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CRM for Marketing and Sales: boost your results

In an increasingly competitive and growing market, it is very important that your company’s marketing, sales and service teams can communicate properly with current prospects and customers.

For any CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system , the main objective is to allow an organization to understand the needs and behavior of customers, and thus be able to provide a better quality of service.

Additionally, it helps retain existing customers and capture new opportunities by building a strong relationship between the organization and its consumers. A CRM tool can analyze data and generate reports when needed.

There are mainly three types of CRM applications. But we will know all its benefits and the keys to implement a Marketing and Sales strategy below.

What types of CRM exist?

Operational CRM

Operational CRM streamlines business process including sales automation, marketing automation and service automation.

The main objective of this type of CRM is to generate leads, convert them into contacts, capture all the necessary details, and provide service throughout the entire customer life cycle.

Analytical CRM

Analytical CRM helps senior management, marketing, sales, and support staff determine the best way to serve customers. And data analysis is the main function of this type of CRM application.

Analyze customer data from multiple touchpoints to gain a better perspective on the current state of an organization. But it also helps senior management make better decisions, marketing executives understand the effectiveness of strategies, and supports sales staff to drive new business closings, shortening the buying cycle.

Collaborative CRM

Collaborative CRM, sometimes referred to as strategic CRM, allows an organization to share customer information across multiple business units, such as sales, marketing, customer service, technical support, and more.

For example, feedback from a customer service team might be useful for the marketing team to approach customers with specific products or services.

Different types of CRM applications have different features and benefits. So, before implementing the CRM system, it is very important for a company to decide the future goal and strategy.

Other benefits of a CRM tool for marketing and sales

We’ve already found that an automated CRM system allows you to focus on selling and keeping your customers happy at all times.

But there are other benefits too, like improving customer relationships, reducing churn, increasing sales and revenue, and automating communication and tasks.

Reduce manual data entry

A CRM reduces manual data entry tasks by automatically adding and updating customer records in the database. For example, when a potential customer visits your website, signs up for your email marketing mailing list, the information is automatically uploaded to your CRM platform.

Improve customer relationships

A CRM captures every interaction throughout the customer journey, to create a complete view of the customer. Using this information allows you to provide better customer service and communication between all departments.

Increase revenue

Insights from a CRM system for marketing and sales help us identify the most profitable customers and build stronger relationships with them.

This inside knowledge increases your sales revenue as your sales team identifies the needs of these customers and offers them new solutions turned into products or services.

What you should keep in mind when implementing a CRM

Each organization must draw up an implementation plan for the new system, in order not to create a decrease in the productivity of the company, and also ensure that the entire team that will use the tool obtains effective learning of its use and functions.

Here we will briefly detail certain steps that you must go through when implementing CRM software successfully.

1. Appoint a project leader

CRM implementations often fail because no one is in charge. It is important to designate an organized and digitally savvy person to be responsible for system setup, staff training, and implementation.

2. Customize the CRM to match your sales process

Depending on the system, your own team or supplier must configure the software to match your sales process, performance indicators and reporting needs.

3. Renew your data

Don’t upload outdated contact lists full of duplicate information ( delete or duplicate data in this video ). To avoid wasting time later, review your prospect lists to make sure the information is accurate and complete. You can also validate if the email exists or not with this free tool .

A good practice is to organize data about: name, contact information, last interaction with the sales department, etc. With these same contacts you can perform a test. It’s easier to make adjustments with a small sample of data than with your entire contact list.

4. Train your team

You can’t just install CRM and expect salespeople and marketers to adopt it without any support. They are likely to need training to develop a customer-focused digital transformation culture and reap the benefits.

It is not enough to put a short video. Your team may need a detailed explanation of the benefits of the system, hands-on training, and ongoing support as they resolve any queries that arise in the process.

5. Use the CRM to sell more in less time

Many salespeople use the CRM only to record activities and tasks, that is, they turn the CRM into a “log” or “diary” so that the Sales Director can control the productivity of the sales team.

This is not all bad, because in the end, what is not measured cannot be controlled, but sellers would only have a tool with vitamins to record activities, but not a powerful tool to close more sales in less time.

For that, your salespeople must build real relationships with customers and prospects. We leave you some recommendations that you can implement:

  1. Define el target market
  2. Identify your buyer person
  3. Define your value statement
  4. Define what is an MQL or qualified lead (FIT + Engagement + Quality)
  5. Understand the pain your buyers experience at every stage of their buying journey
  6. Align your sales process to the way people buy
  7. Develop “Playbooks” to identify, connect, explore and advise.

In this way, your sales team will be able to get the most out of the CRM and, therefore, the sales results will be very positive.

How to Choose a CRM Software 

The experience and trust that the provider transmits is one of the first reasons when choosing a new CRM system. But we have already seen that the functionalities and adaptation to the needs of the company are also fundamental factors when making the decision.

Before choosing a CRM software , you can plan a meeting with the marketing and sales team and together answer the following questions:

  • What is the monthly cost of the system?
  • Are your functions focused on our company?
  • Is there a user limit?
  • How long does the implementation process take and how much technical assistance does it include?
  • Can I easily train my sales team?
  • How easy is it to integrate or import the data with other solutions you already used?

Analyzing the answers to these questions will make it easier to determine which software best suits your business.

In our case, we use and recommend Hubspot . In addition to having a free version, it is a very complete suite that allows the integration of marketing, sales and service departments.

Success Stories: Talmundo

Talmundo is a company that provides software that facilitates the employee onboarding process, making it faster and easier.

Founded in 2012, it grew rapidly and developed an impressive list of enterprise-grade clients. However, by 2016, Talmundo realized that his marketing needed a more comprehensive Inbound approach to accelerate his success.

The tools they were using did not integrate well together, and it was difficult for them to collect accurate analytics. Their search for a solution led them to take an interest in HubSpot’s CRM software .

In the last 12 months, Talmundo has increased his website traffic by 252% and his new leads by 313%.

HubSpot CRM connects with HubSpot Marketing Hub, which enables better communication between marketing, sales, and service teams, so leads are more seamlessly transitioned to the right areas. Every interaction a prospect has had with the company is automatically recorded, making sales outreach more personalized and successful.

Conclusion

The main objective of sales automation is to establish and optimize standards within the organization to acquire new customers, deal with existing customers and increase sales.

While for the marketing team, their main goal is to find the best way to offer products and reach more potential customers.

In both cases, the automation of processes is the clear evolution of both areas that increasingly seem to be more unified.

We hope that all these characteristics and factors serve as a starting point and consideration when implementing new software. With the help of technologies that accompany each of the business objectives, the journey to achieve each of the goals will be much simpler and more motivating for your team.

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