology like CRM steps in.
So, what is CRM really? A CRM platform or system is one that integrates all your business information and interactions pertaining to clients before funneling it into set tasks in the marketing automation gamut so that the right action with the right messaging reaches the right person at the right time. The CRM software spans the entire sales pipeline from lead generation and nurturing to conversions as well. If you have a small business that is looking to hire a growth spurt, you would do well to adopt a CRM system for the following 9 benefits or reasons:
Organized Approach: When you turn to a CRM platform, you are basically ready to get more organized. Now, this sense of organization can go from organizing the tasks for your teams so that the roles and goals are both clear cut; or this organization can even pertain to the queuing up of deliverables on the marketing front. The contact information of each and every prospect and client is stored along with interactions under various heads and in various databases so that the same can be shared and pulled up with just the tap of a key for a specific set of tasks. This helps the small business grow that much faster.
Team Building: If you are a small business owner, then you most definitely face this resource crunch in heaps and bounds – human resources. That’s right – the main resource is usually the most scarce one when you are a small business with limited funds and bandwidth to spare. So, with the small team on hand, you have to move big mountains. The best way to do this is to employ a CRM software that will organize the mundane tasks and set the tasks in the sales and marketing pipeline as well, with all the information stored in the right places. This will help you organize your team for better collaboration and seamless communication even as an automated prompt tells each individual member what is to be done at what time so that there is no duplication and missing out of tasks. This also helps in building better accountability within the team.
Lead Management: When you are trying to grow your business on the world wide web, the biggest challenge would be tapping into all those opportunities one by one in order to see which lead can actually be converted. Now, this task can eat into a huge chunk of your bandwidth in terms of team size and time. You would do well to bring in a CRM system that can help you generate leads in an automated fashion and nurture them with the storage of information and interactions so that you know just whom to target for which product and service.
Speak your customer’s language: In any business, big or small, the client or the customer is the most important person. Hence, it is important to reach out to this audience in their own language so that they recognize the scope of finding a solution to their needs and problems thanks to the products and services that you are pitching. With the marketing automation side of the CRM system that you employ, you will be able to articulate yourself in exactly this language thanks to the filters and metrics that would be employed in each of your campaigns.
Personalized Touch: Many times, small businesses get swamped with tasks that include communication on social media and even via email. This makes them lose out on the chance to personalize the tone and messaging which can make things generic and hence end up making the brand look less than professional. With a CRM system, you can apply filters to the tasks and messages so that each campaign and deliverable has a personalized touch that makes you look good! With templates offered by many of these platforms, you can further customize your approach.
- Better Segmentation: When you learn to create good segments for your audience, you will also get to position yourself in a better manner. With tools like CRM, you will be able to do this seamlessly thanks to the filters and metrics that can be applied to the various tasks in the sales pipeline and on the marketing automation front as well. You can use the tools on the CRM platform to segment the audience as per the products and services that you have to offer.
- Bring Back Your Customers: With CRM, you can also bring in repeat orders or create the scope to up sell and cross sell thanks to the continued communication that will happen for various campaigns that would match some filters and metrics from a previous campaign. This helps the system use a previous database to reach out to. With the automation in place, you can keep in touch with your audience on a constant basis so that they know what you are offering next.
- Multi Channel Approach: With CRM, you can even use social data because most of the marketing automation tools that are tied in with the CRM platform would ensure that you are using the system for an omni channel presence building affair.
- Send Specific Information: With the use of CRM, you can choose which information should reach which customer or lead at which moment. This helps you design campaigns with care and deliver them with precision. Once you do this, you will also be able to test and see which kinds of deliverables and content would work and which kind wouldn’t. This would help you further refine your marketing and automation efforts as well.
