Maybe you have a CRM already set up and in place in your business, or maybe you don’t. Either way getting to know time saving CRM integrations will be helpful for you to know since having a CRM will become a must have as your business grows. Here, I’ll be sharing with you 3 time saving CRM integrations to get you started.
Before we get into those, if you’re not aware of what a CRM is, here’s a little background. CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a way of organising and managing your customers. It can help you get organised, follow people through your sales process and keeping in touch with those customers.
What is a CRM system?
There is a huge choice of CRMs available to you, serving all different budgets from free to high cost monthly or annual subscriptions. My personal favourite is Keap.
But, not all CRM systems are equal. Some will only manage contacts, allowing you to record your customers contact details and notes that you want to keep as you build the relationship with them, a history of your conversations and when you need to contact them again. Other, more sophisticated, CRMs will incorporate other things as part of them including sales pipelines and email marketing.
When you’re choosing a CRM system, it’s better to decide what features you want and what you want to be able to do with it rather than trying to fit your business into a piece of software. Work this out ahead of time and you can choose the right CRM for your needs.
The integrations listed here will be perfect for you if you have a simple CRM with few features built into them.
3 Time Saving CRM Integrations
Now for the 3 time saving CRM integrations you can set up in your business.
1 Calendar
Just a few options for you here are Calendly, Acuity, 10to8.
By adding a calendar you’re making the process of getting in touch with you much easier and quicker to do for your client, customer or lead.
With this tool, you can share a link for your contacts, website visitors and connections to schedule an appointment with you at a time that you’re available, and they’ll see this in your online calendar, and is convenient for them, too. This avoids the telephone or email ping pong to get to that crucial moment where you’ve finally pinned one another down.
Once they have their appointment scheduled then you can create automated reminders to follow up to let your contact know their upcoming appointment with you.
Have you set up an online calendar for your business? Which do you use and what do you like about it? Let me know in the comments.
2 Lead Capture
If you’re networking on social media, building a following and having conversations but you don’t have a way to capture the details of those people you’re in touch with to follow up, stay in touch or nurture those leads until they’re ready to buy then you’re missing a trick.
Here’s why lead capture is important to your sales. 80% of your website visitors won’t be ready to buy from you, yet. They’re researching their options and deciding on which of those options is best to acheive their goal. By capturing their details (name and email address) you can nurture, stay in touch and keep communicating to build up a relationship with that person so when they’re ready to buy, you’re the person that they come to.
Lead capture can happen in two ways:
- Using web forms
- Building a landing page
Web forms can be embedded onto your website, or individual web pages, or you can build an individual landing page with it’s own specific form built right into it. There are many choices of software that you can build forms and landing pages with. A few examples would be LeadPages, Instapage and Unbounce. Once you have those forms or landing pages published then you can begin to capture your leads details and add them automatically to your CRM.
Are you already using web forms or landing pages to capture leads? Which do you prefer. Share your answer in the comments.
Would you like to collect high quality leads with your web forms? Learn more about lead capture forms here.
3 Email Marketing
There are lots of combined CRM and email marketing tools out there that you can choose from. MailChimp, Active Campaign and SendGrid are a few options available.
The reason to make use of email marketing in your business is simply to follow-up with our leads, new connections, customers and clients. With email marketing integrated into your CRM, you can trigger follow up emails to send immediately to every new contact.
Once someone has signed up to your lead magnet, submitted a contact form or scheduled an appointment with you an immediate follow up is crucial to get that relationship building from the moment your new contact knows about you. This is about keeping in touch with people, building a relationship with them and developing know, like and trust in you. Many businesses aren’t following up with their leads. As much as 80% of leads are never followed up. Do this and you’ll be ahead of many of your competitors.
Going a step further, those contacts can be segmented. This means categorising them into groups, using tags, based on their interests and interaction with your emails. By clicking on a certain link, or signing up with a particular form you can use that as a suggestion of what it is they’re interested in and where they are in their buying decision. Knowing that is golden as you can personalise your email content to those interests and interactions. If they’ve booked a call, they’re closer to buying than if they downloaded a lead magnet. This will drive far better results from your email marketing than sharing the same offers across your entire list of subscribers.
Communicate and keep in touch with those people that have shown an interest in your business, and services or products you offer. Sharing high value content with your contacts, old and new, will keep them coming back to your business and when they’re ready to buy they know to come to you.
Are you looking for ideas to send as follow up emails? See my 3 suggestions here.
Summary of the 3 Time Saving CRM Integrations
These are the first 3 CRM integrations I would recommend setting up to save your time in your business and escalate your business growth.
If you’re looking for a tool that has all 3 already built within it then check out Keap, it is an all-in-one sales and marketing tool that has calendar, web form and landing page builder, and email marketing available to you in just one place with your CRM. It’s all connected so there’s no need for fiddly, third party integrations, which is an even bigger time saver for you!
What are your thoughts on these CRM integrations, will you be using them in your business?
