Overall, your business is doing quite well, but sometimes you feel like your customers aren’t as receptive to your marketing efforts as expected. So, you’ve been toying with the idea of improving your marketing strategy and offering more targeted service to your customers for some time, but you’re not sure where to start.
Why not opt for the use of CRM software? Essential in the digital transformation process, this technological tool allows you to record all your interactions with your potential customers to process and analyze them. And that’s just one example of the many benefits a CRM can bring you!
In this article, find out what a CRM tool is and what its advantages are. See also the different types of CRM solutions available to you and learn more about our favorite: HubSpot’s CRM tool!
What is a CRM?
First, what is a CRM? The abbreviation stands for customer relationship management. This type of software aims to collect, analyze, manage, and anticipate the needs of your current and potential customers. With a CRM solution, you can adapt your offers and channels to reach more prospects and meet their expectations.
An effective CRM helps you design the right customer experience. The purpose of this software is to make your relationship marketing simpler and more structured while supporting your prospects at each stage of their buying journey. A good CRM can even provide an automation system for your social media and conversational tools like chatbots. In short, it is a key tool for the development of a powerful marketing strategy through a brand strategist!
4 Benefits You Can’t Do Without
As CRM tools are very complete, you will quickly discover that several features are more than practical. You won’t be able to do without all these advantages that will make your work easier!
1. Facilitate your customer relationship
CRM allows you to put the customer at the heart of your sales and marketing strategies via trade advertising. Thus, this software will help you better plan your actions, to maximize your chances of attracting, convincing, or retaining your ideal customers.
The structure offered by the CRM helps you to follow the evolution through the buying journey of your prospects. You’ll be able to provide a personalized experience when your customers connect with a member of your team.
For example, the CRM can easily tell you what phase of their buying process a prospect is in when requesting a quote from your website. In this way, you can adjust your approach and opt for a tailor-made action plan, which will prove to be more relevant for all your customers.
2. List all your channels
The centralization of information is one of the main advantages of CRMs. This way, you will get data from all your sales channels! Whether through your social media, your website, or your newsletter, the CRM collects information about your prospects and customers. This data will allow you to better understand your buyers, their issues, and their interests. No need to switch from one platform to another, everything is in the same place to facilitate your work!
3. Optimize your time and money
With your CRM solution, you will be able to operate to your full potential. Since CRMs manage sales targets, prospecting, contacts, quotes, forms, follow-ups, and more, you will be able to optimize your time and do other more complex tasks.
Obviously, all these tools require programming and can only work by magic. However, when your automation is launched, you will be happy not to waste time repeating daily tasks and you can spend more time on your strategic planning for example.
4. Work with concrete performance indicators
You know that some of your actions are working well, but you are not sure which ones? Would you like to be able to quantify your results more easily? This is one of the features that a CRM tool can offer you. It allows you, among other things, to measure your lead scoring.
This way, you can more easily link the results of your campaigns to your marketing objectives in the software. Each time a prospect performs an action that you establish as relevant in your process, you will be notified. This functionality of the CRM will allow you to optimize your time and your money in the most successful marketing actions. Convenient, isn’t it?
Types of CRMs
There are three types of CRM software: operational CRM, analytical CRM, and collaborative CRM. Let’s see the main differences between these three options.
Operational CRM
As its name suggests, this type of CRM aims to simplify your operations. So, it automates your processes, especially in sales, marketing strategy, and customer relations. Ultimately, the operational CRM is used to generate more prospects, while collecting a maximum of information that will be used to establish contact with them.
Operational CRM offers functionality for marketing, sales, and service automation. These branches of CRM make it possible to lighten the work of the teams by carrying out repetitive daily activities in their place.
Analytical CRM
For its part, the analytical CRM analyzes the data of your customers. It is this type of CRM that provides you with data to help you improve your processes and increase your efficiency. Its objective is to facilitate your decision-making by putting all the information at your disposal.
Analytical CRM also assesses consumer preferences, contact data, and other information collected both online and offline. This data helps to better meet the needs of prospects and better target them during marketing campaigns. The essential components of an analytical CRM are data warehousing, data mining, and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) tools.
Collaborative (or strategic) CRM
Collaborative CRM, also called marketing strategy CRM, facilitates the circulation of information between the members of your teams. Indeed, this type of CRM makes it possible to share customer data between sales, marketing, and customer service. It is mainly used to improve the customer experience. By the same token, it generates more loyalty.
There are two major components in collaborative CRMs: interaction management and channel management. Interaction management keeps track of emails, social media, meetings, calls, and more. It also allows you to keep notes about customers. Channel management, on the other hand, analyzes interactions to determine the best ways to engage with prospects. Stay updated on the tech news platform. You can set a google alert that you want to read.