Our Director of Marketing, Lindsay Bittinger, recently went to a CMO discussion panel. After a general marketing talk, someone from the audience asked a fantastic question, “If you had an unlimited marketing budget for 2015, where would you allocate the majority of your funds?” The five panelists answered one by one and they all had the same response – “CRM!”
Customer relationship management (CRM) is not a new concept, but technology has made it easier for this marketing technique to be efficiently scaled. Now it is simple for even the smallest of companies to manage customer interactions. The uses for CRM systems are limitless, tracking customer service, stimulating repeat business, evaluating warranties, cross-selling, selling, up-selling, lead nurturing, logistical tracking, contact management, identifying top revenue-producing customers, forecasting, analyzing customer service satisfaction, synchronizing marketing messages, the list could go on and on.
Why is CRM a Top Priority?
It improves efficiency! By knowing more information about your prospective and current customers, you can make the best use of your resources.
For example, if your CRM system tracks previous orders and your product or service is one that must be reordered or renewed, you can automate a fulfillment request to obtain a scheduled sale. This will also help you forecast necessary inventory and plan for staffing accordingly.
Another example would be recognizing website traffic patterns and adapting pages based on those findings. If users are not converting to a sale on your main sales page and instead go through a 3-4 page process to educate themselves prior to becoming a customer, you may want to adapt your checkout page or behavior-based email series to include more information about your product or service to reduce conversion time.
Today, there are currently many CRM systems available. Some offer companies a way to simply put useful information in the flood, while others offer an integrated tool that merges data centers together into a clean and organized system. When working to create a CRM system, it is imperative that you, the company, are aware of the information that is important and understand how analyzing that information will help to forecast, allocate resources, cue marketing messages, etc.
INO.com has built an extensive CRM database that assists all departments in carrying out their job functions in an effective manner. This is no cookie-cutter system. It has been custom-built by INO.com co-owner and Technical Director, Dave Maher. Dave is very proud of this system as it has allowed INO to be extremely efficient, very granular in analysis, and far more profitable.
Dave recognizes that each company is unique and their goals and priorities can’t simply be selected by checking the box of a one-size-fits-all CRM system. CRM systems must be built from the ground up through ongoing communication between the programmer and key players of the customer service, sales, and marketing teams.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in a CRM system analysis. For almost 30 years, INO.com has been collecting, organizing, and profiting with the help of our CRM system and we are happy to chat with you more about how to improve and streamline your CRM tools.
If you have any questions, please leave them as a comment and we will be sure to answer you.
Bob Fladung
Director of Advertising
INO.com, Inc.