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The Websiteness Take on CRM’s

Many hats are worn by marketing professionals. One of them is interacting with clients who have never worked with a Digital Marketing/SEO company or brand before.

 

A marketing department’s main duty is to provide companies with leads, and like a magician, marketers must occasionally conjure prospects and customers from unusual locations. But it can be done! CRM’s help to make this process streamlined by delivering leads in a manageable and easy to understand way for clients.

 

Today’s digital economy, on the other hand, is a lot more sophisticated than the old-style pipeline methods to potential future consumers. Marketing and sales operations now function much more effectively to attract visitors, develop leads, and finalize transactions thanks to CRM software. There are so many out there, and as a marketing company ourselves we have tried them all!

What is a CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRMs are systems that help companies manage interactions with current and potential customers.

Companies use CRMs to automate customer relationships! The software helps them track interactions, keep track of incoming leads, measure the impact of marketing campaigns, schedule follow-up activities, build trust with prospects, and close more deals faster.

 

CRM’s have existed for decades, but they are now more powerful than ever. Thanks to the latest innovations in cloud technology, big data analytics and mobile apps, they can give companies access to valuable information about their most important asset – their customers.

How do I use a CRM?

You may think of your CRM as an answer-machine that mainly does two things:

 

  1. Stores your contacts’ details and preferences, and tracks interactions with them over time
  2. Provides tools to help you close deals faster

 

While this is true, it misses out on plenty of functionality. For example, some CRMs will also allow you to:

 

  1. Build marketing lists automatically by importing contacts’ data
  2. Create personalized follow-up sequences that will help you close more deals faster
  3. Analyze the success of your marketing campaigns by measuring website traffic, sales conversions and ROI
  4. Integrate with payment gateways like Stripe or Paypal to finalize sales

 

But perhaps the best thing about CRMs is that they make it easier for you to work with your team. That means you can now automate routine tasks like campaign management, email follow-ups and closing/monitoring deals. This leaves your sales reps free to focus on what they do best – closing more.

Essential features & benefits of marketing CRMs

Some of the key features to look out for when choosing a CRM include:

 

    • Sales automation & workflow
    • Data collection & lead generation
    • Communication tools like email, chat and SMS
    • Integrations with other apps in your marketing stack like content management systems (WordPress etc.) and landing page builders (LeadPages etc.)
    • Web analytics
    • Customer support
    • Mobile apps
    • Security & compliance requirements & more..

Ads and SEO in Marketing CRM’s

Ads & SEO are two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, it is about generating leads that turn into customers.

 

But the biggest mistake marketers make is assuming that all they need to do is drive traffic to their website. And then once people get there, you hope for the best.

 

Well, it doesn’t work like that! You need to have an effective lead generation strategy in place before anything else can happen.

 

Some companies solve this by hiring content writers and email copywriters who will create valuable blog posts and newsletters on a regular basis which can be used as fodder for social media ads later on down the line. Others use SEO best practices to rank high on Google targeted keywords within their niche market – and can pull qualified leads from there.

 

But this is where the majority of marketers slip up again! They use a service like Facebook’s Power Editor or Adwords to run SEO-optimized ads that drive traffic to their website. And then they sit around hoping for the best. In other words, there’s virtually no follow-up whatsoever once people click on those pricey paid ads. Ultimately, you end up wasting money without getting any results for it.

 

In contrast, marketing CRMs will allow you to do a few things differently:

 

    • You can create landing pages tailored specifically towards the keywords you rank well for on Google – rather than defaulting to your home page
    • To track which keywords bring you leads, you can track this in your CRM and optimize accordingly
    • You can create automated email sequences that will help you better engage with your visitors on both a basis and on a mass scale. That way, there’s more of a chance that they’ll end up buying from you
    • Having all the data collected automatically allows you to get a much clearer picture of what works best for your audience – enabling you to be more effective about where and how to spend money when running ads or SEO campaigns next time around

Data capabilities of CRM’s

Nowadays, data is the lifeblood of marketing. CRMs add a lot of value by allowing you to track everything from prospects’ browsing patterns to what they tend to buy and when. That way, you can make more informed decisions about how to target your audience in the future.

 

Having a marketing CRM allows marketers to gather a wealth of information about their prospects and customers in a convenient central location that anyone on their team can access anytime from anywhere! If you haven’t been using any sort of CRM up until now then you really don’t know what you’re missing out on! In fact, 91%of businesses who use marketing CRM software say that it helps them generate more revenue.

