These steps are ideal to help you to focus on the problems you are looking to solve and the goals you have. Combining these activities with some objective data will give you an edge to finding the right CRM for your organization. 

Research commissioned on CRM selection

Insightly recently partnered with Ascend2, a B2B research firm, to get insights into how people make this important decision and ways to help them make it a successful one. The report, Choosing the Right CRM to Align Teams: An inside look at how sales, marketing & customer service teams are leveraging their CRM for a better customer experience, is now available for download and review.

The new data reveals how more than 500 sales, marketing and customer service professionals choose a CRM and how they are leveraging their CRM to ensure a best-in-class experience for their customers. 

The report indicates that a customer relationship management (CRM) system can provide businesses of all sizes and industries a host of benefits, and that these systems can be a catalyst for achieving the goals of individual departments and the organization as a whole. 

Finding: CRM is key for delivering exceptional customer experiences

Among the benefits of effectively using a CRM is delivering exceptional customer experiences.

That bodes well for those seeking a CRM since improving the customer experience is a top strategic priority in the year ahead for 55 percent of respondents, second only to growing revenue. 

Further research found that less than one in five respondents rated their organization’s customer experience as exceptional, which is important to note because companies that report the best customer experiences are 2.5 times more likely to report significant revenue growth than all others.

Changing your CRM is common

The study also found that over one-third of organizations will be shopping for a new CRM in the coming year and 45 percent of respondents listed improving customer experience as a top priority in driving the consideration of a new CRM. And for those who currently use a CRM platform and are looking for a change? For those in a manager or director role, the biggest complaints about current platforms being used are missing or inadequate features, cost and difficulty of customization. VPs and executives were more concerned about scalability and costs.

Alignment drives growth

Only one-in-five organizations surveyed report having aligned technology and customer data used by marketing, sales, and customer support/success teams. On the flipside, over one-third of companies with completely aligned technology and customer data across their marketing, sales, and customer success teams saw a significant increase in revenue last year. It’s clear that alignment among teams drives growth.

Benefits of an effective CRM

The top benefits of effectively utilizing a CRM according to those who are extremely satisfied with their solution, include better customer data (44 percent), more organized/streamlined processes (43 percent) and higher sales/faster growth (40 percent).

Across all teams, dashboard visualization of reporting and analytics is essential. Creating a unified view of the customer is imperative to providing an exceptional customer experience.

Over two-thirds (68%) of those surveyed report having customer data stored in multiple locations. Storing customer data across several different platforms limits access across teams and ultimately results in an uninformed and disjointed journey.

A 360-degree unified customer view often includes the following data: 

• CRM and customer data
• Behavioral data
• Marketing channel interactions
• Sales representatives’ interactions
• Support tickets
•  Project status

By enabling this unified customer view, organizations are given a better understanding of the customer. This allows for improved personalization and a better overall customer experience, not to mention more efficient workflows and processes.

The problem with enterprise CRMs 

The data shows that ‘over-buying’ is a real issue in regards to enterprise solutions. It seems that flashy marketing campaigns and big name sponsorships may convince organizations to over-invest in an enterprise solution (e.g. Salesforce) that is really meant for the Fortune 500. Two-thirds of enterprise CRM users are from departments with 50 employees or less. This signals that these organizations have likely over-invested in a solution they likely underutilize. 

The resulting data shows that enterprise CRM users are significantly more likely to complain about initial and ongoing cost of their CRM (41% of Enterprise CRM users list this as a top complaint vs 24% of all others). Clearly, the chosen solution is not a fit.

Integrating with existing systems 

For 40% of those surveyed, integrating a new CRM into existing systems is a major challenge during the implementation process. A CRM that can speak to the rest of your technology stack ensures data accessibility throughout your organization and enable a unified view of the customer.

The most useful integrations according to those surveyed are QuickBooks, ADP, and WordPress, but this varies by who you ask. Sales puts Zoominfo among the top of this list while Customer Success and Ops professionals place a higher value on Workday.

For 40 percent of those surveyed, integrating a new CRM into existing systems is a major challenge during the implementation process. A CRM that can speak to the rest of your technology stack ensures data accessibility throughout your organization and enables a unified view of the customer. 

