Lead nurturing important for lead conversion.

Sunday, November 25, 2012 at 12:00:00 AM

As the competitive environment for new customers deepens for companies of all sizes, they need to look strongly at lead management and lead nurturing. Simply stated, leads that fall through the cracks are likely leads that will never convert to customers. There are just too many competitors after each one of them!

Lead management refers to the path taken for lead follow up, based on the type of lead. Products and servcies not of a transactional type are best for lead nurturing. Lead nurturing works best with marketing automation software connected to a CRM system. Some examples of marketing automation software include, Net Results, Pardot, Marketo, and HubSpot. This powerful software monitors lead activity on your website, institutes workflow emails that steer leads to landing pages for additional information, and can offer white papers and other information to be downloaded. These lead activities are scored, and when a lead reaches a set score it automatically goes to your CRM system and is assigned. Thus, sales people are getting qualified leads that result in higher rates of conversion and more new business.

Sales force automation features of leading CRM software, such as SugarCRM, institute automated workflow that result in drip marketing campaigns for office ...

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Posted By Neil Saviano.
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Sales People Need A Personal Marketing Plan

Saturday, September 15, 2012 at 12:00:00 AM

By Neil Saviano

Good Salespeople Run a Good Business. They are running their own business within the company they are working for. This especially relates to sales people on any kind of a commission and/or bonus plan. These sales people are immersed in the following structure:

They have a personal marketing plan. This plan, as with any marketing plan, begins with clear cut business and financial goals. These goals are attached to activity goals around areas, such as:

-Prospecting and new customer conversion ratios.
-Identifying existing customer potential and developing coverage plans based on this potential.

A major component of this personal marketing plan is financial (income) goals for the sales person. Most importantly, the activity goals listed above and how they relate to achieving financial goals. The personal marketing plan keeps them on course, as with any marketing plan. It also creates an environment for monitoring and making changes. CRM and sales and marketing software such as SugarCRM help sales people drive this plan with the following state of the art functionality:

-The management of the entire lead (prospect) process right through to opportunitie...

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Posted By Neil Saviano.
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Inbound marketing helps sales person ROI

Sunday, September 09, 2012 at 12:00:00 AM

It's becoming obvious that sales people can't exist using traditional outbound selling strategies when trying to develop new customers. Caller ID screens a majority of outbound calls, and getting by lobby security in most office buildings is virtually impossible without an appointment. Cold calling a small-medium sized business that has no security is easier, but most targets are rarely able to see a sales person who just drops in. Sales people who persist in using traditional outbound strategies may have some limited success, but the ROI on their time (and their company's) is low, and impacts revenue negatively for both. Sales people and companys need to assess their "find" strategies versus "being found". There's no doubt the "being found" focus is beginning to prevail. Optimizing websites to draw prospects to make an inquiry is a key strategy. Modern CRM and sales and marketing automatio software such as SugarCRM automates a process where a website inquiry is automaticlly converted to a lead record in the CRM and an automated follow up process takes over. This helps give sales people at least partially qualified prospects and results in better ROI for everyone.

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Posted By Neil Saviano.
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Article: Inbound Marketing and Social Media Marketing

By Neil Saviano-President, CRM International

Sunday, July 08, 2012 at 12:00:00 AM

Click here and go to page 28 for latest article by Neil Saviano, President of CRM International"

Inbound Marketing and Social Media Marketing

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Posted By Neil Saviano.
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SALESPEOPLE-MEET YOUR VIRTUAL SALES ASSISTANT

Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 12:00:00 AM

By Neil Saviano

Sales people out there amidst almost unparalleled levels of competition need to be cognizant of choosing their co-workers more wisely! Co-workers in this context, from a metaphorical perspective, relate to the role technology plays as a virtual sales assistant.
The technology (assistant) refers to a software suite that historically comprises a company’s ERP system together with business intelligence and CRM and sales force automation software. (An ERP system supports all the business processes within an organization, such as purchasing, sales and accounting.) A good example of this unified solution is world leading SugarCRM , connected to sales-i, a leading customer intelligence program.

Sales people must work closely with their virtual assistant to manage, and take action on, the plethora of information available. They must do this within their sales process to address the following key strategic areas:

1. The penetration and retention of existing customers
2. The development of new customers.

Let’s look at the impact the virtual assistant has on the two strategic areas listed above:

The penetration and retention of existing customers:

Sales history ...

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Posted By Neil Saviano.
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