The Importance of CRM For Your Business

Importance of CRM for your business

Customer Relationship Management is one of the most efficient ways for you to obtain a positive return on investment from your marketing efforts. Meaning the importance of CRM for your business should not be ignored. Retaining and optimizing your current database is easier and more cost effective than the acquisition of new customers.

Research has found that the probability of selling to a new prospect is five to twenty percent. Respectively, the prospect of selling to an existing customer is sixty to seventy percent. A solid CRM strategy will give you the opportunity to upsell, cross sell and reactivate your current database as well as providing your customers with an unparalleled customer service experience both before and after the sale.

Understanding Your Customers

CRM helps businesses learn about their customers in order to achieve a profitable and mutually beneficial working relationship. It gives companies the ability to track customer journeys and life cycles, as well as learning about who their customers are and what makes them tick. It can give you an insight as to the demographics of a profitable customer for your business, which in turn can be used not just for the retention of your existing customers, but also to identify new customers for acquisition.

Analysis into the life cycle of a customer can provide you with valuable information that can be used to identify weak areas in your conversions, as well as knowledge such as when a customer is likely to lapse, giving you the opportunity to take preventative steps.

As an example, take Amazon’s communication every time you leave something in your basket but don’t check out. They will know exactly how long to leave it before nudging their customer and encouraging them to take action. They will also have information pertaining to the best medium for that communication as well as what time of day to send it.

Having a record of conversations, purchases and marketing materials is of benefit to any sized company in order to anticipate customers’ needs and send out targeted promotions and communications.

Improving Communications

A CRM strategy helps businesses manage their data so that they can communicate with their customers on a personal level. Improved communication directly impacts the level of interaction that you will subsequently get from your customers. CRM is useful in identifying the method of communication that is best on a personal level, including emails, phone calls, voicemail, in person meetings, social media, mail, and various other marketing materials.

CRM is also invaluable for information on which promotions your customers like to see. Which in turn helps you build a mutually beneficial relationship where you can anticipate their needs before they do.

Building Loyalty

Using a CRM for your business will assist you in building personal relationships with your customers. Customer retention is one of the most profitable marketing strategies that you will implement. Building the loyalty of profitable customers is paramount to that strategy. Profiling your customers helps you to make them feel valued and happy to advocate your brand to other potential customers.

Increasing Profits

A successful CRM campaign will result in increased profit for all businesses. From large corporations to small businesses and even freelancers. The analysis of your current data can provide you with insights that can lead to higher conversion rates.  Customer profiles and historical purchasing patterns can also provide businesses with information. This can increase revenue in the form of cross selling and add-on sales.

Data mining and pattern recognition works well in industries with a lot of competition. A five percent reduction in your customer defection rate can increase profits by twenty-five to eighty five percent.

In short, using a CRM for your business can boost the performance of any sales team. While also maximizing the profitability of your current database.

About April Heavens- Woodcock

Author: April Heavens–Woodcock , is the Chief Buzz Officer Touching Clients a Digital Marketing Firm that specializes in strategic online marketing development for businesses. She is passionate about helping businesses grow their bottom line with effective tools. She speaks regularly on social media, email marketing, and marketing around the East Coast.