How to Create a Successful CRM Strategy in 10 Steps

What do you know about the seller-buyer relationship in B2B? The seller reaches out to the buyer to propose their offer and the buyer purchases it or denies it. That’s always been the case.

Wait, isn’t it now? Let me stop right there and no, that’s not how it happens now.

You might be wondering what’s wrong with me. Nothing. It’s that the era has changed. Gone are the days of buyer-sellers, it’s the customer-centric era. People crave more than a seller’s offer, they want a personalised experience, meaningful connections, and someone who can see them, and understand them.

That marks the evolution of CRM tools.

But what good are tools without the right strategy? The tools are just one piece of a big puzzle. For a successful CRM strategy solution, you need more than that.

Here is a step-by-step guide to creating a CRM strategy for sustainable business growth. Let’s start from scratch!

What is a CRM Strategy?

The customer relationship management strategy is a master plan to keep your customers happy and engaged and keep coming back for more. It’s all about working your way around customer insights to make your business their first choice.

A CRM strategy will make customers feel like they belong here and grow your business like nothing else.

How to Create a CRM Strategy?

Just like you planned to keep your business unique, your CRM strategy should also be the same. But we can help you with certain steps to create an effective one.

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1. Define Your Goals

Before getting started, take a step back and define your business strategy and overall big-picture goals. Establishing clear goals for your CRM strategy from the start is key, it gives you a purpose and direction.

Some of the common CRM strategy goals are boosting customer satisfaction, streamlining operations for higher productivity, and reducing customer churn rates.

CRM strategy is not a separate process. It should exist along with your business strategy and should be integrated with it for greater success.

2. Get a Complete Audit

Now start with auditing the data that you have. It’ll give you a comprehensive look at the information you have and identify the gaps you need to fill.

Some data points to get you started,

• Contact Information: You need to know how to reach out to them.
• Purchase History and Frequency: What do they buy, and how often?
• Purchase Value: Their spending value, high or low.
• Personal Preferences: What are their likes and dislikes?
• Demographics: Understand them in a broader sense, including age, location, etc.

The goal is to paint a picture of your current data. Once you understand this, you’ll know what more information you need to enrich your CRM strategy.

3. Define your Target Audience

Now is the time to find the common factors in your audited data to build what we call – buyer personas. It’s your ideal customer profile that guides your CRM strategy. Try to define it as detailed as possible. Include information like demographic and behavioural characteristics, interests, challenges, and aspirations.

Some of the other methods to understand your target audience,

• Conduct interviews with your sales and customer service teams.
• Analyse different customer profiles and conduct direct interviews with customers.
• Run customer surveys to gather feedback.
• Organise focus groups with customers for deeper insights.
• Collect demographic data on website visitors with tools like Google Analytics.

You should thoroughly understand exactly who is buying from you and why. It’s essential to become a customer-centric business and have a stronger customer relationship.

Plus, when you know your audience, your sales and marketing won’t waste any time on unfit leads.

4. Analyse Customer Interaction

Next, analyse how your customers interact with you. For this, your website, social media, and customer service handles are accounted for. Every small contact form and lead magnet you scattered across your website and other channels counts.

The goal is to understand how well you’re connected with your customers. You can measure their satisfaction and look for room for improvement. Understanding your customer POV and how they interact with your brand will help you build a stronger CRM strategy more aligned with your customers' views.

5. Review Your Position in the Market

Well, you should have a standard position in the market before building a strong customer relationship. To do that, you need to study the market and find where do you fit in. Ask yourself these questions to define it,

• What is your company's position within the market?
• What is your unique selling proposition that differentiates you from competitors?
• In what ways do your competitors set themselves apart?
• What opportunities are currently available in the market?
• What can you learn from your competitors' customer relationship strategies?
• What are the latest trends in your industry?

6. Your Customer Journey

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The goal of customer relationships is to provide a better customer experience. And how do you do that? With a clearly mapped customer journey, duh! Focus on providing the best of the best experience to your customers at each stage of this journey.

Here’s an outline to map your customer journey (feel free to customise)!

The First Impression: An irresistible first impression will pave the smoothest way for your customers. So, make sure it counts!

Ignite Their Curiosity: The good ol’ technique of firing up the curiosity never disappoints. Fuel it up once you get their attention. Engage them with compelling content, valuable insights, and captivating storytelling that keeps them wanting more.

