Small business does not always equate that problems come in small, too. 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.
In order to survive, you should be able to do more with less. And in order to fill that gap, small businesses are turning to software to manage people, resources and targets. When utilised, these systems can more than double returns without the need for any additional man power.
One excellent free resource small or new start-up businesses can make use of is Small business CRM. Jam-packed with automated marketing functionality, Small business CRM helps you improve efficiency with business processes by generating, converting and nurturing 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 boast of advanced reporting and tracking which helps you determine which marketing activities are profitable so you can allocate your limited marketing resources properly
1.Generating, converting and nurturing your leads
Either your prospect buys from you or your competitors. And if they do, they will not do it right away. A prospective buyer will normally start looking for information and solutions long before they take the plunge. Buyers are inclined to research available solutions to their problem thoroughly before making a decision especially with the internet readily available. Impeccable timing is therefore crucial in this stage. Making yourself visible in the decision-making stage is important. Through the use of free information, guides, reports, eBooks, consultations and other aides you can offer information about your product and service in a non-threatening way. By doing so, you will increase your chances of winning their trust and ultimately their business.
Through the automated processes of Small business CRM, you can convert leads by “staying in contact” and influence purchasing power 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 . Use auto- responders to set off marketing campaigns based on certain lead actions. 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 .
Client nurturing comes in when you’re won their trust and their business. One way to nurture clients is through after-sales campaigns.Automated campaigns can be used to improve your current customer’s satisfaction by touching base with every one of them and making sure they are happy. For example, you can send out satisfaction surveys to your new customers after two months or send out monthly product tips for the carpet they bought from you— all in an automated fashion.Sending them informative articles that will help them address issues that are not far from happening that are relevant to carpet care, such as how to remove stains, stain-removal agents and etc.If you want future up-selling and cross-selling opportunities, taking extra care of your existing customers will make a huge difference for future up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.One way to win customer loyalty and have the opportunity to win your client’s connections is to be a good resource for valuable information.
2.Cut down time while maintaining efficiency
Limited manpower resources is always an obstacle to efficiency.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. Such as automated task alerts which help you cut down time, manage priorities and ensure that no essential sales activities are missed.
As an owner or supervisor in small business, you can take things a step further . Delegating tasks to yourteam members from a central system and monitor the completion of those tasks from your CRM dashboard can be done with a few Small business CRM. So you can assign the management of a client and all associated tasks to a team member with a click of a button instead of manually delegating and communicating tasks. This will guarantee that no crucial appointments, call or deadlines are missed because these assignments are populated into your staff members’ calendar and set to alert 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 information is shared.
You also have the opportunity to make your client contact more targeted with Small Business CRM. With a CRM system your team can execute laser-targeted campaigns in minutes. You can also give your customers a very personal feel by being creative enough to get to know your client database. In essence, Small business CRM is perfect for campaign automation such as planning follow-ups ahead of time and execute them when needed.
3.Maximize sales productivity
Marketing campaigns can be very expensive, so in order to better manage limited resources, you must ensure that sales agents focus on qualified leads that are ready to buy.Small Business CRM is one great tool to help you filter hot from cold leads to avoid draining your resources and miss out on the good ones.
Small business CRM enables you to schedule automated follow-up campaigns on leads that are sorted and filtered. Once these high potential leads are identified, implementing an automated follow-up campaign such as simple “thank you for attending” email to all participants now sets the mood signaling your leads that you are available for their purhasing 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
When you have a limited marketing budget you need to spend it wisely. Knowing where and how to allocate your money for sales and marketing is one of the key challenges for small to medium-sized businesses. And with different marketing media like blogs, email, print, social media, measuring your marketing initiatives may be a hard to consolidate as each operates in 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 allows you to focus sales and marketing efforts on qualified leads based on market trends. Gauging customer readiness can be based on activities such as product inquiries either by phone or email, pricing inquiries, web visits, size of his organisation, revenue. etc
Another key feature of your Small Business CRM can offer is integrated reporting. This functionality gives graphical reports on how you are progressing in the last quarter, for example, or which campaigns are effective, which clients type rakes in 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 the giant wave that will take you to the greater heights of your business. So no matter how small or new your business may be, 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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