Marketing through CRM Sys

How hard is it to get a new customer? How hard is it to maintain the current customer?
Businesses of all types and sizes spend a small fortune generating sales leads.
But, according to a recent study more than 70% of today’s companies have no formal process for qualifying those leads, and as a result, as many as 80% of them are mishandled or ignored.

A CRM system can help companies convert and close more leads by dramatically improving the way they are processed and managed.

Before a customer purchases a product or service from a business, they will pass through a series of stages, known as the lead lifecycle. The phases of the lead lifecycle include:
Suspect
A suspect is a contact who has not yet expressed an interest in a company’s offerings, but would likely have a want or a need for a similar product or service. Suspects can be identified by determining the characteristics of those people who are most likely to buy from a company, or the traits of those people the company most wants to sell to.

Profiling
(Age, income level, job function, industry, geography, or other characteristics.)

CRM systems can simplify and enhance suspect profiling by allowing companies to more accurately uncover trends, patterns, and commonalities among the customer base. Once a suspect profile has been created, CRM can make it easier to target contacts for specific promotions by allowing more segmentation that is specific.
Lead
As marketing begins to deploy campaigns to suspects to increase awareness and create demand, interested parties will respond or request more information by calling number, clicking-through to a Web site landing page, sending back a self-mailer, or attending an event. These contacts can then be classified as leads – suspects who fit a specific profile, and have demonstrated an interest in or need for a company’s products or services.

CRM systems enable easy logging and tracking of campaign responses, so those suspects that have become leads can be flagged accordingly. Sales and marketing staff can then take the needed steps – continued marketing outreach, direct follow-up, etc. – to move them further through the lead lifecycle.

Prospect
As communication with leads continues, and they become more educated about the company and its offerings, some of them will wish to see a live demonstration, gather pricing information, or engage in other in-depth discussions. These contacts are now seriously considering making a purchase, and have become active sales opportunities or prospects.

A CRM system enables marketing to “pass” or “assign” a lead directly to a sales rep at this stage. It will also help that sales rep efficiently manage all aspects of the prospect deal as it moves closer to closing. For example, activities such as phone calls and meetings can be tracked, related documentation such as quotes and RFPs can be stored, and probability of close and potential deal value can be estimated for pipeline and forecasting purposes.

Client
The deal has been closed, and the prospect, who was once just a suspect, has finally made a purchase. CRM tools can help companies track initial and add-on purchases, as well as any post-sale service and support issues that may arise. Additionally, as customers become increasingly fickle and loyalty continues to plummet, CRM solutions can provide companies with the insight they need to provide world-class support, deliver value-added services, successfully up-sell and cross-sell, and maintain existing business.

Key CRM Lead Management Features

Many CRM solutions on the market today, particularly those with strong sales force automation or marketing automation capabilities, provide a wide range of features to support enhanced lead management. These functions include:

List imports. Lead databases are often built from a variety of different sources – purchased lists, external contact databases, and other offline resources. CRM solutions eliminate manual entry by enabling fast, accurate importing of external files, while preventing the creation of duplicate records.

Lead capture. Many CRM applications can be tightly integrated with Web sites and email distribution systems. Therefore, form completions, click-throughs, surveys, and other response mechanisms can be dynamically captured, and related information can be made instantly available to sales and marketing staff.

Database segmentation. CRM systems allow sales and marketing staff to profile contacts by specific characteristics or traits. This allows for more targeted and personalized communication, which can improve sales and marketing effectiveness and accelerate sales cycles.

Activity and status tracking. With a CRM solution, companies can track more than just contact data. They can monitor and report on interactions at every single touch point. Vital information about campaigns received and responded to, sales activities, behaviors, and more is captured and stored by the CRM system. Contacts, and their status, can also be closely tracked as they move through various stages of the lead and sales cycle.

Rules-based routing. Some CRM solutions contain intelligent routing capabilities, so follow-up communications can be automatically triggered, or leads can be dynamically pushed to specific sales representatives, based on pre-defined business rules.

Where to Look

So, which CRM solutions have the best lead tracking and management capabilities? The ones with sales force automation or marketing automation as their foundation are likely to offer the most comprehensive features in this area.

:

* Salesforce.com. The Salesforce.com Marketing module provides robust capabilities that simplify lead capture, automate lead conversion, and optimize lead flow from qualification through close.

* SAP. SAP is marketing component offers a broad range of lead tracking features, including segment and list management, dynamic lead prioritization, and automatic lead distribution.

* Oracle. When Oracle acquired Siebel, they also acquired some powerful lead management functionality. The Siebel CRM product offers dynamic lead assignment and routing, and can even automatically re-assign leads as needed (for example, if a sales rep leaves the company). Comprehensive activity and history tracking, and list import and management are also included.

* NetSuite. NetSuite’s popular marketing automation solution provides a wide variety of lead management capabilities such as import with duplication detection, dynamic capture of Web leads, and fully customizable qualification and scoring procedures to aid in lead prioritization.