Lead with Purpose: Make sure the journey is pointed in the right direction with purpose. Your messages, offers, and interactions should provide them with a phenomenal experience.

Engage and Delight at Every Turn: Surprising your customers often is the key to a successful customer journey. So, always try to exceed their expectations with personalised recommendations, unexpected perks, and exceptional customer service, creating moments that stand out.

Close the Deal: Doing business with you should be effortless, so clear up the unnecessary clicks and complex sign-up process. Your customers should feel confident, excited, and satisfied when they complete their purchase.

This kinda customer journey will help you fine-tune your CRM strategy to offer a seamless and enjoyable journey, you'll turn every interaction into an opportunity to build loyalty.

7. Automating the Customer Journey

Once you map out the customer journey, automate tasks like sending emails, reminders, sharing content, etc. Because it not only automates your workflow but makes sure you keep the customer in the loop at the perfect time.

Here is what you can automate (just a few examples from a big list),

• Introduce leads to your brand or service with a customised welcome and onboarding email series.
• Channel contacts into workflows designed with exclusive offers and discounts.
• Utilise workflows to suggest new products to your existing customers.
• Send retargeting ads on Facebook to re-engage prospects who haven't converted.
• Alert customers when their favourite items go on sale with timely push notifications.

Automation can effectively guide your leads through the sales pipeline and target ultra-specific steps in their customer journey (which you may miss in a manual-only process).

8. Choosing the CRM Tool

Now you know your customer preferences and how to manage them and all. But doing effectively will become a question without an organiser. And that opens the door for CRM tools.

But before signing up for any tool, evaluate the size of your organisation, the number of users, and the complexity of your customer interactions. Identify the features most important to you, such as:

Contact Management: Organise and access all your customer details effortlessly.

Lead Tracking: Track the progress of leads throughout the sales process.

Sales Pipeline Management: Manage and monitor your deals efficiently as they move through the sales pipeline.

Reporting and Analytics: Obtain valuable insights into your business performance and customer trends with comprehensive reporting and analytics tools.

Automation and Integration: Utilise built-in automation and ensure seamless integration with your existing apps and systems for smooth data flow and collaboration.

Mobile Accessibility: Access and manage your CRM system on the go, stay connected and productive from anywhere.

9. Train Your Team

Are the tools enough? No. Your team is your most valuable asset. Providing them with proper training to handle the tools and manage customer relationships is crucial. Here is where you can start,

Assemble the Right Team: Beyond sales and customer service, involving departments like marketing is crucial for CRM deployment.

Provide Ongoing Support: Offer continuous support and resources. Beyond basic training, emphasise the strategy's benefits. For software deployment, ensure thorough documentation and a strong onboarding process.

Embrace Consistent Learning: Cultivate a culture of continuous learning and knowledge sharing to break down silos and foster collaboration.

Remember, with a well-trained team you can take away any customer challenge that comes your way.

10. Always Room for Improvement

So, your strategy is not going to be picture-perfect on the first go. Sometimes it may not work, be ready to dust it off and find out what works for you. There will always be room for improvement and you just gotta keep looking for it.

Have a list of metrics to track and monitor how your strategy is working. It will complete the successful CRM implementation in your strategy. Some examples,

• Keep track of vital KPIs like customer acquisition rates, satisfaction scores, and conversion rates to assess the impact of your CRM strategy.
• Regularly review your performance against SMART goals to track progress and find opportunities for optimisation.
• Conduct A/B testing to test different strategies and determine which ones deliver superior results.
• Analyse customer feedback and reviews to pinpoint areas for enhancement and detect any signs of dissatisfaction.
• Gather feedback from your team and stakeholders to gain diverse perspectives and valuable insights into the effectiveness of your CRM strategy and areas for improvement.
• Utilise the analytical capabilities and reporting features of your CRM tool to gain valuable insights into customer behaviour, engagement patterns, and sales performance.

Right from understanding your customers to choosing a CRM software to manage your customers, every step is crucial. And one more thing, keeping your leads data updated in your CRM is the most essential step of all. That’s where we come in to help you out.

InFynd is a leading lead gen platform in the United Kingdom. Our 99% accurate email, phone numbers and other contact, company data are a game changer for every CRM. Plus, we now have CRM integration within our platform. Check it out!

So, sales and customer relations are bound together, we should say. A well-built CRM strategy can change your whole sales and customer retention effortlessly. It directly affects your revenue. Or we can simply say, never take your CRM for granted!

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