Although the word Marketing encompasses a wide range of topics, not a single company can be successful without it. Marketing contains several of the different P’s commonly discussed, but when comes the time to select an app which can help with a few of these P’s, it is important to select a holistic solution. The four original P’s are Product, Price, Promotion, and Place. When setting up operations and finances, Product, Price, and Place (distribution) were taken care of. This article will therefore focus on Promotion and other very important aspects of Marketing which include customer management.

On CRMs

Customer relations management tools, commonly known as CRMs, usually bring with them a wide variety of functions which allow seamless management of customers. CRMs are first a foremost a database of clients, active or not, and provide information on those clients. Company names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, and many other data points are usually contained within a CRM. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

A well-designed CRM will provide much more that the above. Customer mood identification is one of such functions. With recent development in AI, software can identify emotional mood from customer communications, compile it in the customer file, and give company employees valuable insight as to how a customer feels. This in turn enables them to adjust their approach, and be more successful in the tasks they need to accomplish. Other CRM tools may include lead pipelines, customer support tools, promotion tools, and many others.

Leads Acquisition and Management

Any business needs customers. But before customers become customers, they tend to start as leads. A respectable CRM will have a function to, at the very least, manage those leads. If the solution is well developed, it may also allow lead generation with different criteria. Once those leads become more serious (pre-qualified or qualified), they are pushed in either a lead pipeline. A lead pipeline will in turn provide a structured approach to the sales team to qualify and win the leads, converting them into customers.

Customer Support

Once customers have been converted and sales made, customer support is absolutely mandatory for customer satisfaction. However, any company which has a few customer-facing employees will need a central repository which tracks when clients call for support. A helpdesk ticketing system usually does the trick. When choosing a helpdesk app, it is important to consider automation and external connections. When a voicemail is received, a ticket should be created. When a support email is received, same thing. Semi-automated customer support is a very important consideration when choosing a customer management app.

Online Presence and Campaigns

In our day and age (which means the internet age), online presence is a must. Whether is a simple -website showing products and services or a complete e-commerce platform, have a website is absolutely necessary. The website capabilities should of course be determined by what is needed for a specific company, and they will in turn usually drive solution selection. For instance, a simple page can be built pretty quickly on WordPress, and possibly even integrated with WooCommerce. But when comes the time to integrate with an inventory management solution, sales and purchases, and then accounting, a complete ERP such as Odoo is strongly recommended.

The capability for promotional campaigns should also be considered. Some campaigns can be done manually on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, and some can be done via SMS’s or emails. In both cases, having the capability to manage them in central location increase efficiency and effectivity. Marketing automation, such as mass emails or newsletters, should also be considered when selecting a solution.

Market and Competitive Intelligence

They say knowledge is power. In business, this is quite true. Having information on your customers, suppliers, and competitors, can make a tremendous difference in the business’s success. But this information must be gathered and then rendered intelligible. Having a functionality within the selected software tool to compile market and competitive intelligence is recommended but not mandatory. Market and competitive intelligence can be gathered on third party websites or by other means, then compiled and analyzed manually. And since intel tends to be used for strategic decisions, it is not absolutely necessary to have it readily available.

Takeaway

CRMs, or customer relationship management tools, allow a company to improve visibility on its customer base and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. If well designed, this tool will also enable leads generation and management, customer support, online presence and campaign management, as well as market and competitive intelligence gathering and analysis. It is usually strongly recommended in every single digital integration project at Mondro, simple due to the tremendous value it brings to any business. Send us an email or give us a call to learn more about CRMs and Marketing!