CRM

Losing track of time has been one of the most disorienting aspects of the pandemic. In the early pandemic, losing track of days was common. “Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?” As the year has progressed — with no graduation ceremonies or summer vacations, cancelled sports seasons and muted holidays — the normal markers of time have been completely absent. To my daily life, the difference between March 24th and September 24th isn’t all that significant.   For client retention, that’s bad. Like forgetting-your-mom’s-birthday bad.   This year more than ever, […]

Consider the various ways you generate leads – inquiry forms on your website, webinar registrations, tradeshow events, outbound prospecting, etc. As diverse as the opportunities are for lead gen efforts, so too are the need states of the leads themselves.   Ideally, lead states should guide follow-up attempts. For example, someone at a tradeshow who’s interested in a product demo may be expecting a call soon, whereas someone who just attended a webinar is looking for nothing more than the educational opportunity you provided. How and when you follow up […]

If you’ve heard my position on CRM systems before, it should come as no surprise that I firmly believe marketers should have at least a 50% stake in every CRM system—and perhaps more so if you’re a B2B marketer. CRM systems are one of the most valuable repositories of data for marketers, and understanding how they work—as well as how they might work better—can help you refine your targeting strategy, improve your budget projections, prove out your ROI on marketing spend, and help you make marketing decisions based on data […]

You know the stereotype: in a number of organizations, Marketing is a cost center. It’s the department of pretty pictures and branding campaigns. The department where budget goes to disappear.   But marketers, we know that’s not true. We’re measuring, we’re influencing, and we’re driving in tons of opportunity. The problem isn’t that we’re a cost center; it’s that we’re not very good at telling our impact story.   The good news is we can beat the perception of Marketing as a cost center by better using our CRM systems—all […]

Every salesperson wants things right now, whether that’s quality leads, effective marketing materials, pricing or contract concessions. Whatever is needed to close more deals, reach their goals, earn more commission.   As marketers, we know that the problem is, not every prospect or client, even if showing initial interest, is on their same timetable. They may not have a big enough need to make a purchase right now. Or maybe they’re under contract, satisfied with their current vendor, other projects are taking priority, currently have no budget—or it’s simply taking them […]

There’s hidden revenue potential in your existing customer base, and you can upsell using CRM data to find it.   Welcome to the art of upselling techniques: upselling is a way of encouraging existing, happy customers to spend more with you. On average, anywhere between 70 to 95% of revenue generated at B2B companies in a given year comes from upsells and renewals. For ecommerce and B2C companies, there’s a 30% chance a customer will make a second purchase, and a 50% chance that customer will make a third purchase. […]

If you’re talking about a CRM system, love isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind. It’s not uncommon for CRM to be a source of conflict for sales and marketing teams, and I’ve heard members of both teams question why we spend so much time worrying about our CRM systems.   In an ideal world, Marketing deserves at least a 50% stake in every organization’s CRM system. It’s our source of truth—it’s where everything we need to create a custom experience for our prospects lives. We deserve a […]