18 Most Interesting CRM Articles and Interviews of 2015

These 18 articles and interviews, written by the best CRM experts, discuss the challenges CRM admins face nowadays, and especially the adjustment to the new workforce- Millennials. and offer great tips and solutions. Inside, you can find insights on topics such as lead management, social CRM and CRM implementation, alongside fascinating interviews.

 

1. Lead Management: 5 Ways CRM Software Converts Leads Into Opportunities

This article, by Angela Nadeau, outlines the ways in which CRM software can turn your leads into opportunities. After explaining what lead management is, the article presents 5 reasons to use CRM software in order to have more efficient lead management. With specific examples including lead management information and Robust Marketing and Reporting, Nadeau provides a good case for the role of CRM in sales conversion .

 

2. 23 Tips for Choosing the Right CRM Software

Well, this article is very special and useful, since Annie Pilon covers all the information one could ask for concerning “choosing the right CRM”. Annie’s article lists 23 amazing and highly helpful tips we need to know in order to choose the right CRM software for us. There are many and various CRM systems out there in the market and we should be careful and wise at the moment of choosing, because this step is the one that will mark our company’s path.

It is not a secret that CRM is critical to achieving business success, increase sales, improve customer service and experience, and also to build relationships with potential customers.  I highly recommend reading this article and learn (maybe implement as well) the wonderful tips offered there.

 

3. Top 8 Reasons Why Having a Socially Connected CRM is a Must

Published on CRMsoftwareblog.com, this article dives into an important aspect of CRM- the social one, and points out important facts and ways to avoid those potentially devastative bad reviews on the internet.  In this article, Rob Urbanowicz outlines 8 reasons that emphasize the importance of using social CRM, accompanied by interesting statistics.

 

4. How to Create a Revenue Winning Lead Nurturing Strategy

Did you know that according to a 2012 Marketing Sherpa study, 73% of leads are not ready to buy when they first give you their contact details? Isn’t that number scary? Well, Superoffice’s blog has some comforting news for you- a good, well organized and data rich lead nurturing system might help you turn the tables and get the results you want, with the help of this great guide. (Written by Jennifer Lund)

 

5. Applying Marketing Metrics to the Sales Process with HubSpot CRM

With the departments of sales and marketing inching closer to one another by the day, salespeople need to leverage on data and tactics like A/B split testing, in order to achieve vital goals. This great article by Hubspot’s Jeffery Russo, discusses how some of these tactics can be applied, including ways to optimize segmentation, optimize subject lines & calls to action, and optimizing prospects.

 

6. Determining the Best CRM Software for Your Organization

Last but not least, this article, by Brent Leary, takes on one the most important decision businesses today face – choosing the right CRM software. Leary tries to help ease this process, by presenting some popular CRM software, such as SAP, Salesforce and Oracle, and shows the advantages and disadvantages of picking each one. He also categorizes the CRMs according to the size of your business, and even mentions some function-specific applications.

 

7. How Much is Dirty Data Costing You?

So your team has adopted CRM successfully. You might be already working with it for years. But are you getting the results you should be getting? The next article addresses an important issue that’s often neglected – data reliability and the (potential) damages of dirty data. Discover them! (Written by Larisa Bedgood)

 

8. 4 Frightening CRM Training Experiences

With just a couple of weeks left until Halloween, and every sweet tooth holder and horror film enthusiast’s favorite holiday coming up, we’re going to take a look at 4 frightening CRM training experiences. For the purpose of this article, I’ll use a fictional company called Spoox to illustrate common 4 missteps in CRM employee training.

 

9. Social CRM Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

In the digital age, social CRM has become a useful way to market effectively, to increase sales and to improve customer service. It is necessary to lift to social CRM, but we have to do it correctly. We should master how social CRM works and to conform it to our needs wisely. According to David Myron, in order to promise our success when using social CRM, we should avoid some common mistakes and follow 10 essential steps.

The article is interesting and covers fundamental information about the correct CRM strategy that should be adopted, as it also gives information in understanding social CRM impact and potential. I liked the eighth step because via social CRM we can respond immediately to customers input and improve our service. This is highly important because customers are impatient nowadays; they want everything in the shortest time available.

 

10. Do You Use the Right System for Your Business?

Every business wants and needs to promote itself and its products to sell as much as it can to the audience target. Therefore, businesses themselves have to make others discover them, so they will be promoted and successful. It is necessary to use a CRM system to facilitate and adjust what companies offer to their customers and help them to gather the appropriate information that they need.

