An effective CRM is the heart of any good business. Not only does it act as the hub for all of your customer, prospect and partner data, but it’s the central hub to all of your communications and relationships. When used properly, it can do more than just act as a communication tool - it can become an integral part of your customer acquisition and retention strategy. In this blog, we’re going to look at a range of ways you can do this.
1. The power of segmentation
Effective data segmentation starts with the data. A well-developed CRM allows for this data to be used for more than just understanding individual contacts, but understanding the groups and personas within your database, so you can engage them with personalised, effective messaging. Approaching a segmentation strategy requires a 3-pronged attack. What data do you have? What data do you need? What can this data do for you?
When we look to develop segmentation, we focus on how we can identify similarities in our database. We do this by developing personas and using the information and data we know about our customers and prospects to create a representation of them. These reflect things such as their lifestyle, interests, selling points and demographics. By using the CRM to build these, we directly integrate our messaging to these personas with the tool in which they are stored. This allows us to better engage them, provide more personalised messaging, stronger email lists and to make them feel valued. In turn, this helps us retain customers, create loyalty and attract new prospects as we learn who will buy from us and why.
2. Finding new customers
A well-run CRM provides us with a smorgasbord of data and information about people who have already chosen to purchase from us, and many of whom still continue to. While this is great for retention, what can it mean for acquisition? The reality is, there’s no better place to start your acquisition strategy because all the information you need is at your fingertips.
Once you have defined personas, creating audiences we call ‘look-alikes’ is a simple process. Many CRMs allow manual downloads to a CSV format that can be uploaded and used on many digital advertising platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. From here, you can take two approaches. You can upload a direct ‘account-based marketing’ list of prospects to directly target, or you can create a ‘look-alike’ audience that takes all the data you’ve uploaded and finds similar profiles that match your requirements. While creating audiences, optimising for conversions and other strategies are effective to create a strong campaign, the ability to create look-alike audiences, based on the very data of your customers is a surefire way to find more customers, such as the ones you already have.
3. Staying in touch
While a CRM is a great data management system, it’s so much more. The ability to track and log all conversation and activity with a customer or prospect allows a deeper insight into their behaviour and their engagement with your business. When it comes to acquiring new business or retaining customers, this is a core part of the strategy, particularly for businesses who are selling more high-end products or services.
Making sure you have tracking for all emails, phone calls and meetings not only allows you to be on top of how many times you’ve contacted them or what the conversations were about but also allows other members of your team to jump on board and carry on the conversation seamlessly. Tracking facilitates better close rates, but also better upsell opportunities, as your customers grow to feel known and personal with the brand. Overall, a better experience leads to better customer acquisition and retention for the business.
Your CRM is so much more than just the tool to gather information about your customers. When used correctly, it can become the centre point for your acquisition and retention strategy. By applying a little creativity, you can do more with your customers’ data than you could ever imagine. Give the above a go, and if you want help in turning your CRM into your biggest weapon, get in touch with us. We’d love to help.