In today’s digital environment, even small and medium businesses can benefit significantly from customer relationship management software. Find the right CRM, and you can grow your business by more efficiently reaching out to potential and current customers, enhancing both your customer acquisition and retention efforts as a result. No less than 74% of businesses now use a CRM, and that number increases to 91% when only counting businesses above 11 employees. The increasing data availability, along with the fact that simply integrating the software into your business processes can raise your productivity by 30%, accounts for that adoption rate. Still, simply installing CRM software may not be enough. If you don’t connect it with a marketing automation solution, you may be missing out on a significant opportunity. That’s why ClickDimensions is such a perfect partner product to a powerful CRM like Microsoft Dynamics. ClickDimensions: An Overview ClickDimensions, at its core, is a marketing automation tool. In other words, it’s a software solution that helps you automate your marketing processes, saving both time and resources in the process. The software accomplishes this feat through a number of individual features that range from email marketing to reporting. Combined, they help businesses of all sizes create a more comprehensive and consistent marketing strategy designed to get prospects into and through the sales funnel. But unlike most other marketing automation tools, this one does not operate in isolation. Instead, it integrates directly with your Dynamics CRM solution, helping you take advantage of the sales data and processes you have already established for more personalized, effective marketing. The Marketing Features of ClickDimensions To accomplish its goals, ClickDimensions offers a number of individual features that are worthy of discussion. Each of them is related directly to marketing and marketing automation: Email marketing. Through a native email tool within Dynamics CRM, you can create beautiful marketing emails with a simple drag and drop system. Email data, such as open and click rates, is reported both on a comprehensive and individual level within Dynamics. Marketing automation. Dynamics uses workflows to help you create a set of automated emails. In ClickDimensions, the process is even easier. Create visual communication flows with multiple branches, sending automated email series based on actions that your visitors and leads are taking on your website. Landing pages and web forms. Any business focused on lead generation needs effective web forms to capture these contacts. Within ClickDimensions, you can create these forms, along with the landing pages on which they’ll live, using a similar drag and drop system as email creation. Data is dynamically filtered back into Dynamics for more comprehensive lead profiles. Integrated event management. Does you company rely on events or webinars to generate leads and convert customers? If so, you’ll love the integration with software like GoToWebinar and WebEx, helping you manage each registrant and recording information related to their attendance. Reporting and Surveys. Naturally, the tool helps you improve your marketing reporting abilities. It also allows you to create surveys, which help you […]
Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal. — Elbert Hubbard Elbert Hubbard was a man who knew how to set a goal and achieve it. He was one of the most successful traveling salesmen of his time and, due to that success, was able to become a renowned and prolific writer, publisher, philosopher, and artist. His ability to organize his energy around a goal enabled him to reach significant heights. But as he showed, it’s not just about having initiative or having a passion for a achieving a goal or even working hard. It’s about working smart — S.M.A.R.T. to be precise. What Is S.M.A.R.T.? The mnemonic acronym S.M.A.R.T. began to appear in the early 1980s and is often tied to the Management by Objectives concept that was developed by Peter Drucker. At its core, S.M.A.R.T. is a process for creating goals and monitoring their achievement progress. It is lauded by many as the most effective way of forming goals so that they are simple to understand and easy to see when they have been successfully completed. When it comes to setting goals for more technical or transformative projects, having a clear cut game plan is necessary. For example, if a company decides to implement a customer relationship management system, it is essential that the integration of the system goes smoothly and as planned. Disruption in customer interaction and experience can cause serious customer loss and can be incredibly detrimental to the company’s reputation. Using S.M.A.R.T. to create the process for achieving that goal will enable the company to flesh out what is required for completion and when completion can be expected. When an individual or organization is developing a goal, and using the S.M.A.R.T. method, they simply form the goal around the five tenets of the system. Each letter in the acronym stands for one of the tenets. S Is For Specific The goal that is being set should be specific, clear, and simple. This means it should likely include relevant dates, times, numbers, names, locations and whatever other fixed information is pertinent–in other words, the why, what and how of your goal. It should not be vague or open to interpretation in any way. The goal should not be: To implement a customer relationship management system. The goal should be: To have customer relationship management up and running by May of 2017 with full staff training completed. M Is For Measurable/Meaningful Your goal shouldn’t be layered behind fluffy words that are difficult to quantify. The reason for this is that you want tangible evidence that you’ve accomplished the goal. So not only should you include a completion date, but what it will look like when the goal is completed. The goal should also mean something to everyone who is going to be involved in accomplishing it. If there’s no passion behind working towards something, the likelihood that it gets done at […]