This article is extremely useful since it lists the advantages of having a suitable CRM for our businesses since it is the system which assists us to be engaged with our customers and vice versa.  It also makes it possible to track our sales efficiently. (Written by Soffront)

 

11.  Salesforce Data Migration: Helpful Tips for CRM Change:

This one if all about the CRM giant we all know and love. This is an amazing article that outlines the main reasons for Salesforce data migration, and how to do it properly. As for the “Why Salesforce” question, the folks at Data2CRM reply: “Salesforce offers marketing and sales automation, lead and contact manager, numerous options for improving sales performance (territory and opportunity management, sales forecasting and collaboration, workflows and multiple report dashboards) and integration abilities.”

 

12. Don’t Let Your CRM Implementation Turn into a Colossal Disaster

In his article, Richard Young lists 5 top reasons why would CRM implementation fail. When CRM implementation is optimized, companies can reap its benefits; managing customers and marketing campaigns, increasing sales, tracking the conversion of leads into customers and analyzing churn and loyalty. Richard claims that the initial process of CRM implementation is critical to ensure the value of it.

For instance, the initial process of choosing the right CRM is important. To make the best choice, the company should delegate this task to an experienced staff member who understands and knows which CRM is most convenient to the company’s goals. I found this article fascinating, as it proves how small things adversely affect business success!

 

13.  5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Invest in a CRM

As the title says, there are 5 questions to consider before we decide to use a CRM tool. We need CRM to boost our customer-service and sales to achieve success. The indispensable 5 initial questions discussed by Jame Oetting in his article, are fundamental to consider because they reassure our success as a business.

These questions draw our attention to things we may not have considered at the beginning, which are highly essential to our success with CRM. For example, before thinking of investing in a CRM, we should determine our goals, define how we will use it effectively and if it is easy to use.

 

14.  Is Customer Experience the New CRM?

Many CX professionals do not use technology in a way that is beneficial for them. They need to use customer data wisely and fix processes to improve customer experience. In order to reach across channels and systems, they use a mixture of CRM tools, which lead to complexity.

It is better to implement one tool that collects data from multiple systems. Therefore, it will be easier for marketing and customer departments to promote their projects. I liked this article, by Ginger Conlon, because it offers something new; it examines CX and suggests it to be the next CRM and explains why it is possible!

 

15. Three Signs Your CRM System Isn’t Cutting It

Everybody knows that CRM is fundamental to grow as a business and achieve success. CRM helps to improve customer service and boost sales. Although, it is important to note how to use and tailor it correctly in the modern technological world, where things are changing and marketing and sales start to work together.

Carol Hilderbrand, from Oracle, mentions three situations where CRM is not helping. She later gives an advice on how to change the situation and make our CRM helpful and effective. I liked this article for its fresh view, for once, not on the importance of CRM, but on how to use it correctly.

16. Why is CRM the ideal solution for every small business?

This great article draws our attention to the fact that CRM is not only for big businesses. Small businesses also need a CRM with all its benefits, as well as to know how to choose the right CRM system. This article, by Manash Chaudhuri, gives perfect answers to these questions. It gives 10 benefits of CRM for small businesses and lists the factors they have to consider in order to get the right CRM system that specifically suits their needs. In addition, the article gives an example on how to choose the CRM that best suits your needs, hence; it clarifies the idea very well. I liked the article since it reassures the significance of having CRM even in small business and why it is the key for success. (Written by Manash Chaudhuri)

 

17. 23 Tips for Choosing the Right CRM Software

Well, this article is very special and useful, since Annie Pilon covers all the information one could ask for concerning “choosing the right CRM”. Annie’s article lists 23 amazing and highly helpful tips we need to know in order to choose the right CRM software for us. There are many and various CRM systems out there in the market and we should be careful and wise at the moment of choosing, because this step is the one that will mark our company’s path.

It is not a secret that CRM is critical to achieving business success, increase sales, improve customer service and experience, and also to build relationships with potential customers.  I highly recommend reading this article and learn (maybe implement as well) the wonderful tips offered there.

 

18. Top 5 considerations for small businesses when selecting CRM

As it is important for enterprise companies to select carefully the most convenient CRM in the market, it is also fundamental for small businesses to mark their targets and select wisely the CRM they need to work with. There is a huge selection of CRM systems out there (in the market), so we have to be astute when we make our choice.

Therefore, I consider Paul Pitman’s article one of the best articles of 2015 since he lists 5 crucial considerations and tips to help businesses focus on what is really essential when choosing a CRM system. In other words, this Paul Pitman article offers incredible considerations on how to make the process of selecting CRM successful and convenient.