How can I find more clients? Are CRM and Marketing Automation any useful for it?
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Business survival (and eventually thrive) is very much about creating and enhancing an effective opportunities’ stream. How does CRM and MA help it?What is the essential question that keeps awake (almost) any entrepreneur who strives to grow the business and make it viable ?I need more clients. What should I do?
The digital revolution has probably deeply confused some while others find a gold mine. The possibilities unleashed by digital marketing have probably created a less intuitive framework for many, especially less techy people. Entrepreneurs are not all in tech, even if the majority of startups are, many people still have yet to get how “marketing” works in the digital era.
The good news is that nothing has changed.?
The bad news is that everything has changed.
Whether you are a new entrepreneur or you have been around for a while but not really into IT, you probably wonder what exactly they mean when they talk about creating a lead generation funnel. Not to mention lead nurturing if you want to be sure ponds are stocked with plenty of fish.
On top of that, you must have a CRM.
Don’t worry, people love to change names to things to make them cool, but if you analyse those jargon’s idioms in detail you could discover that nothing has actually changed. Marketing has always been the same.
If you are interested in the topic we will go into more tech details now, but don’t worry it will be really simple and straight, please keep reading to discover the later Take-Away suggestion.
Let’s find out if CRM and Marketing Automation may help answer the million dollar question: how to find more clients!
A business uses communication to let people know it exists: the more people know about a restaurant, the more likely they will be to try it. Hence communication is the essence of business, something that was said during my University days that "Advertising is the soul of commerce". At that time, companies spent most of their marketing budgets on billboards, newspapers, radio and TV commercials, sport events, and paper. It was a paper-based world. In the days before Google maps, shops, restaurants and hotels needed to be found, so how did they do it?
Pic: fototeca Gilardi
There were the city's maps: sort of a tabloid with sections of the city road map on each page, where companies were advertising right there on the page explaining exactly what they offered.
It doesn't seem like much has changed, did it?
Let people know about you. In essence, this is what makes a business work. Getting more clients involves the same old story no matter how you want to phrase it:
Making people aware that you exist is all you need!
But is it really that simple? Nah, it's way more complicated than that!
Digital revolution has opened possibilities to reach people in a different way and in a more precise and segmented manner. There was no way to target audiences with billboards or newspaper advertisements accurately. At least, the City's Maps targeted users searching for something nearby. But the precision with which social media targets audiences was unprecedented. Back then, even laser-focused Search Engines and Google Adwords weren't available.
It is the methodology, not the logic, that has changed.
Whether your business model is B-to-B or B-to-C, or even B-to-B-to-C, the logic behind scaling market relationships remains the same: it's all about communicating appropriately according to the relationships' stages involving your potential and existing customers:
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However, it is less obvious how digital tools like CRM and Marketing Automation can be used to increase productivity.
To begin, let's clarify how almost everyone has a CRM system in place. Whether you use a fantastic digital platform or just a piece of paper with a pencil, you have your own way to stay in touch with your clients and nurture the relationship. You are nurturing those relationships. You might overlook the efficiency of a digital tool that accelerates your productivity.
First takeaway: You don't need a CRM. What you need is a digital tool that will enhance your CRM logic: how you wish to stay in contact with your audiences and nurture those relationships more efficiently and effectively (due to the fast pace of today's world).
A modern CRM digital tool allows you, for example, to segment the entire audience of your contacts. You can propose a proper communication to the audiences based on the current stage they are at.
There are different messages that work better at different stages of a relationship. A digital CRM would enable you to automate dynamic segmentation and to change the message presented when a client enters a new stage.
By doing this, the CRM can enhance the advantage of the Marketing Automation feature. Gathering data and creating segmentation are the core of the CRM, but delivering the content and messages is the real challenge, and a marketing automation tool can help.
For entrepreneurs to reap the benefits of new engagements with potential clients, they must master the know-how that governs the whole endeavor. This knowledge covers three specific areas of knowledge:
By mastering these topics, an entrepreneur is better able to behave and communicate effectively: gain credibility and enhance reputation.
There has to be a paradigm shift in what and how we communicate:
To:
The essence of marketing was described in a few words, but even if that seems so simple, there are many books, studies, tests and failures behind the real understanding of that concept. Sometimes, web-literature just makes things simple: "You must spend on lead generation...".
However, if you cannot master the process, please don't go out and find new clients. Trying without the necessary knowledge risks wasting your precious time.
You may also do so. Try it out and see what happens. If you face failure and develop new strategies, it's possible to succeed, but you must remember what you will learn during the process; the above topics will make your marketing more effective.
Second Takeaway: You can do it manually without a digital CRM tool or a Marketing Automation tool. No matter how many prospects and clients you get, as long as you're happy, that's fine.?
It's more likely that you will need to change your system if you need to increase your revenue, increase your clientele, and make your company sustainable.?