Businesses spend enormous amounts of time, money and energy trying to boost sales, from launching complex social media strategies to cold calling and email campaigns. It’s often for relatively little reward, yet there may be some things you can do. Utilising the tools and assets you already have can make a big difference to sales - and your bottom line. It’s all about looking after your customer relationship management, or CRM.
CRMs are more than just business tools; they should be the backbone of your sales strategy. After all, it costs five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. It’s also true that the chances of selling to an existing customer lie between 60% and 70%, but making a sale to a new one is somewhere between 5% and 15%. So, looking after your existing customer data and making sure that it is working hard for your business is an absolute must for boosting your sales strategy.
Here’s how data cleansing your CRM can help:
Data Analysis
Never underestimate the importance and power of data. But also be aware that placing your faith in outdated data can be damaging. If your CRM is full of inaccuracies, duplicates or incomplete data, then any analysis you carry out is going to be skewed. You’ll be making decisions based on incorrect information and potentially targeting your sales strategy in the wrong direction. With duplicates eliminated and contacts updated through effective B2B data cleansing it will be easier to get a clearer picture of where you need to focus sales energies.
Up-To-Date Information
If your CRM is messy and full of outdated or incomplete contacts, then it’s going to hinder your marketing activities. Imagine your CRM is a living and breathing organism that needs to be sustained with active and engaged contact information to be in the best of health. If it’s just getting by on outdated, outmoded or irrelevant contacts then you won't be able to get accurate engagement metrics and won’t be able to tell if your marketing efforts are actually working. So, you must clean contacts regularly, ensuring you are well backed up and archived before the deleting begins. Plus, there is also a small matter of compliance to consider with regard to holding on to secure data.
Simple Is Better
Uniform and simple is always the secret to CRM success. Eliminating the chaos of mismatched data entry can really sharpen the focus of your marketing and sales strategy. Set clear data standards for how data should be entered and stored, using consistent formats and fields.
Add Value
While keeping data entry simple is best, that doesn’t mean you can’t add detail to every entry. Turn your CRM into a real powerhouse by enriching contacts with detailed information. You can use integration tools and manual reviews to ensure you keep as much relevant, good quality information as possible. This could be vital for gaining deeper customer insights and engagement.
How We Can Help
Ready to enhance your sales strategy to Financial Services firms? Simply fill out our form, and we’ll provide you with a no cost, no obligation review of your current CRM data so you can see the benefits of cleansing and updating your CRM for the financial services industry. Get in touch with Autus Data Services today!
Image Source: Canva