What is CRM software and what can it do for your business?

CRM software is not one thing but rather a group of software tools that your business can greatly impact driving your company towards meeting your business goals. For a real example of CRM software, please see CRM software at Sage.com.

We’re now going to cover some of the main features of CRM, highlighting how those features can benefit your brand.

Establish and understand your demographics 

Buyers are not just buyers. They are buyer personas. While the occasional sale may indeed
come from a completely unexpected source, the majority of your sales are going to come
from projected audiences. If you do not know how to definitively outline your main audiences
across your products or services, your marketing strategies may be falling on deaf ears
(wasting time and money).

CRM software will use data, such as the age and geographic location of anyone signing up
to your brand, to uncover insights such as the channels and times that are best for
promoting your brand. When you have this data at your fingertips, much of the guessing
game can be removed from your marketing strategies, ensuring you focus your resources in
positive ways that lean towards boosting sales.

Choose the most relevant channels for your marketing strategies

As mentioned above, CRM technology can help you to direct your marketing efforts via the
most effective channels. For example, where the software reveals that most of your traffic
comes from clicks on social media, you can use this knowledge to go away and design a
social media marketing strategy that could see the needle move on lead generation
overnight.

Another way in which CRM could help you to direct your marketing resources is by revealing
that many of your customers find you online via search engines, or even through referral
links from other brands. Again, you can use this information to research and put together a
marketing strategy that maximises the traffic you already seem to be receiving in relatively
high numbers from different sources.

Provide your customers with after care

In sales, customer care is everything. There’s a reason the bigger supermarkets and
department stores have a customer care desk with a long snaking queue from the moment
their doors open until the last minute of every late shift. Customers find issues. With
everything. Sometimes they’re in the right. Sometimes they didn’t make a sensible purchase
and now they’re trying to cover their tracks with a refund. Whatever the situation, processing
all customer care issues keeps those customers coming back.

CRM allows you to automate customer care with timed emails sent out to your clients at
opportune moments. Use the in-built templates to send thank you emails to all customers, letting them know your returns policy and any other relevant information (including special offers and upcoming events, for example). Let your customers know you are there to support them and they will be more inclined to return the next time they need to purchase the
products or services you supply.