Project management and CRM is a logical progression

It seems like a natural progression that a prospect becomes a lead, a lead becomes an opportunity, and an opportunity becomes a customer. After that, most CRMs end and projects are moved to a PM tool for execution. A full 93% of those surveyed would adopt a project management tool that was native to their CRM tool to have this continuity rather than exporting data to yet another system. Note: Modern CRMs, like Insightly, have project management functionality built right in.

Failed implementations are costly – in many ways

With any new tool in your organization, the risk of failure is there. Successful adoption is the goal of course, but it doesn’t just happen. Having a plan and a team to guide the process is vital. Failed implementation of a CRM can cost organizations greatly. According to the survey, not overcoming these challenges results in employee frustration, wasted staff time, and missed opportunities for revenue according to 51%, 44%, and 43% of those surveyed respectively. 

In short, every implementation is important, but this is one you have to get right. Steal this proven process from the Insightly implementation experts. 

Methodology, get the full report & more

A custom online questionnaire for the “Choosing the Right CRM to Align Teams” survey was fielded throughout the month of April, 2022 to a panel of 511 professionals representing sales, marketing, customer success, and related operations teams and who self-identified as management through higher-level job functions such as directors, VPs, and executive roles. These individuals represent business-to-business (B2B) organizations in the US with 50 – 500 employees across several industries.

Get your copy of the full report and/or watch a webinar presentation of the results from the head researcher. 

Ready to align your teams? Get started with a free trial of Insightly CRM today, or request a personalized demo.

The post New research to help companies choose a CRM appeared first on Insightly.

Today’s sales organizations are facing challenges unlike any they’ve seen before—but the most successful teams have always been flexible, agile, and adaptable. The key lies in recognizing potential pitfalls and finding smart ways to overcome them.

As we move to the midpoint of 2022, we’ve compiled this list of top sales challenges for 2022, along with tips and recommendations for navigating them successfully.

Challenge #1: The Great Resignation

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 48 million people voluntarily left their jobs in 2021. This unprecedented exodus from the workforce—dubbed “the Great Resignation”—has hit sales teams especially hard, with average turnover rates estimated around 35 percent.

Even in the best of times, attrition makes it difficult for sales teams to operate effectively. Sales leaders are forced to focus on hiring and onboarding instead of strategy and execution. Performance suffers as depleted teams struggle to meet revenue goals. And morale declines as those who remain are left to pick up the slack. The best way to protect your team—and the bottom line—is by retaining the employees you already have.

How to manage it

Here are some tips to increase retention and minimize the impact of the Great Resignation:

• Show your appreciation. This should be obvious, but employees are less likely to leave when they feel valued. Take the time to recognize accomplishments and celebrate milestones. Invest in sales training and provide opportunities for career growth. Most importantly, treat each person as an individual—not just a cog in the sales machine. 
• Clarify your employer value proposition. Of course your comp plan should be competitive, but retaining your sales talent is about more than money. Give them something to believe in! Develop clear messaging about your company’s culture, your mission, and your products—and show how you’re making a difference in the world. (This is especially important for Millennials.)
• Uncover the real problems. Despite your best efforts, some people will inevitably choose to leave. As painful as they may be, exit interviews are your best opportunity to discover the issues that are driving talent away, so don’t treat them as a formality.

Challenge #2: Coming out of “pandemic mode”

As we emerge from more than two years of pandemic-induced uncertainty, sales teams everywhere are struggling with the questions of a new reality. Live events are starting to return, but will they ever be the same? How do sales meetings work when my prospects work remotely? Are the virtual processes we put in place on-the-fly appropriate for the long term? 

The fact is, the Covid-19 pandemic forced businesses to innovate, and some of those innovations are more efficient and effective than the old way of doing things. Rather than waiting for a return to “normal,” smart sales teams are seeking a way forward—which requires a creative, hybrid approach that blends digital channels with traditional in-person interactions.

