5 Reasons Why CRM is Even More Important During a Recession

5 Reasons Why CRM is Even More Important During a Recession
Use CRM to stretch your dollar during an economic slump.

In a recession, you need to work smarter, not just harder. With CRM, your business can become more strategic — and more profitable — by applying its resources more efficiently to serving and developing customers.Here are five ways in which CRM can boost your customer relationships during an economic slump:

1. Get more out of your established customers. Even when money is tight there are opportunities to sell more to some of your existing customers. The trick is to use effective techniques and offer the right merchandise at the right time.One of CRM's greatest strengths is that it collects and organizes information about your customers and lets you analyze the data for future opportunities. For example, you can use CRM data to do a needs-based segment analysis of your various classes of customers. Needs-based analysis involves taking the customers' perspective and identifying what they need but aren't buying. Using this information, you can develop a sales strategy that will let you offer products in an appealing way even in economically difficult times. Often this involves packaging new goods and services with products your customers are already buying and offering them at an attractive price or with other incentives.In the same way, CRM can help you identify the most productive items to sell to your customers. These aren't necessarily the highest-margin items — not if those high-margin items have long sell cycles and require a lot of sales effort.One additional useful metric that is easily derived from CRM data is the profit produced per hour of sales effort for each class of items. Armed with this information, you can craft sales programs which emphasize the products which have the most effect on your bottom line.

2. Identify and concentrate on your best customers. While every customer is important when business is slow, some are worth more than others. By allocating your sales efforts accordingly, you can produce more revenue per sales hour and higher average sales.CRM systems contain tools for analyzing your customer base so you can categorize your customers. Sometimes the analysis will turn up surprising, even counterintuitive, results. The customer who gives you an order on every sales call may not be worth as much as the customer who orders infrequently but buys larger quantities of high-value merchandise, for example.You can also use CRM analytical tools to slice and dice your customer base beyond simply ranking by revenue. For example, you can look at the return per sales hour for each customer. Or you can see which lines are most profitable and which customers are more likely to purchase them. In fact, with a good CRM system and a properly populated sales and customer database, you can find all sorts of not-so-obvious but important relationships.

3. Target your customer development efforts. Just because the economy is in a slump doesn't mean that you should stop trying to attract new customers. However, like everything else in a recession, you want to do it more efficiently. This implies paying closer attention to lead analysis. Which leads are most likely to become customers? What are they likely to purchase?Since in a recession you want to go hunting where the ducks are, you can use CRM information to determine where a lead is in the buy cycle. You may want to concentrate your efforts on the potential customers who are closest to making the buying decision to reap more immediate rewards of your sales efforts.

4. Keep your existing customers loyal. In a recession, existing customers are gold. You want to keep them happy.Customer satisfaction covers a lot of ground, but basically it involves two ideas: keep your promises to customers and also meet their demonstrated needs. CRM can help you with both of these.The most common reason for not keeping promises is forgetting they were made. If you stress to your sales force the importance of entering all agreements made with customers into your CRM system, it's easier for your organization to execute on its promises.Even minor mistakes can make a difference in an economic downturn. If you promise to contact a customer on Tuesday and don't get back to him or her until Thursday, you not only haven't met the customer's expectations, but you have subtly implied how much you value that customer. Enough incidents like that, trivial though they may seem, and the customer is likely to be receptive to a competitor even if he or she can't beat you on price.Likewise, CRM can be used to ensure you're meeting customers' needs as fully as possible. This includes efficient handling of after-sales contacts such as service calls, resolving customer concerns or offering the customer the right mix of products at the right prices.

5. Work smarter, not just harder. Finally, CRM lets your sales and customer support reps work smarter. With better information at their finger tips and best practices codified into your business policies, you can optimize service for your customers and maximize revenue.

E- Marketing

E- marketing is refer to the application of marketing, principles, and techniques used over the Electronic media, specially Internet. It established tools of promotion, such as advertising, Sales promotion and direct marketing have been augmented by the development of information technology which offers to communicate effectively with many customers. telephone marketing, e-mail and mobile as well as digital TV and the Internet, have supplemented these traditional tools with e-commerce marketer can reach customer easily by advertising through Internet. It can be done either by generalized way such as through mass e-mail or personalized way such as sending message to target customers.

The main benefits of the e-marketing is that they are cost effective. In limited budget companies are able to target their target audience in effective way just because of the E-marketing.

Marketing vs selling

Many people confuse marketing with selling even though there is a major difference.. The confusion arises because both have to deal with the market.. The main difference is that marketing people let others know WHAT WE HAVE TO OFFER after doing market research. Suppose there is a need for self cleaning diapers. Marketing specialist should come up with an idea of introducing such product to the market after analyzing the demand. A salesman's job is to SELL the product.. The marketing guy has come up with an idea now its up to the sales man to try sell the idea.. Most local companies consider marketing to be selling thats why you see many job ads for marketing executives here whose work is that of selling.. Its like asking a dentist to perform a hernia operation.

Marketing by the ordinary folk

Some person thought of it fun to break the windshield of my parked car so i had to come by public transport to the office today. Setting aside the suffocation and constant smell of sweat a Pakistani bus ride can be really a good experience. From marketing point of view I simply love it.. There are people who climb on a moving bus carrying a bag full of goods (I bet a Hollywood stuntman could not perform this feat), selling their goods at a relatively cheaper price from the market.. There was this one person who tried to sell a liquid which was the cure of all diseases.. Move aside cancer and HIV.. we have a magic medicine available on our buses.. no need to spend millions of dollars in research.. The way he tried to sell it, it would put a educated salesman to shame.. It was personal selling at its best.. I wondered if they had quality education just what they might have achieved.. Then there is a cheap source of text marketing.. Behind every bus seats are loads of numbers written.. "Call 0300112233 and all your problems are gone".. "call akmal the great magician and your life will change".. Buses bring out the best of marketing abilities in people it seems.. On my way back I think I should write a small detail of all the the business softwares my company makes.. Maybe i just might make a sale..

The power of jingles

It once occurred to me that what makes a cheap marketing ad click is a jingle. If you don't have super special effects or a celebrity in your ad the chances are the viewers will forget the ad no sooner they see it. So how do you make an ad that would stick in ones mind like glue. What is the secret formula that some people remember some ads till they are lying down on their death beds while some ads are forgotten no sooner they are viewed.. The answer are jingles.. I might have seen a thousand ads with special effects and celebrities but the ones that stick to my mind are the ones that have jingles.. I recall one very lame ad of a telephone dancing.. very poor graphics I might add.. but what made the ad make a permanent residence in my mind like a unwanted mother in law who just wouldn't go away is the jingle it had.. It had such a catchy tune of a certain numbers that I, like many people just tried it out to see what it actually was.. Then there was the milk wars in Pakistani ad community.. Not as epic as the Cola wars but cut throat none the less.. One ad had basically all the current crop of models drinking their brand of milk.. While the other ad was good but not so special.. What made it special was the jingle it had.. The jingle became so popular that every kid had remembered that tune.. Even when I go to buy milk I some how start humming that tune.. Anyways along with the jingle the ad has to make sense.. A few months back I saw an ad on cartoon network.. It was of a very famous chocolate in which every body was made up of chocolates.. It ended up with people eating every thing.. their gear knobs, taking a bite out of each other, in short cannibalism.. Horrifying ad.. The jingle gives me nightmares of man eating chocolates..

In my next blog i will discuss how we can exploit this jingle phenomenon in the internet.. Good bye