A CRM can make a huge difference in the sales process. Now that you know how to best use your CRM when prospecting and qualifying leads, it’s time to home in on using it for nurturing leads and converting them into actual customers.
Your CRM can help you with nurturing your leads and converting them into actual customers, but, as always, it’s best to employ these best practices.
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is a critical process in sales, but it can be challenging. Not all prospects are ready to purchase at the first touch point and would need nurturing. In fact, only 3% are motivated to buy; 7% are interested; 30% are undecided; 30% think they are not interested, and 30% won’t buy.
• Set up a smart sales cadence
On your CRM, set up a thoughtful, smart sales cadence. A sales cadence is an integral part of lead nurturing. It is a timeline or sequence of sales activities, involving different touch points (email, phone call / voicemail, and social media), that sales professionals follow to engage and, hopefully, convert a lead.
Your sales cadence should be timed properly. Timing is a trial-and-error process in sales. Try different times and days and see which ones generate more response. Also make sure to use multiple channels and touch points to reach them.
• Personalize using CRM customer data
Everything—profile, data, and activities generated by and for the prospect—is recorded in your CRM. And you can use the customer data found in your CRM to get to really know your prospect. The more you know the prospect, the more you can personalize all communications with him/her—from your sales and follow-up calls to the emails you send. Personalization is maintaining relevance in all correspondence and this is key in lead nurturing and conversion. A lack of relevance can lead to a lack of engagement.
• Automate
You can automate your lead nurturing process through your CRM. Automated lead nurturing allows you to send relevant, personalized content to your prospect through automated email workflows. It does this by tracking your prospect’s behavior and engagement with your website, social media, and other content touch points. It then determines where he is in the buyer’s journey or sales funnel. Your prospect then receives the content most relevant to him, when it’s most relevant to him. And because it’s automated, the whole process is organized and efficient.
To automate your lead nurturing, you need to qualify or score your leads first, and segment them too—tasks that you can also do on your CRM.
• Set up tasks and reminders
Sales reps have a ton of tasks and a CRM can help keep them organized. Set up daily, weekly, and monthly tasks on your CRM. Create workflows for personal and team use. Then set up reminders for these tasks to make sure you don’t forget any important call, email, meeting, or follow-up. You can also set up deadlines so you can manage all your tasks within a specific timeframe.
• Do split tests
A/B testing allows you to identify which practice, which campaign, which email, etc. works better. You need to know this when trying to nurture leads. You can do split testing right on your CRM and gather and analyze the reports after.
Lead Conversion
Converting leads into a customer, client, or account requires tactical knowledge and strategic moves—all of which you can supervise and monitor using the CRM. Sales managers are especially in need of a CRM: they need to track their reps’ performance and make sure that the pipeline is healthy and thriving.
• Set up structured workflows
Create custom workflows that are aligned with your business model and goals. This allows you to keep track of all activities and not miss out on any opportunity. You can even set up automatic triggers for your workflows. Having structured workflows makes certain that the sales process runs smoothly and that leads are moving towards conversion.
• Perform a sales funnel analysis
It is very important to set up reporting for each stage of your sales funnel so you can maintain efficiency. Fix bottlenecks, identify best prospects, address churn rates, and always maintain pipeline visibility with a sales funnel analysis.
• Set sales metrics and generate reports
If you haven’t already, you need to establish the sales metrics you will use to monitor sales reps’ KPIs and pipeline health. To monitor your pipeline health and reps’ performance, perform a sales pipeline analysis regularly.
These pipeline checks and reports provide you with the actionable insights you need to implement the necessary changes that will improve conversion at every stage. To evaluate your pipeline health, use metrics like sales pipeline coverage, total pipeline value, average deal size, days to close, win rate, and sales pipeline velocity.
Sales metrics for monitoring reps’ performance should include activity metrics like sales activity and efficiency, time spent selling, lead response time, sales per rep, and other similar productivity measures. Then generate the reports and analyze them on your CRM to gather valuable insight.
• Do forecasts
With intelligent forecasting on your CRM, you can stay updated on deals, identify better opportunities, and make smart and timely business decisions.
• Stay mobile
Everything sales reps need to close deals should be accessible anytime, anywhere. Mobility is not an option in sales; it’s a must. With a mobile CRM, sales reps can make calls, send emails, set meetings at their convenience. They can work anywhere and still be able to collaborate with other team members or access important files.
Simply put: a mobile CRM helps team manage their time, resources, and workload more efficiently and effectively.
A CRM can help improve your lead conversion rates. But not any CRM will do. Find one that is smart and highly customizable to your exact business needs so you can realize the results your company wants.
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