How to make it work for you

As you prepare your team for post-pandemic selling, here are a few recommendations:

• Learn how to work virtual events. In-person conferences are making a comeback, but virtual events are likely here to stay. Without a traditional booth to make connections and book meetings, you’ll need to get creative with your event strategy. Every virtual event is different, so investigate the event platform and agenda to identify the best networking opportunities. Then get involved with the event itself. Attend as many sessions as possible and participate in sidebar chats to make organic connections. 
• Adjust tactics for digital leads. A greater percentage of leads are likely to come from digital sources (rather than trade shows), so you may need to fine-tune your nurture tactics to move them through the funnel. Email remains a go-to channel for sales communications, but consider adding a personalized video to build rapport without face-to-face contact. 
• Invest in training. Now more than ever, sales is an evolving field. A proactive approach to training will keep your team up-to-speed on emerging skills that can help them sell in a virtual-first world. Regular training also keeps everyone aligned and ensures you’re all working toward the same business goals.

Challenge #3: Gen X buyers take the reins

We’ve touched on the Great Resignation, but there’s another employment phenomenon that’s impacting sales teams: the Great Retirement. The Baby Boomers (currently 58-76 years old) are retiring in droves, and the Covid-19 pandemic only accelerated their employment exodus. As of late 2020, nearly 30 million Baby Boomers had retired—and a year later, more than half of adults age 55+ had joined them.

As Baby Boomers vacate long-held leadership roles, a new and different cohort is taking control of B2B buying decisions. Generation X is a much smaller population than either Baby Boomers or Millennials—so they’re frequently overlooked—but understanding the nuances of “Gen X” is now critical to selling success. 

How to embrace it

As you navigate this new generation of B2B buyers, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Gen X values authenticity. Unlike Baby Boomers who don’t mind being “sold,” Gen X buyers value marketing that is personal and authentic. Earn their business by becoming a trusted advisor. Your sales messaging should demonstrate how you can help them achieve a specific business result, like saving money or avoiding risk.
• Gen X questions everything. As the original “latchkey kids,” Gen Xers were often left to fend for themselves, and major economic events like the dot-com bust shaped their formative years. As a result, Gen X buyers tend to be independent thinkers who value data and unbiased research. They want the straight, unvarnished truth—and they want to see the proof, not just the pitch.
• Gen X is tech savvy. Born between 1965 and 1980, Gen Xers have spent their lives adapting to new technology. While they aren’t digital natives, they’re comfortable with a wide variety of digital channels and tech platforms. But they’re also a nostalgic group, so the occasional direct mail campaign may land well—if it’s authentic and well executed. 
• Gen X has unique communication preferences. While Gen Xers are often stereotyped as loners, the isolation of the pandemic affected Gen X buyers just as much as everyone else—so they’re likely ready for some face-to-face contact. Their feelings on phone calls are somewhat ambivalent—they’re more likely to answer than Millennials, but far less likely than Boomers.

Challenge #4: Remote work limits expansion opportunities

“Land and expand” is a popular sales strategy—and with good reason. Starting small and building on that foundational relationship lets you earn more business and land bigger deals throughout an organization. Studies show that 84% of B2B buyers start the purchasing process with a referral, and peer recommendations influence more than 90% of B2B buying decisions.

Of course, expansion becomes more difficult in a remote workplace because your customers aren’t having those everyday water cooler conversations. That means you’ll have to get creative—and proactive—if you want to connect with internal decision-makers.

How to overcome it

Following are some ideas to help jumpstart your expansion efforts:

• Do your homework. Develop a clear value proposition to explain how your solution can help different parts of the prospect organization. The selling points that resonated with your initial contact may not have the same impact in another department.
• Use all the tools at your disposal. Tools like LinkedIn and ZoomInfo make it easy to identify additional prospects within an organization. Your CRM data can also provide extensive insights on the people who make purchase decisions at your target company.
• Be proactive with outreach. If you have a solid relationship with a contact, ask for referrals. Requesting introductions to specific people is usually more effective than a blanket referral request—which makes your prospecting research even more important.

Challenge #5: Lack of alignment between sales, marketing, and success teams

Internal alignment isn’t a new challenge, but it’s even more common among remote teams. In many organizations, the tools to enable remote work were selected hastily and implemented haphazardly, leading to poor integrations and siloed communications. And remote teams tend to communicate less overall, which creates more opportunities for misunderstandings and conflicting priorities. 