Many CRM’s come with the added benefit of having a wealth of data on just about EVERYTHING that comes through the system!

CRM Workflows and automation

Finally, there are automated processes. These are activities that are set up in marketing CRM by events that you can control (and set up in the CRM Itself)

 

Say, for example, that you create a trigger when someone has visited your site but hasn’t responded to the call to action. A pre-composed email is automatically sent to the visitor as a reminder, perhaps even with an incentive on offer. Alternatively, if someone abandons their shopping midway through, a dejected photo of their abandoned goods can appear in real time in a live chat or in their inbox right away. Many CRM’s have these automation triggers that can be managed, viewed, and set up straight from a single dashboard.

So What are the best Marketing CRM’s?

Lead Snap

Benefits:

LeadSnap has all of the tools that your business needs in one place. They have done an excellent job of creating a unique and powerful system for marketers and lead generators. They feature some insanely powerful tools like prospecting, due diligence, custom workflows, GMB Monitoring, reputation management, data reporting and a built in phone system to boot!

 

Take advantage of API connections to google analytics, google ads, and google my business listings to hone your business

 

Avoid wasting time and money while growing your business through automation and AI. LeadSnap is The digital marketer’s one-stop shop.

 

Integrates with Zapier, WordPress, CallSling, and Twilio

Drawbacks:

This is a new software so many thing are being fixed, added and upgraded but the downtime is never long, and your price will not go up.

Pricing:

  • Starter plan is $39/month, billed annually you pay $390.
  • Pro plan is $97/per month, billed annually you pay $970.
  • Agency plan is $197 /per month, billed annually you pay $1970.
  • Enterprise plan is $297/per month, billed annually you pay $2970.

 

A 14-day free trial is available for all plans. and a no obligation demo can be scheduled at your convenience!

Intercom

Benefits:

Intercom is a cloud-based customer communication platform that helps businesses communicate with their customers in new and innovative ways. It’s the world’s first real-time, location-based instant messaging solution for all things sales: generating leads, monitoring client interactions, and managing customer support. Their objective is to help marketers at every stage of the sales funnel by providing account-based marketing throughout the entire sales funnel from onboarding through conversion.

 

The system allows you to find out when target accounts show up on your website and direct them to your sales team right away. To get your messaging correct, track key performance indicators and the median time it takes to finalize transactions.

Intercom works with a plethora of CRMs and digital tools to make the most of your customer data, as well as integrate marketing activities with the sales process.

Drawbacks:

Customer support is prompt, but there’s no export option. Customer service is competent, though resolution and response time might be lengthy.

Pricing:

  • Essential plan starts at $87 per month (includes 2 users, additional seats are $19 per user/per month), billed monthly.
  • Pro plan starts at $153 per month (includes 2 users, additional seats are $39 per user/per month), billed monthly
  • Premium plan is priced in consultation with Intercom.

 

A 14-day free trial is available for all plans. Early-stage startups can apply to receive all Intercom products for only $49 per month. Essential and Pro plans incur additional costs for adding more than 200 ‘active people’ (i.e. leads and customers who have received, sent a message, or logged into your product in the last 90 days).

HubSpot

Benefits:

HubSpot was at the forefront of the inbound marketing revolution, which is attracting people to your brand with excellent content rather than pushing products onto them to obtain money. Their inbound marketing software is well-developed, with landing pages, email, social media, analytics, marketed automation, lead management, and more included.

 

HubSpot also focuses on content marketing through blogs, which is a major source of original material that leads to appointments. The product includes resources for creating conversion-optimized and search-optimized content with a uniform look.

HubSpot, like many other marketing CRM systems, offers codeless page and email builders with A/B testing modules and on-the-fly SEO suggestions. The basic platform is entirely free, or you may pay for up to four times as many features.

Drawbacks:

There aren’t many customization alternatives withHubSpot. If you’re looking for more relationship-based marketing, its focus on marketing automation and contact records might be limiting.

Pricing:

  • HubSpot CRM is free, and the number of users is unlimited.
  • Marketing Hub add-on package is $50 per user/per month, billed monthly.
  • HubSpot CMS starts at $300 per month, billed monthly.
  • All-inclusive Starter Growth Suite starts at $113 per user/per month, billed monthly.