* Maximizer. Fully automated processes for campaign response management, Web lead tracking, contact importing, and distribution, and dynamic alerts that notify key stakeholders when leads aren’t assigned or followed up in a timely fashion – as well as a unique capability that scans the subject line and body copy of emails for select keywords and instantly forwards them to the appropriate person – make Maximizer one of the best lead management environments on the market today.

Role of SWOT in Creative Marketing

I started reading about SWOT   During my MBA but if you look into the practical implementation of this concept its important for any HUMAN to use it in every phase of his life   to grow and progress .That’s a lot of Individual Philosophy lets come to the marketing Aspect of SWOT Analyses.SWOT has a long history as a tool of strategic and marketing analysis. No one knows who first invented SWOT analysis. It has features in strategy textbooks since at least 1972 and can now be found in textbooks on marketing and any other business disciplines. It advocates say that it can be used to gauge the degree of “fit” between the organisation’s strategies and its environment, and to suggest ways in which the organisation can profit from strengths and opportunities and shield itself against weaknesses and threats (Adams, 2005). However, SWOT has come under criticism recently. Because it is so simple, both students and managers have a tendency to use it without a great deal of thought, so that the results are often useless. Another problem is that SWOT, having been conceived in simpler times, does not cope very well with some of the subtler aspects of modern strategic theory, such as trade-offs 

Creative Use of SWOTs: Generating Strategies

If, on the other hand, the objective seems attainable, the SWOTs are used as inputs to the creative generation of possible strategies, by asking and answering each of the following four questions, many times:

§  How can we Use each Strength?

§  How can we Improve each Weakness?

§  How can we Exploit each Opportunity?

§  How can we Mitigate each Threat?

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Market Positioning is the Key

As Said by the big Marketing Gurus for the product or a service to be successfully in  the market we needs to have a unique USP.But the question is what is this(Unique Selling Point) Most of the products have almost the same attributes but what they cater to is a different  Target segment .let me say we all are humans  all humans have same basic needs(Maslow Theory)but different Likings  depending on our and Social and Economic dependenciesWell with this background we need to know Where to Position the productWhen people think about marketing they automatically imagine advertising, public relations or direct mail. But all of that is not market

ing -- it's merely the vehicles we use to drive home the marketing. Marketing is a strategy.

Marketing is actually a strategy spelled out in a written plan – a plan that you are committed to consistently investing in for at least one year. You need to look at your program as an investment that pays off over time. After a year you will start to see a positive correlation between your commitment and your investment. You must remember "the rule of seven" when developing a marketing strategy. This rule says that it takes seven consistent impressions over 12 months for consumers to recognize your message. Frequency over time is the equation that multiplies marketing results. Commitment to investing in both is what separates the winners from the losers.

Once committed to creating a year-long marketing plan, make sure you cover the following key points:

• Market segment of interest. Is your market the general consumer? Is it a business or industry that serves the consumer? What portion of the product line are you going after? What is your niche?
• Market segment's size and customer population. Who are your potential buyers? How many of them are there? If they are actual consumers, identify them in terms of age, sex, income, geography, ethnicity and as many other demographic segments as possible. If your market is a business or industry that serves consumers, identify them in terms of company size, geography, share of market, reputation, etc.
• Identify important competitors and discover their strengths and weaknesses. Who are your main competitors? Prioritize them. Research their strengths and weaknesses by reading industry publications, visiting their Web sites, following newsgroup postings, utilizing mystery shoppers, talking to former employees or conducting focus groups with competitors' current customers.
• Establish a market share goal that will provide a commanding position. You want a commanding position because you are better off being a big fish in a small pond, than trying to be a small fish in a big pond. Big mistakes are seen every day in marketing plans by people trying to bite off a larger segment than they can afford to dominate.
• Describe how the product will be differentiated, positioned, promoted, priced, supported and serviced. Your marketing communications agency can help you establish many of these aspects that will become the key selling points of your marketing message.
• Estimate your costs and establish a budget. Remember, properly done, your marketing plan will be an investment that pays off far more than the expense of your budget. It is far better to have a lean 10 to 20 page marketing plan that is used and updated every three months, than to possess a 200 page document that gathers dust on some shelf.
• Sell the steak's sizzle. If you don't get your marketing plan right, anything that marketing communications does later will be like placing a Band-Aid on a puncture wound. It just won't help. Marketing communications is the end product of a well thought-out plan based on a well defined market need, in a well defined market segment.

 

Creative Marketing

Creative Marketing

 “ Creative Marketing is about dreaming but dreaming with a goal and objective, This is a process where we  sell mostly tangible things through an idea and if that idea clicks it creates the base for a creative marketing plan and strategy”

Hold on that is true but only to an extend!!!!!! . If we want the creative idea to be successfull it has be be thought enough of and understood .The critical part of creative marketing is to understand and analyze the Target Audience

As as long as you are right in that question be sure you will hit the target right. Knowing your target audience is crucial  for   success  of any product or service to plan  out your strategy in order to position the product in the market..