Tag Archive for: Marketing Automation

Tips to Convince the Owner of your Company to Buy Salesforce

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Do you find yourself constantly spending time doing tasks that you feel could be automated? The truth is that if you feel certain tasks could be automated, they probably can be, you just don’t have a system set up yet to assist you with those automated processes, but you can with the power of Salesforce. It can help your organization store, measure, and divide data across different teams since there are only so many hours in the day. Now that you know you need a more powerful solution to streamline your daily company activities, how do you go about persuading the owner of your company?

Here are 3 Sure-Fire Ways to Sell the Owner of Your Company on Salesforce.

1. You Don’t Have Complete Visibility Into Each Department

Do you find yourself constantly looking for key data to make critical decisions? Then you don’t have true transparency of your team’s activities and need a system that can support that type of overview. That is why by having Salesforce, it will provide you with a 360-degree view of your accounts, customers, sales, opportunities, and contacts. Which in turn will help make better decisions by providing your business with the full story as your key data will be in one location. 

Do you have the reporting you need? And is the reporting updated constantly in a way that makes sense for your team? With the use of Salesforce, your teams will be able to make their own reports in order to establish what tasks have been completed and what has been missed. Their reports will be able to create dashboards to weigh their performance. 

You need a system with a true bird’s-eye-view not only on the company level, but also at the departmental level. Without true transparency, you’re going to keep making decisions that affect the entire organization without the full story and without the full story, are you really making the best decisions? Salesforce will centralize data, which will help teams collaborate with one another, and they will be able to assess what is the best decision to make for the organization at the time.

2. Everything Takes One Too Many Steps To Complete

Do you need to get approval from your boss for a discount on a sale? Did you know you can automate that approval process? By having a manual process, it is time consuming for you and your managers. Salesforce will be able to automate these approvals making it simpler for your boss to grant them.

Do you often have the same three tasks that need to happen after an SOW is signed? You’re wasting time when you carry out each of those processes manually. You can simply set up the automation one time with Salesforce, and all those steps are happening in the background as business chugs along as usual. 

3. The Cost Of Implementing Salesforce Ts Way Cheaper Than Hiring Multiple Team Members 

Once you set up your Salesforce instance with the right team guiding you through the process, your automation is set. You’ll have seamless business processes that can save your team countless hours. You have the initial implementation cost, which for many teams will satisfy their Salesforce needs. For teams that need ongoing support through managed services, plans are usually customizable and built to fit technology budgets of all sizes. 

Alternatively, to get the same work you need done you’ll need to hire, train and employ multiple staff members, just to do manual administrative work that could be easily automated. And the more customers your business gains, the tougher it is to keep data organized and make accurate decisions. By continuing to spend time doing things that otherwise could be automated, you’re wasting valuable time, and incurring more expenses for your team by spending less time on your core responsibilities.

When it comes down to dollars and cents, there truly is no comparison: You will considerably save money up front with a Salesforce implementation versus hiring new full time staff to take on the responsibilities.

Are you ready to talk to the owner of your organization about the power of Salesforce? 

Conclusion

Commercient is a Salesforce integration expert that can focus on migrating your data into Salesforce without hassle. Additionally, Abelian has teamed up with Commercient, as a trusted Salesforce implementation partner, to guide you through the process of automating your Salesforce instance to your team’s exact specifications.

Ultimately, you’re going to save money when you implement Salesforce and move away from your legacy business processes. Additionally, your team will save time with Salesforce and get the insight into the company they have been craving to make actionable and well-thought-out decisions that will not only benefit the current team, but future team members for years to come.

Stop wasting time and start boosting your team’s productivity. Reach out today to Abelian, a certified Salesforce Consulting partner, or Commercient, your favorite Salesforce integration expert, for a free consultation.

Marketing Automation to Maximize Salesforce

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Salesforce is an incredible tool to maximize your sales pipeline. You can streamline and track your sales process with lead and opportunity stages; organize page layouts to give you the most relevant information first; set up alerts to notify your team of new leads and deals; access to unlimited reporting; and you can automate certain tasks and forecast with predictive intelligence. No doubt, Salesforce is a powerful tool. 

But what are you doing to fill your sales pipeline? How do you ensure that you always have leads ready to pursue? That is where marketing comes in; Sales is the back half of your pipeline. Let’s talk about the front half, marketing, and more specifically, marketing automation.

