Month: August 2021

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using A CRM

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Looking after your customers is key to the success of any business. In today’s era of ever evolving technology we now have tools to help us do this in an efficient and user friendly manner without the use of client record cards, manual diaries, Excel spreadsheets or just your memory! Customer Relationship Management databases (CRM’s) have been around for some time and provide a number of benefits to any growing business.

Customer Engagement – CRM’s track and manage all interactions with prospects and customers  and flag opportunities that might require additional nurturing or follow-up. You can even link your email account to your CRM so you will have real time data as to when your customer or prospect was last contacted.

Customer Segmentation – CRMs allow you to sort contacts by the data that you’ve collected about them. You can filter by location, company size, or deal stage. This allows you to target specific customer sets and increase conversion rates.

Efficient Communication – CRMs offer a selection of customisable, ready-to-use email templates, proposals, quotes, invitations, newsletters, marketing campaigns etc. and allows you to easily select the customers you want to send them to and the email address you want them sent from. For marketing campaigns or communications with any large groups of customers, the CRM will also provide you with delivery and engagement metrics allowing you to see how many customers unsubscribed, opened the email, clicked any links in the content, were bounced back etc.

Automated Reports – CRM’s allow you to generate automatic reports to maximise your time and assist you in making strategic business decisions. You can create your own suite of reporting such as conversion rates, sales forecasting, customer contact, source of leads, and goal progress reports to name but a few. 

GDPR Compliance – CRMs can obtain and document your contacts’ permission to store and use their personal details, send automatic notifications to all new contacts informing that you would like to store their data, and manage your customers’ subscription to email communication preferences. This will ensure you are compliant with GDPR requirements.

If you think a CRM would benefit your business, there are a number of systems out there to choose from and we’d be very happy to chat through our experience and ideas with you. Just get in touch! 

E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com   T: 01903 688789

Size Doesn’t Matter – It’s What You Do With It That Counts!

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That’s right, you guessed it! We’re talking about a Social Media account …

When it comes to social media we are often asked ‘Why don’t I have more followers/ likes?’. 

There are plenty of things to consider (check out our Digital Marketing blogs for lots of organic strategies on how to grow your social media presence: https://momentumbusinesssupport.com/category/digital-marketing/).  

But for now, I want to focus on WHY you want ‘more’ followers. Why do you want your account to appear bigger than it is?

True, the more people that follow your accounts the better it could appear, the higher your reach per post might be and it will probably make you feel better about the time and effort you’re putting in. Realistically though, why is your business even on social media?

If it’s just about having as many people or companies as possible following you, I’m going to be blunt and suggest in that case you’re wasting good time that should be spent elsewhere on your business.

If however, you’re utilising these valuable marketing tools to increase your exposure, uplift your SEO, provide a portal for prospects and customers to interact with you and ultimately generate new business, then the question I pose back is ‘Does size really matter?’.

Conducting a social media account in a way that positively represents your brand, your values and your products or services is much more important than sharing funny cat videos (unless of course you’re in the business of funny cats!). The cute animal pictures or the on-trend humour memes or the afore-mentioned ‘funny cat videos’ may all gain a certain level of reach or interaction and will endear a certain audience to your content, but what is it all achieving? Unless those posts are part of an overall marketing strategy culminating in reaching your ideal target audience, your time and effort is wasted.

I know it feels good to have a large number of followers, but the aim of the game when it comes to using these free marketing tools, is to win more business. Isn’t that why you do all your other marketing? So why treat social media any different?

If you made 100 prospecting calls and gained 10 leads, you’d be thrilled! But if you had 10 followers and not 100, you’d be disappointed. What I’m trying to say is, if you focus more on quality and not quantity, you will find that even if you only have a perceived ‘small’ number of followers, they will become advocates, influencers and even customers. So size really doesn’t matter – it’s all about how you’re using your social media marketing that counts!

If you’d like to chat through your next social media marketing strategy, please get in touch, we’re always happy to provide free advice: makeithappen.. E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com T: 01903 688789