Zendesk Connect

Benefits:

In 2017, Zendesk bought the technical marketing tool Outbound.io, which it rebranded as Zendesk Connect. Zendesk Connect is part of the larger Zendesk product family, which emphasizes customer interaction and satisfaction.

Zendesk Connect is a tool that allows you to provide special offers and notifications based on your users’ prior preferences and actions over time. Create segments of customers, initiate campaigns in-app, and increase product/service add-on engagement and activation.

Drawbacks:

Zendesk built its brand on customer service, not marketing. This is clear in how Zendesk Connect has been refocused from its Outbound.io origins as a marketing-heavy platform. In other words, if you’re attempting to conduct major traditional advertising campaigns, you may find them ineffective.

Pricing:

  • 2,000 monthly messaged users is $153 per company/per month, billed annually.
  • 50,000 monthly messaged users is $918 per company/per month, billed annually.
  • 500,000 monthly messaged users is $3,094 per company/per month, billed annually.
  • Pricing is on a sliding scale according to a number of monthly messaged users.

Creatio (formerly BPM’Online Marketing)

Benefits:

Creatio, like other software reviewed here, does more than marketing, but its main aim is still to gather, prepare, and qualify leads in the marketing stage of the client encounter before transferring them to sales.

 

With a simple visual designer tool, Creation helps plan and execute marketing campaigns. You may also create triggers for people who respond to a certain call to action, such as clicking on a CTA. There’s also real-time monitoring and evaluation of each campaign’s effectiveness.

Their email marketing, like their marketing campaigns, benefits from a built-in visual WYSIWYG (that’s “what you see is what you get”) bulk mail builder that also comes pre-loaded with ready-to-use templates. Apart from that, Creatio provides A/B split testing and click-stat tools for assessing the most popular emails, which are fed into their overall analytics.

Drawbacks:

Businesses can use the system, which is visually unappealing. The interface could use a makeover. Customization of the platform might be time-consuming, and there is a little learning curve involved. Enterprise clients have significant pricing advantages over individuals.

Pricing:

Pricing is on a sliding scale according to the number of users and the number of active contacts. The cheapest annual subscription costs $2,822 per user/per year (limited to 10,000 active contacts).

Keap (previously Infusionsoft)

Benefits:

Keap is a complete CRM with email marketing, digital marketing for small businesses, contact management, and sales pipeline. It’s geared toward individuals who run their own business or work as an independent consultant.

The Keap CRM has a marketing campaign builder that makes it simple to create trigger-based email sequences and build a leads database while also allowing you to aggregate contact information from various CRMs, business cards, spreadsheets, and custom forms on your website.

Drawbacks:

Keap comes with a lot of features that you may or may not use, and there are only a few integrations to connect it to. It’s rather pricey (and steep price gap between Grow and Pro plans) for some small businesses.

Pricing:

  • Grow plan is $49 per user/per month, billed monthly.
  • Pro plan is $149 per user/per month, billed monthly.
  • Infusionsoft plan is $199 per user/per month, billed monthly.
  • A free trial is available for the Grow and Pro plans.

Nutshell

Benefits:

Nutshell is a complete CRM solution with sales force automation and marketing tools. Create and access customer history conversations for the appropriate communication at the right time, integrate lead forms to turn website visitors into contacts with names/email and other contact information, segment leads and customers in sophisticated ways (including industry, lifetime value, and location).

You may also use the platform to automate email lead nurturing to save time on organizing email lists and sending follow-ups. The system is linked with Mailchimp for improved drip campaigns, as well as sales automation and engagement software Reply for capturing additional leads.

Drawbacks:

Duplicate leads may be generated when you import data, so if you don’t spot duplicates straight away, the data might get complicated. There are only a few integrations and automation functions aren’t quite sophisticated yet.

Pricing:

  • Starter plan is $19 per user/per month billed annually, and $22 per user/per month billed monthly.
  • Pro plan is $35 per user/per month billed annually, and $39 per user/per month billed monthly.
  • A 14-day free trial (with full, Pro-level features) is available.

 

Here are some general recommendations for SMBs looking for a marketing CRM—before choosing a vendor, weigh these three criteria: cost (particularly price hikes between different plans as you increase), simplicity of use (a larger learning curve will lead to more time/money spent on training rather than marketing), and what connections it offers (e.g., if it works with software you already use).

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