Small business doesn't equate to small problems. In fact, being in a small business can be extremely difficult. With your larger competitors ready to crush you anytime with their greater manpower and inflated marketing budgets, smaller businesses feel extremely vulnerable.
Doing more with less is the only to survive. To manage people, resources and targets effectively many small businesses are turning to software to fill that gap. These systems can more than double your returns without requiring additional manpower when used correctly.
Smaller or new start-up businesses can make use of an excellent free resource such as Small Business CRM. Small business CRM is jam-packed with automated marketing functionality to help you enhance efficiency with your business processes by helping generate, convert and nurture new leads. By using a small business customer relationship management system you can also ensure staff are working to their full potential and maximise sales productivity. What's more, these systems offer advanced reporting and tracking which helps you pinpoint which marketing activities are profitable so you can manage your limited marketing resources properly
1.Generating, converting and nurturing your leads
Your prospect either buys from you or from your competitor. And if they do, they will not do it right away. Long before a prospective takes the purchasing plunge, he or she will startlooking for information and solutions first. With internet so readily available, buyers are inclined to research available solutions to their problem thoroughly before making a decision. Impeccable timing is therefore crucial in this stage. Making yourself available in the decision-making process is important. You can offer your product and service in a non-threatening way through the use of free information such as guides, reports, eBooks, consultations and other aides. By doing so, you will increase your chances of winning their trust and ultimately their business.
Small business CRM will help you convert leads by automating the process of "staying in contact" and leverage purchasing decisions.Small business CRM is capable of setting automated or timed marketing initiatives and will provide information or messages that are relevant to these clients . Bases on certain lead actions, you can use auto-responders to set off marketing campaigns. It can also be set to trigger a campaign that will automatically alert sales everytime a "request a consultation form" is submitted to your website, sync the new lead to your CRM and send back a thank-you note to the lead .
Let's say you've won their trust and their business, so this is now where customer nurturing comes in. One way to nurture clients is through after-sales campaigns.To enhance your current customer's satisfaction, automated campaigns can be used to touch base with every one of them and making sure that they are happy. For instance, satisfaction surveys can be sent out to new customers after a couple of months or you can send a monthly product tip for the carpet they bought from you - all in automated fashion.Sending them informative articles relevant to carpet care such as how to remove stains, stain-removal agents, etc will help them address issues that are not far from happening.Nurturing your existing customers will bring them down your marketing funnel for future up-selling and cross-selling opportunites.Being a resource for valuable information will not only help you win their loyalty but may even have the opportunity to win some of their connections too.
2.Cut down time while maintaining efficiency
One factor that hinders efficency is limited manpower resources.Being efficient can be done with even with small businesses if you're armed with a powerful tool . There are numerous ways a Small business CRM can help you. For instance, task alerts can be automated to help you cut down time, manage priorities and ensure that no important sales activities are missed.
As an owner or supervisor in small business, you can take things a step further . A few Small business CRMs give you the power to assign tasks to your sales team from a central system and track the progress of those tasks from your own CRM dashboard. So instead of having to manually delegate and communicate tasks to your team, you can assign the management of a client and all associated tasks to a team member with a click of a button. This will guarantee that no crucial appointments, call or deadlines are missed because these tasks are populated into your staff members' calendar and set to remind them automatically. You can also review their progress in real time, meaning you can work with your team wherever they are (or even when you're away) and not miss a scheduled task because all relevant data is shared.
With Small business CRM, you can make your client contact more targeted. Campaigns are also laser-targeted with a CRM system in minutes. You can also give your customers a very personal feel by being creative enough to get to know your client database. In short, Small business CRM can be used for campaign automation to schedule your follow-ups ahead of time and have them executed when you need them.
3.Maximize sales productivity
Marketing campaigns are pretty costly, so in order to better manage your limited resources you need to ensure that your sales agent concentrate on "hot" leads that are ready to buy.Your Small business CRM will enable you to sort hot from cold leads so you avoid wasting your resources on leads that have the minimum potential and end up missing out on the good leads.
Small business CRM allows you to schedule automated follow-up campaigns on leads that are sorted and filtered. Having identified these high potential leads you can then implement an automated follow up campaign email such as thank you notes to signal your leads that you are now ready for the purchasing process . You can be a little more persuasive by sending a series of emails based on your contacts activities to remind them to read their emails or visit their website. Finally you can identify prospects who have proceeded through all your pre-purchase information and might just need a friendly follow up call to close the deal.
4.Measuring your marketing initiatives
You must know how to spend wisely if you have a limited marketing budget. Knowing where and how to allocate your money for sales and marketing is one of the key challenges for small to medium-sized businesses. Consolidating your marketing initiatives may pose a challenge, too as different marketing media like blogs, email, print, social media operate on different channels.With Small Business CRM, no need to manually consolidate data.Having a Small business CRM allows you to consolidate all your marketing initiatives, and identify which ones are bringing in the most value. Allowing you to cut the fat and focus your resources on high-return activities. One of the awesome functionality of Small Business CRM is trending and forecasting which enables you to focus sales and marketing efforts on qualified leads based on market trends. Gauging the readiness of each customer can be done through customer activity such as product inquiries through email or calls, pricing inquiries, o rganisation size, revenue, web visits, etc.
Integrated reporting is another key component your Small Business CRM can offer. This functionality gives graphical reports on how you are progressing in the last quarter, for example, or which campaigns are effective, which customer type brings in the most sales, etc. This aids you in measuring and understanding your business performance in just a few keystrokes.
Being in a small business is no excuse to sit back, be complacent and just wait for the giant wave of competition to drown you to oblivion. Small business CRM will be your giant wave that will propel you to the greater heights of your business. Your business may be small or new, but you can be bold and take a great leap with your Small business CRM and be assured of success. You will be surprised that great things can come out of such a small package.
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