Building a Marketing Strategy Around Your CRM Platform

You're the owner of a small business -- why do you need a customer relationship management (CRM) tool?

Isn't that a fancy software big-name companies use?

Besides, you like the old-fashioned way of mom-and-pop shop owners who remember the names and birthdays of their regular customers.

But even if that's the case, what about your other customers? And do you have the emails and phone numbers of your top patrons?

Having a way to collect data and build relationships with all of your customers is essential to running a successful business today.

Let's take a look at how a CRM platform can help in this area.

Benefits of Using a CRM Platform in Small Businesses

Today's consumers are looking for experiences with the businesses they shop with. And they're willing to pay more just to get it.

Roughly 73% of consumers say a good experience is vital to influencing their loyalty to brands. And brands confirm this -- those with superior customer experiences (CX) are seeing 5.7x more revenue.

So how do you offer a better customer experience without technology?

It's challenging to pull this off when you don't know who you're serving. With a CRM, you're storing all sorts of data about your customers.

This includes information like:

• Name and age
• Address
• Email
• Purchase history
• Engagement with your business

Using this information, you can create personalized experiences for your customers. This includes sending special promotions on their birthday or for a product they've purchased in the past.

Knowing past interactions with your business will also aid in improving your customer support efforts.

In turn, this will help to boost your customer satisfaction rates (and your sales). If you already have a Google My Business listing, you can capture their delight by get reviews.

This will further help to grow your small business as new customers find the reviews and decide to shop with you.

So now that you understand the relevance of a CRM platform -- let's look into how you can use one to improve your customer experiences strategically.

How to Build a Strategy Around Your CRM Platform

Before you implement a CRM platform, you'll need to figure out what your goals are. Are you looking to improve your customer service? Provide your marketers with insights to enhance their content?

Or maybe you want grow your email campaign and deliver personalized promotions.

Whatever your goals are, you'll need to set them in advance so you can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Next, you'll need to identify who your customer are. Developing personas for your top customers can help you to consistently create great experiences and content that match their unique needs.

You can learn more about your customers by interviewing your sales and customer service teams or handing out digital surveys to customers.

You'll then need to understand the buyer's journey. Map all of the interactions customers have with your business. For instance, it may look something like this:

• Search on Google
• Browse website
• Read a few blog posts
• Sign up to your email newsletter
• Talk to rep on chat or social media
• Visits local store to make a purchase

To learn your customer's journey, you'll have to analyze the touchpoints customers have (which a CRM can help with).

Last, you need to identify the KPI (key performance indicators) for your sales, marketing, and customer service teams (if you have them). Let's say, for example, your customer service people will keep an eye on customer satisfaction and churn rates.

Then your marketers will look at traffic and engagement. And, of course, your salespeople will monitor conversions (a.k.a., sales).

What Should You Look for in a CRM Platform?

Now that you know the proper steps for building your CRM platform strategy, it's time to learn what to look for in a tool.

You don't want to end up purchasing a CRM plan that comes with more features than you actually need. As a small business owner, there are several things you want to look for:

• Simple dashboard for you and your team to operate
• Syncs with your current technologies to gather customer data
• Collects historical data and allows you to insert notes
• Enables you to create different groups/segments for customers
• Engagement tools, like messaging and booking capabilities

With these features, you should be able to gather intel, plan, and execute a strategy that'll improve customer experiences (in-store and online).

Putting Your CRM Platform Strategy to Work

Alright, so now you have the actions you need to take to plan your CX strategy. Next, you need to find the right CRM platform to integrate into your small business.

GoSite offers a Contact Hub that empowers small business owners to enhance their customer engagements.

If you'd like to learn more, then we invite you to download our free guide on growing your business with a CRM!