In the 21st century, more and more consumers are looking to buy products and services online. This includes everything from the rise of ecommerce to the proliferation of SaaS companies looking to market their software to CMOs, CTOs, and other decisionmakers. As a result of this, companies need a software solution that can help keep up with the rise of digital-first communication, and leave things like direct mail and cold calling behind. Fortunately, a solution does exist to do this, and it is called a CRM.
But what is a CRM? Simply put, a CRM, or customer relationship management software, is used for automating the process of managing customers, thereby allowing you to optimize these relationships. A CRM can be used by many different departments, including marketing, sales, customer service, and finance. With a CRM your company will be able to collect prospect and customer information from all stages of the customer lifecycle. This can be helpful to segment customers into different stages of the customer journey so as to forecast patterns and trends in customer behavior.
With a CRM, you can also optimize your own processes. For example, if you segment your potential customer list, and serve them two different ads with two different lead magnets by a marketing team, you can then track the results in your CRM. Once the campaign is concluded, you can then see which segment of customers responded better to the lead magnet. You can then use this information to create better marketing campaigns.
Beyond this, the sales team can also get a lot of use out of a CRM. For one, a CRM allows sales teams to track all prospects, and even gain new ones from the marketing teams. Instead of cold calling, sales teams can now have all of the customer’s information right in front of them, which allows them to better qualify their sales leads.
In addition to this, a sales team can now directly utilize marketing qualified leads instead of just focusing on sales qualified leads. With a CRM, marketing qualified leads can be nurtured into sales qualified leads, and the sales team can watch this happen in real life in order to create better buy-in to the marketing process. This allows sales teams to have a better respect for marketing teams, and also allows them to work together to grow and qualify leads for eventual conversion into paying customers.
All in all, a CRM is a great tool for businesses to keep track of prospects, potential customers, and current customers. Companies can also use CRMs to create detailed visual reports about segmented customer groups, leading to better efforts with micro-targeting and sales outreach. Because of this, a CRM is considered one of the best software options for companies looking to become digital-first. So next time you ask the question ‘what is a CRM?’ know that is has the potential to totally transform your business and allow different departments to work toward a common goal; qualifying and selling leads on an extensive list of products and services.
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