In many ways, MailChimp is the ideal email marketing solution for small businesses and startups. Its pricing model is reasonable, while building emails is both simple and effective. Designing attractive emails is possible even for novices in digital marketing. But at the same time, using the software in isolation may cause you to lose out on some significant opportunities. MailChimp, at its core, is an email marketing tool. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive marketing approach, you may want to consider combining it with Customer Relationship Management software. Here are 5 reasons your business benefits from this type MailChimp and Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration. 1. Build Beautiful Emails for a Relevant Audience The intuitive and simple email design tool may be MailChimp’s biggest selling feature. Through a simple drag and drop mechanism and a variety of existing templates, users can build completely custom marketing emails designed uniquely for their audience. The wide variety of examples online today showcase just some of the possibilities of the design tool. Unfortunately, using the software in isolation may mean beautiful emails that never quite reach the intended audience. MailChimp’s contact management system is basic, allowing for some list segmentation but generally limiting itself to uploading lists and sending one-off or scheduled emails. Integrating with Dynamics allows you to take advantage of MailChimp’s strength while eliminating its weakness. Now, you can use the same design tool while also making sure that your emails will reach a relevant audience at the right time. 2. Collect Lead and Customer Information for More Targeted Marketing Wouldn’t you love to know which of your potential and current customers, open, click, and maybe even convert on your emails? MailChimp can record all of that information. But if you use it in isolation, it’s difficult to actually take advantage of the data you collect. Microsoft Dynamics, on the other hand, strives on data integration. It collects relevant actions by your audience in their lead and customer records, allowing you to build targeted marketing campaigns. For example, you can build an email campaign designed specifically for users who have clicked on another, relevant email in the recent past. MailChimp collects the information, while Dynamics allows you to put it to sound marketing use. 3. Combine the Simplicity of MailChimp With the Power of Dynamics MailChimp continues to outpace the email marketing software landscape significantly, with almost 50% in market share among businesses. The reason, as mentioned above, tends to come back to its simplicity, allowing even marketing novices to build beautiful and convincing emails. And yet, an email marketing tool is far from possessing the same power as a CRM. Microsoft Dynamics, for example, allows marketers to perform actions that range from response tracking and lead scoring to conditional, branch and child workflows. If you’re ready to advance your marketing from simple one-off emails to complex workflows designed to engage your audience, you need a CRM. Similarly, if you want to optimize your lead to customer conversions, you better have a system in […]
At work, the way we communicate is changing. Because more employees telecommuting and flex-timing, interoperability and seamless communication are becoming more important to each company’s success. Recent improvements to and availability of mobile technology and cloud-based managed services are providing the infrastructure needed to fuel this transformation, making employee remote collaboration possible. Familiarity + Usability = Better User Experience Currently, 1.2 billion daily users all over the world are using MSOffice, Outlook, Skype, Yammer, and OneDrive to communicate, collaborate, and get things done for work. One reason for the popularity is the importance that Microsoft places on user experience. Recently, the commitment they made to creating a person-centric IT is becoming more evident. While maintaining the familiar MS Office branding, they have updated their interface to simplify the usability and create more engagement. Microsoft Office 365 has built in all of the tools necessary for the modern workplace, while providing new users with a familiar interface and low-cost training for easy onboarding. MS Office 365 could be the key differentiator for businesses seeking to improve productivity, streamline operations, and promote opportunities for real-time collaboration. Real-time Co-authoring to Streamline Projects In this global and increasingly mobile work environment, in-person collaboration is less and less possible. When information or content needs to be shared, and feedback needed immediately, the real-time, multichannel communication offered by MS Office 365, is crucial. The feature, which has been available to MS Office users for several years, has been upgraded to include all of Office 365, OneDrive, and Skype users. The access to each other and the exact working document is truly the closest approximation to real in-person collaboration. Thanks to MS Office 365, it is no longer required to wait days or even hours for revisions, and it virtually eliminates miscommunication, which is a boon to the efficiency and productivity of your small business. Communication Interoperability The newest version of the cloud-based MS Office is built for collaboration. These tools offer any company —regardless of size, an optimal workplace experience. Whether in-house or on-the-go, your employees are able to effortlessly communicate with each other. Since all of the content created is kept in the cloud, sharing with co-workers is a breeze. This capability extends to shared calendars, a feature which is integral to collaboration and makes the functionality and reliability offered by Microsoft Office 365 integration attractive. Yammer, where the workplace meets social media is another option for content sharing. The social media-style platform designed for sharing and communicating makes it a fun addition to traditional interoffice communication methods. Outlook’s Massive Storage Because it is entirely cloud based, Office 365’s mail product, Outlook is perfect for use with mobile devices. Users receive 50GB of storage and it allows sending attachments as large as 150MB. Fully integrated with all of the other Office 365 tools and applications, Outlook can be accessed from any application or program, or through the main single portal interface. Single Portal Interface From this single portal interface users can sign-on to multiple applications, send mail, […]