Marketing automation explained 

Imagine having a sales rep that works 24 hours, that can respond to thousands of emails right away without fail. Who consistently hands out relevant information to potential new leads, and every morning has a list of the top leads for your team to start working. Impossible, right? Too good to be true? With marketing automation, it’s all doable, and it’s the process of using technology to streamline and improve marketing activities.

Marketing automation systems, such as Pardot, Marketing Cloud, HubSpot, or Marketo, power automated and targeted messaging to your leads or potential customers based on their digital engagement with your company. These systems leverage information from digital ads, referring websites, social media platforms, lead forms, and website viewing history.

Marketing automation is able to segment these leads into categories you set up for targeted marketing. You can even set up scoring models based on this information, so you and your sales team are focused on the leads with the highest potential for conversion. This information can be automatically updated into Salesforce, so your sales team is able to consistently focus on the best prospects for conversion. 

As an example, let’s say you run an ad on LinkedIn which will link to a landing page on your website conveying relevant information from the ad. The landing page should have two to three paragraphs, a nice image, and a simple form for the lead to fill out with some basic information, often in exchange for an offer or access to value-add content. 

When the form is submitted, an email automatically is sent with the offer or content. You can then add this person to one or more lists segmented by geography, product interest, job title, etc. The marketing automation system can then begin sending more targeted email sequences to nurture the lead toward conversion.

The marketing automation system can then track the lead’s digital engagement with your company and rank them on likelihood of conversion, established on a lead scoring model based on your business. And all of this information can be synced to your Salesforce CRM system so your sales and marketing teams can have access to the same information about a prospective customer.  

By making use of marketing automation processes, the following benefits occur:

  • There is more time to focus on marketing strategies.
  • You will be able to obtain a full understanding of potential customers.
  • Marketing campaigns can be expanded.
  • Follow-ups with customers can be personalized.
  • Leads will be prioritized.
  • You can boost your marketing ROI.
  • Improve your ability to predict potential investments.

Conclusion

Salesforce is changing the way companies operate, so that clients can get the most out of their data. By making use of marketing automation, it provides an efficient and effective path to improving sales performance, and allowing your team to get the most out of its investment in Salesforce CRM. Commercient SYNC can help their mutual customers with marketing automation by sending important ERP data to Salesforce. NPWR and Commercient can lead you on the right path to assist in your Marketing Automation needs from any location in the world. Please feel free to contact us.

Revolutionizing Email Marketing Campaigns With CRM And ERP Data

The technology behind creating content based on your target market has drastically evolved, making the process efficient and easier. According to research conducted by Evergage, many marketers agree that personalization is the most effective strategy for retaining the customer.

Happy Customer

To successfully implement personalization strategies, you’ll need sufficient data and insights. Bringing data from different systems remains a challenge for about 55% of marketers – you can create unique content on websites or social media, but personalized content is most effective in email marketing campaigns.

Sending individualized emails is not rocket science; however, using personalized emails to enhance conversion rates requires more than adding “First_Name” to your introduction.

So, how can companies gather the needed data? For starters:

  • Doing business with them
  • Tracking visitors on your website
  • Sign-up forms on your website
  • Sales networks
  • Third-party apps

All this data is usually gathered inside your CRM system. Collecting basic information such as name and address can make your email marketing communication simple, but not as effective. Make a list of data fields you want to acquire from your customers – name, address, and contact numbers are a given, but you also want to be able to track their purchase history, product interest, contact history, etc.

How integrating your CRM and ERP system enhances your campaign.

The 55% of marketers that struggle to bring all the data from their ERP system into their CRM system can utilize third-party integration apps to gather all the data collected from marketing automation systems or accounting tools into their CRM system. The integration between the two systems allows you to create custom fields where necessary and capture all the information.

It is crucial to make sure this information is up to date and accurate. Addressing a contact with the wrong name won’t do your marketing and sales efforts any good. Make sure you provide a personalized link in each email where the recipient can alter their own contact information; this will help to keep your database error-free.

Finally, always remember to send yourself and your team members a test email to see if everything works before you set wheels on your email marketing campaign. With a test mail, you can confirm whether all conditional content or personalization tags are in proper working order. Good luck!

3 apps con las que debes integrar tu ERP o sistema contable

¿No te gustaría mejorar la productividad, colaborar de manera más efectiva y tomar decisiones más informadas? El paso necesario para alcanzar estos objetivos puede ser tan simple como  integrar tu ERP o sistema contable con tu CRM. De hecho, estarás ayudando a tu negocio a crecer si integras tu ERP con otras aplicaciones que usas. Para ayudarte, hemos compilado un total de 3 apps que podrías integrar con tu ERP o sistema contable.

