One of the current trends in the CRM market are solutions aimed at gaining new customers. Unfortunately, for users who have been using CRMs for many years as a simple contact management tool, the chances of expanding the usability of the system may be small. Although, thanks to the possibilities of a modern CRM or their integration with specialized tools for generating leads, you can see the number of new orders rising.

 

CRM systems are becoming more complex every year. Each company will have to decide how sophisticated their chosen solution will be. But if there is no one in the company who is interested in new technology, they usually won’t get news on the latest upgrades. The difference between the basic settings in the software after installation and the use of the maximum potential of CRM is enormous. However, if the CRM software is scalable, it can be supplemented by improving the type of integration with lead generation tools.

 

Keeping your data organized is essential

Many companies use a CRM as a tool to manage contacts, companies, inquiries, or projects. It helps them streamline communication and work more efficiently with company data. Without the CRM, employees have to keep inquiries in files, emails, or Excel spreadsheets. In some companies they also write down their requests on a whiteboard, including information about who is responsible for the request, what the next steps are and so on. Each solution has its pros and cons, and CRM systems take the best out of them.

Like whiteboards, CRMs help companies centralize information in one place. With the difference that CRMs can be available at home, at the client's or on the go. All employees store documents, emails and other communications in the system, or plan tasks in it. Therefore, they do not have to look for information in files, notes, or ask colleagues. Everything related to a business opportunity is always accessible and clearly arranged in one place.

Keeping your data organized is essential. But a lot of companies stop there. But what if the CRM helped them not only process but also acquire business opportunities?

 

More ambitious use of CRM systems

Some companies are not lacking any new inquiries, for some companies the standard growth rate is enough, and they do not need their CRM to be able to provide new business opportunities. But for other companies, we have good news that a CRM can do things that are more ambitious.

CRMs are currently heavily focused on features that help users in marketing and business during the entire purchasing process. From the first contact with the customer to the analysis of business results.

A company can be significantly more efficient at the very beginning of the whole process by creating automatically supplied sources of business opportunities from the CRM. It does not matter if the company receives more inquiries from new or existing customers. The solution exists in both cases. The sales rep only needs to open the opportunities in CRM and works them. So how can a CRM provide new opportunities?

 

Various possibilities of acquiring new customers

Email marketing is ideal for reaching existing customers. The big advantage is that the company can use the information about customers that it already has in CRM. These can be used to divide customers more accurately into target groups and tailor email content to recipients. Some CRM systems already have email marketing solutions of their own, for others the solution is integration with bulk email tools.

On the other hand, the possibilities of acquiring new customers are a bit more varied. For example, some popular options are web customer chats or inquiry forms. Thanks to the connection with the CRM, sales reps have all inquiries from a form or chat automatically created as a new opportunity. Setting up the integration of these applications with the CRM is not even complicated. Especially when using integrated online services like Zapier, even a small business owner can handle the settings without any coding knowledge.

For the acquisition of new customers, it is also possible to use bulk emails, if a company creates a database of contacts in accordance with the GDPR and addresses them. If the author of the distribution creates an appealing email that cannot be rejected, it will drive the recipient to the web form. As soon as they fill it in, a new business opportunity will appear in the CRM with the name of the potential customer and the name of the company they work for.

 

Modern tools for acquiring new customers

The most technologically revolutionary and as well as the most effective in terms of acquiring new customers are lead generation tools. These help us identify visitors to the company's website with fairly high accuracy. They are able to identify the company from which the visitor came to the website and, thanks to the connection with the LinkedIn, they can also suggest a specific person who may be responsible for the sales in the company.

A sales rep who uses lead generation tools does not create new opportunities but identifies them. With such a tool, sales reps address leads with high interest. The statistical success of business opportunities when the identity of the lead is known is usually much higher than in other cases.

 

The importance of statistics

Lead generation tools are really very powerful, and it usually pays to start using them. However, every good sales director should not settle for anything less than absolute certainty based on specific numbers. And that is the magic of CRM systems. Sales reps not only manage business opportunities in them, but they also access the data needed for analysis there.

If the CRM system can identify where a potential client came from, a sales director can evaluate the effectiveness of individual channels. Whether directly in the CRM environment or in the integrated analytical tools, such as Microsoft Power BI. This way, you can easily find out whether the revenue from the business opportunities that came from the lead generation tool exceeds the costs incurred. Once a company in CRM gains statistical certainty that this solution really pays off, it can focus on development in other areas.