If you search “ways to use a CRM”, the results may be overwhelming. There are many ways you can use a CRM. Some tactics may be specific depending on your industry and whether you are B2B or B2C. Other tactics are more general and good for every user. Whatever the reason for using a CRM, one thing stays the same. A CRM’s purpose is to help you reduce Follow Up Fatigue and grow your business.
Before you start using your CRM, your CRM implementation should align with your business goals. If you are unsure what this looks like, we encourage you to read our article, “Drive Your CRM Implementation to Success Based on Your Business Goals”.
As with any new tool or platform, it is always good to build upon a foundation. We believe there are 5 ways you can effectively use a CRM and build your workflow and sales funnel.
Attract prospects (Inbound marketing)
Drive traffic to your website using Inbound marketing techniques creating content that attracts prospects by meeting their needs. This is often done through call-to-actions on your social media profiles, website, emails, and advertising. Common call-to-actions include filling out a contact form, subscribing to a newsletter, and calling a phone number. Your CRM can be used as the central hub for the calls-to-action. Every time a prospect takes action, you are notified, and their information is captured.
Segment, personalize, and nurture (Customize your audience)
A common mistake that many businesses make is automated blanket messages through their CRM. A message that does not relate, does not convert. Use your CRM to segment audiences based on product, need, geography, and demographics, and customize content that is personalized and nurtures. An effective way to use segmentation, personalization, and nurturing is email marketing. When you send out email content based on segments, your open and click through rates will increase and your unsubscribe rate will decrease.
Automate (Let the CRM do the heavy lifting)
Follow Up Fatigue sets in when you try to do everything yourself. When that happens, prospects are overlooked, customers are forgotten, shortcuts are taken, and mistakes are made. Use your CRM to reduce Follow Up Fatigue by automating personalized messages with content focused on your product and your prospect. Complement your “high touch” approach with a “high tech” approach automatically sending personalized messages with product tips and surveys and to celebrate birthdays. Automation nurtures while minimizing Follow Up Fatigue.
Internal Communication (Keep everyone on the same page)
With so many ways to communicate (email, chat, text, video), it can be overwhelming, but it does not have to be difficult. Use your CRM for customer-centric communication internally as a company. In other words, your CRM is not just for sales and marketing. It is for communicating and updating company staff including production, purchasing and accounting departments. We share tips to use your CRM in our article, “3 Ways to Bring Your Team Together with Your CRM.”
Reporting Dashboards (Real-time, accurate data)
How many times have you had to stop what you are doing to pull a report for someone? This breaks your work rhythm, and it is frustrating. Since your CRM’s configuration is aligned with your business goals, create dashboards that show real-time reports on your sales pipeline, projects, and sales team activity. This helps you in several ways:
- You will always be up-to-date
- You can see if anyone is being pulled too thin
- You can forecast customer behavior trends
- You will be able to identify areas in your sales cycle that need attention
If you would like to learn more about CRM dashboards, read our article, “Increase Sales and Reduce Follow Up Fatigue Using Your CRM Dashboard”.
Conclusion
A CRM is a powerful tool that helps you increase sales with less Follow Up Fatigue. These 5 ways will lay a good foundation for using your CRM and will help you discover new and better ways to use your CRM for your business. If you are not using a CRM and would like to learn more about CCC’s CRM, contact us at 301-332-0613 or fill out the form below to schedule a demo.