CRM

Si quieres incrementar la productividad y hacer más eficientes tus procesos, deberías integrar tu CRM con tu ERP. Si los sistemas que usas para la contabilidad y para ventas tienen sus propias bases de datos, rápidamente sabrás por qué te conviene tenerlos sincronizados.

Con una integración como la plataforma Commercient SYNC, puedes asegurar que ambos sistemas podrán leer datos de la otra aplicación, y las actualizaciones se reflejan simultáneamente. Tendrás así una visión de 360 grados de tus clientes, sus necesidades, hábitos de compra, historial de órdenes, preferencias, estado de la cuenta, y mucho más. Tus empleados, incluyendo los de ventas y servicio al cliente, también tendrán acceso a la información que necesitan para resolver las inquietudes y preguntas de los clientes, cuando la necesiten.

eCommerce

También recomendamos integrar tu ERP con tu sistema de eCommerce. Una integración permite el intercambio de datos entre los dos sistemas, lo cual significa que solo necesitas ingresar la información una vez.

Por ejemplo, integrar ERP con Magento vía Commercient SYNC mejora el funcionamiento de ambos sistemas y la comunicación entre tus equipos de ventas y operaciones back-office es más fluida. Los ERPs para los que proveemos integraciones incluyen Sage, SYSPRO, Acumatica, QuickBooks Online, TRAVERSE y otros.

También provee estadísticas importantes sobre cómo está funcionando tu tienda, tu inventario, recursos, y órdenes de clientes. Esto ofrece una mejor experiencia a quienes compran en tu tienda en línea, y le ayuda a tu negocio a obtener el máximo beneficio de tu sistema eCommerce.

Email Marketing

Email marketing es una de las formas de comunicación más efectivas para atraer prospectos y nutrir tu relación con ellos. Por ello, lo ideal es tener a tu ERP trabajando de manera sincronizada con tu sistema de email marketing. Si usas  IoT Pulse, podrás conectar tu ERP con más de 815 apps, incluyendo Gmail y sistemas de email marketing como Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, InfusionSoft, y mucho más. Así, podrás enviar emails automatizados a tus clientes cuando realicen una acción específica, como por ejemplo, ingresar una nueva orden o generar una nueva factura. También puedes automatizar tareas de Acumatica y MailPlatform o Sage Live y Direct Mail, entre otros ejemplos.

Para una lista completa de todas las apps que puedes integrar con tu ERP puedes revisar la página que detalla las integraciones de IoT Pulse.

Contáctanos hoy con tus preguntas si quieres saber más (ofrecemos asistencia en español).

Why We Love Newsletters and Why You Should, Too!

A newsletter can help you take your business to new heights. In addition to being a powerful marketing tool that you can use to maintain ongoing connection with contacts (both prospective and existing customers), newsletters are a great way to keep your customers informed and give them added value in the form of interesting content and valuable tips. In this article, we’ll give you a first-hand look at why we love newsletters, and why you should too!

 

Drive More Sales

If you’re not sending out regular newsletters, you may be missing out on sales. According to Jay Baer at Convince&Convert, 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.

You can advertise your company’s new products and services in your newsletters, and explain the benefits of each product or service. And, if you use our IoT Pulse app, you can send out these emails instantly, even when your customers input a new order or generate a new invoice – it provides integration with tools such as MailChimp and InfusionSoft, so you can send new product information and triggered-based content to all your customers. This will help you send content aligned with their own interests, in addition to a more generalized newsletter, and help you increase conversions.

With newsletters, you can also increase the number of referrals, since your customers who are connected with you will be more likely to forward copies of your newsletter to others.

 

Connect With More Customers

We love newsletters because they allow you to connect with more customers in engaging and creative ways. According to a Return Path study, “When newsletters deliver great content and follow email best practices, they help marketers measurably strengthen subscriber engagement and stay connected to their audiences.” Newsletters will help you bring more repeat customers, and turn prospects into clients.

 

Boost Website Traffic

In addition to allowing you to connect with more customers, newsletters can also help you increase the amount of traffic to your website. In your newsletters, you can include a teaser of what your latest blog post is about, and link back to the blog post. You may also include links to a press release, to information on an upcoming event, or an informative page which will help drive recipients back to your website, and helping to improve your search engine presence.  Including links to key pages on your site, will make it easier for your readers to find specific content and keep your brand in their minds, which will help boost the number of returning visitors to your site.

