Social networking and sales automation have joined forces to help businesses increase their profit share, and hopefully, you will take advantage as well. In recent times sales automation coupled with the ever popular social networking platforms have become increasingly common. There is no doubt that automating the identification of sales leads through easy to use platforms and programs, like Twitter and Facebook, have been proven to be an effective means of advertising and marketing for companies.
Social media networks been coming to the forefront of businesses’ customer relationship management (CRM) due in large part to the fact that many traditional CRM programs are often extremely confusing and time intensive that require much attention. Differing greatly from these CRM programs, which may sometimes be expensive, social networks have enabled users to conduct customer relationship management activities with little or no cost, and relative ease. Many companies are actually combining social networking with their CRM systems to make the most of the information available to them.
Sales automation seems to be a term that has stuck through the ages. In today’s world the term “lead management” is more commonly used to replace sales automation. In the lead management realm, the first step to managing and executing leads is to capture the actual leads. The way this process was usually done, when companies were only using CRM programs, was through contact imports like Excel spreadsheets and the like. Now, by using social networks, leads can be captured through a variety of ways, such as, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Leads, along with potential customer’s contact information, can easily be gained through these platforms, making social networks far more effective in the capturing of leads.
The next step in effective lead management is getting in touch with the leads you have captured. The typical way of doing this when using CRM programs is via telephone, but the telephone has many downfalls. The most common problems with using the telephone to get in contact with potential customers are: (1) There might not be anyone one home and usually no answering machine, (2) if a message is left it is more than likely never returned, (3) salespeople may not effectively communicate their message to customers. All of these shortcomings result in unsuccessful execution of the leads that were captured. On the other hand, trying to reach your contacts through social networking platforms has been proven to be highly effective. You are able to send messages to your contact and they are able to reply at a time that is more convenient to them.
Sales lead tracking is probably the next most vital stage in lead management. Companies must make notes about their contact with the customer so that they know what the next step is with that particular customer. This was originally done by attaching notes to a customer in a CRM program with phrases like “contact”, “proposal” and “do not call”. None of that type of note taking is required anymore due to the contact history that social networking platforms provide. It is relatively easy to look back on conversations with customers that were had via the Internet. Conversations on the most popular sites are archived and can be easily accessed. This element of social networking platforms makes lead tracking much more simple and effective.
It is obvious that the new frontier of lead management is within the world of social networking. Social networking sites have made it simple to capture, contact, and track leads. Social networking allows for immediate client contact and communication, helping you to improve your sales processes.
To explore more information about how you can use social networking to enhance your sales lead management and sales tracking strategies, read further.
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