
Customer relationship management (CRM) software has proven to be a reliable way for companies to maintain relationships with current clients and foster new ones with potential clients. The application is capable of analyzing past sales and trends, estimating the needs of clients, monitoring social media, automating processes, and keeping databases of client information for easy access.
While CRM applications assist in both retaining clients and seeking new ones, gaining new contacts to increase sales has always been a challenge and can be the more daunting task when the two are compared. It is estimated that the chances of making a sale to an existing client is 60-70% whereas it is approximately 5-10% for new clients.
Nonetheless, it can be done with CRM software, and below are methods that you can use in your application to get more business contacts.
1. Integrate email client
CRM software can be successfully integrated with your current email client meaning your address book from your inbox can be flawlessly transformed into a list of potential clients stored in the application. Email clients usually save all email addresses recorded on distribution lists of all emails you receive. These can easily become new contacts once transferred to the CRM application. As soon as your client list is generated based on your email client, you can then send personalized and automated messages to all recipients. It is estimated that personalized emails have the potential to deliver up to six times more transactions and this feature is readily available in CRM platforms.
2. Social media
The ability of CRM software to effectively monitor social media provides the opportunity to generate new leads. When someone mentions the company the user is alerted through the software and can then respond in a timely manner and attempt to obtain contact information to add to a list of potential clients. The software allows for the monitoring of the most popular platforms and puts relevant information into one feed. The user can also set perimeters around what goes into the feed to ensure no interaction, and consequently an opportunity to obtain a new contact, is missed.
3. Use your data
CRM software is especially useful in collecting data and portraying it based on factors specified by the user. The application is capable of accurately showing patterns, behaviours, and trends and can also provide a profile of the “ideal client” who can potentially increase sales. The user can then search for future clients based on this profile and build a target audience. By analyzing your data, you can see what aspect of your campaign is generating the most business and concentrate more efforts in this area. Even if your contact list is not lengthy, you can use all of the data that you have on existing clients to find new ones as potential clients will probably share many characteristics of ones you already have.
4. Track website visitors
Your website is an effective way to give visitors information about the company, but did you know that it is a great way to obtain information about potential clients as well? Having a contact form and landing page on your website will allow the visitor to provide their information so you can contact them at a later date. The great thing about this is you do not have to be a skilled web designer either. The CRM software has a feature where you can customize a contact form of landing page tailored exactly to your needs. The application also has an analytics feature that allows the user to see such details as where the visitor is located, how many pages they visited, time spent on the page. This information can then be used to compose a profile of a client to concentrate efforts on.