 

Increase Social Media Following

According to GetResponse report, emails that include social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate. So, if you send out e-newsletters regularly, be sure to include your social media icons in the email, or direct links to follow your accounts. Subscribers could get curious and start to check out your pages, and eventually, your website. Newsletters are a great way to help grow your social media presence.

 

Save Money

Another reason we love newsletters is because they are cost-effective to produce and distribute, making them an ideal marketing tool for small businesses. By sending out newsletters regularly, you can help save money on marketing, printing, postage, labor and other overhead costs, and reach your prospects and customers inbox.

 

Conclusion

Newsletters are without a doubt a great way to remind customers to learn more about you, and increase your business. If you’d like to learn more about IoT Pulse, SYNC, or any of our other products or services, contact us.

Feel free to sign up to our newsletter to keep in touch, read our blog and be the first to know about new apps and integrations.

4 Ways to Use Internet of Things for Marketing Automation

There are many advantages of marketing automation, such as selling 24/7 from your website or being able to complete repetitive tasks without being present. Automating processes has become a “boom” that has created a positive impact in many aspects of business operations, including marketing, sales, accounting, logistics, and more. And Internet of Things (IoT) is occupying more and more space in this field.

Although many people associate IoT with robots, devices, alarms, and others, it also offers specific advantages for companies. For example, IoT helps with marketing and sales automation. There are tools to automate scheduling of social media posts, email marketing campaigns, and even your CRM system. That’s why we’re seeing more tools that combine at least two of these.

How can you use IoT to automate your marketing and some processes related to sales?

 

Connect Different Tools

It’s not the same to integrate your CRM with an email marketing tool than doing it with your accounting software. Some tools incorporate different functions, like Mailchimp including autoresponders in free accounts, or ActiveCampaign which provides both email marketing and a CRM. However, not many tools can integrate different functions.

IoT Pulse makes this possible. It allows you to sync your ERP / accounting software such as QuickBooks with over 800 apps, including Infusionsoft.

One of the most used and effective tools to manage marketing automation is Infusionsoft, which helps you to create and manage email marketing campaigns, automations, stores information of subscribers, people that have downloaded certain resources, or bought specific products (via CRM). Also, it provides information about how they interact with the content you create and send through emails and sales funnels.  

On the other hand, QuickBooks is used by companies to manage their accounting, client information, paid and pending invoices, reports, revenue, among other data. Can you imagine integrating the information stored in Infusionsoft and QuickBooks, so you don’t have to do that manually? You can with IoT Pulse.

 

Better Management of Contacts Information

What happens when a person decides to subscribe to your email marketing list? Or when she or he buys a certain product? Even if that person decides not to buy at that time, how do you manage the information to nurture that relationship?

The information provided by a tool like Infusionsoft allows you to work on customized content marketing strategies so you can start building a valuable relationship with that customer, whether that person has purchased one of your products or not.

 

Fast and Easy Access to Information

On average, a company uses between 5 and 10 systems (software), and are related to manufacturing, logistics, accounting, admin, sales, marketing, and more. Maybe it won’t take more than 2 minutes to enter data in one of those systems, but how long does it take to enter that data in 10 different places? How much time can you or your staff afford to lose in order to keep all the systems updated?

With a solution like IoT Pulse, you’ll avoid phrases like, “I think that info is…”, or “not sure if someone has updated that yet.”

 

Outstanding Customer Service

There’s nothing more frustrating for a customer than having to call a company, and explain the same situation to more than two people. This happens when information is scattered, and it’s difficult for the customer care staff to track information added by the Sales or Accounting Departments, because they’re stored in separate systems. If no one from those departments is available at that time, it’s not possible to answer the customer’s questions.

Fortunately, by integrating the departments’ ERP and CRM systems, there’s no need to chase people around, or take the time opening every single system to find the information you need at that time.

Integration gives you that information in one place, so the customer care staff can track a customer’s interactions since they started purchasing from your company, pending invoices, and much more. That way, the attention you provide is faster, more efficient, and personalized. This will help you to earn points with that customer, and nurture the business relationship.

 

Do you use Infusionsoft and QuickBooks for your sales, marketing, and accounting departments? Thanks to IoT Pulse you can integrate these and other marketing tools to your ERP, and know what’s happening with your customers in real time.

If you want to learn more about IoT Pulse and this particular integration, or if you use other marketing tools such as Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign, and ERPs like Sage, reach out to us today.