Nowadays, businesses are dependent on their customer relationship management platforms for interacting with and managing all of their customer relationships. CRM’s are an essential part of developing leads to pursue, improving sales, and optimizing your marketing efforts. However, setting up a dedicated CRM means that you have to handle an entirely new system and onboard other members of your team.
The truth is that you don’t necessarily have to sign up for an entirely separate CRM if you have a WordPress site. Instead, you can use a solution like SalesCRM that will make managing customer relationships easy as pie. No matter what you decide to use, you want to make sure that you are handling the leads you get like a pro. How you approach these leads will have a big impact on the public perception of your brand, and your financial success.
The tips outlined in this article will ensure that your business will get the full benefit of lead management from your CRM:
Lead Nurturing
Your CRM should help you to not only collect leads but to nurture them too – it comes down to understanding the nuances of the lead’s timing and needs. Keeping on top of your leads and sales pipeline is key for getting successful conversions down the line. You want to ensure that your sales team is focussing their efforts on the leads that are the most likely to become successful sales. Many CRM’s offer lead generation software that can be used to track communications and predict future sales likelihoods depending on which stage of the sales funnel leads are currently in.
Use your CRM to create lead lifecycle stages and determine where in the process your potential customers are. This will help you to target your nurturing efforts, which can include personalizing your messaging, sending specific marketing campaigns, and re-engaging with customers that are about to slip away. Nurturing is an ongoing process, and your CRM should ideally make it easy to keep track of this information over the long-term.
Lead Scoring
By using lead scoring in your CRM, you can ensure that your sales team is applying the right strategy to the right lead. CRM’s often have systems that attribute points to a lead based on their previous interactions and highlight when a lead becomes ‘sales-ready’.
Lead scores change over time as interest increases and decreases, which makes automation in scoring particularly useful. A newly-signed up lead may be more interested in receiving informational content and “how to get started” tips compared to leads that have previously engaged with your brand. As a result, you would score these two different leads differently and cater your approach differently as well.
Lead scoring typically divides the data surrounding leads into three categories based on the characteristics of the lead, mainly as explicit, implicit, or negative. Implicit criteria refer to data derived from the online, indirect actions of potential customers, while explicit criteria are provided by them directly. You can think of implicit criteria as content interactions or viewings of ads or websites in one line – an individual looking to purchase shoes may visit several sites using the search term “buy shoes” with their location. Explicit data, on the other hand, is provided directly by the person, usually by filling out an online form.
Negative criteria provide an indication of waning lead interest and account for missing or inaccurate data. This refers to leads that are not engaging with your messaging, inactive for long periods of time, or unsubscribe from your marketing list.
Personalization
60% of marketers believe that personalization is an important strategy for improving lead quality. Your sales and marketing communication should be personalized based on the actions and online behaviour of your leads. Many CRMs are able to deliver personalized marketing messages and follow-ups. By putting together information about your leads, you can use your CRM to tailor experiences to every individual. In fact, the majority of consumers out there will only engage with and respond to personalized marketing messages.
Regardless of the industry, enhancing your personalization with leads will prove you are customer-centric and boost your bottom line. No matter what industry you are in, your customer wants to feel like they have a personal relationship with your brand.
Lead Tracking
Your CRM should track all of your interactions with prospective leads and sales. This tracking refers to the process of collecting data and categorizing prospective leads throughout your sales process and includes your communication with them. Without a solid lead tracking strategy in place, it will be difficult to pinpoint which stage they are at and to forecast sales.
Lead tracking allows you to find out which of your marketing efforts are working and which are not. It also plays another important role: refinement and iteration. You should use your CRM to not only track and manage lead, but to derive data from and do A/B testing. This will help you narrow down the best way to handle leads effectively for your particular brand.
SalesCRM, as mentioned above, has several handy features that allow you to track leads and prospects, analyze your sales cycle, integrate with your existing services, and much more.
The CRM that you choose for your business will have a significant impact on your success – that’s why it’s vital to choose the right one. If you have a WordPress site you may not need a separate CRM platform at all; you could get access to the same benefits by installing a CRM plugin. This saves you the trouble of having to use a separate platform and having to onboard and acquaint your marketing and sales team.
The tips in this article give you a guideline of how to handle the leads you get in like a pro, nurture them into conversions and refine your approach. Your goal should be to create a marketing experience that makes your leads feel like they are being put first.