Misalignment has significant consequences, including tension between teams, poor customer experience, and missed revenue targets. So it’s in everyone’s best interest to give sales, marketing, and success teams the tools and support they need to work together effectively.

How to fix it

Here are some tips to help you build (or rebuild) alignment between internal teams:

• Leverage technology to improve communication. Real-time chat tools like Slack, Google Chat, and MS Teams can go a long way toward replicating face-to-face conversations. Because they’re so easy, they encourage more frequent and informal communications.

• Schedule recurring meetings. Regular sales team meetings are a must, but you should also schedule monthly or quarterly meetings with marketing and support teams. Meet in person when you can or use video conferencing to increase engagement on remote calls. 

• Get on the same platform. Giving everyone access to the same data is a huge step toward improving alignment. A unified CRM platform (like Insightly) serves as a single source of truth, to give cross-functional teams a 360-degree view of each customer. 
• Optimize integrations. When evaluating your tech stack, consider the tools your team already uses. Any new additions should integrate easily with the tools your team relies on, to increase adoption and utilization.

Meet your toughest sales challenges head-on with Insightly

At the end of the day, the solution to most sales challenges boils down to three things: consistent processes, internal alignment, and deep customer insights. The right CRM puts these goals—and more—within reach.

Insightly CRM was designed to help growing teams develop and manage customer relationships through a simple, scalable platform. Insightly is the only solution that aligns sales, marketing, and services on a single, shared data platform for unprecedented transparency and a seamless end-to-end customer experience. And with its intuitive user interface, Insightly CRM puts customer insights at your fingertips for more strategic decisions and better business outcomes.

Get started with a free trial of Insightly CRM today, or request a personalized demo to see how it can help your company achieve its business goals. 

The post 2022 Midpoint: Solving the Top 5 B2B Sales Challenges appeared first on Insightly.

A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) is a tool to manage all of your organization’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. CRMs provide a firsthand understanding of your customer’s experience to help you match your products and services to their needs. 

Like any tool, you’ll get the most out of your CRM when you put the most into it. The first step in that effort is to be sure to choose the best CRM based on your needs.

If you’re unfamiliar with the CRM software market, you may feel overwhelmed. In short, it’s huge.You may not know that there are subsets of CRMs, so it’s important to align your business type and objectives with the right offering. Let’s begin with what is generally agreed to be the four classic types of CRM systems.

Type 1: Operational CRMs

Operational CRMs provide customer service or marketing support through automation and streamlining business processes. They capture customer interactions and track lead qualification and action marketing automation.

Operational CRMs collect data from different marketing sources like social media, emails, or website visitors. This data can help your marketing team quickly and easily qualify leads. Operational CRMs also add value by providing more upfront information for analysis. An example of an operational CRM is Spotio.

Type 2: Analytical CRMs

Analytical CRMs use algorithms and machine learning to analyze the data they gather to create optimal customer targeting. Analytical CRMs provide insight into data and then understand and anticipate the customer’s needs that humans would otherwise miss. 

This category of CRM provides higher levels of insight and analysis regarding customer data. In addition, you can customize and scale them to allow your business to add or remove modules to suit your needs. An example of an analytical CRM is OLAP.

Type 3: Collaborative CRMs

Collaborative CRMs are mainly for customer relationship management tracking. These CRM solutions allow you to manage and track interactions with customers who contact your company via resources like social media, emails, and websites. A tracking system can help your team share sales process and task status information, reducing the confusion on what they need to do next. An example of a collaborative CRM is Dynamics 365 Sales.

Type 4: Strategic CRMs

Business models that focus on repeat and loyal customer bases use strategic CRMs to learn more about their customers. They then use this knowledge to build and maintain long-term relationships.  

Like the other types, strategic CRMs collect, analyze, segregate, and apply customer information and market trends to develop better value propositions. The difference is, this type of CRM uses algorithmic and analytical features to focus on building loyalty. It also finds strategic opportunities for engagement consistently and for more extended periods. Most generic CRMs would be identified in this category. 

Legacy CRM: Salesforce

Salesforce is the grandfather of sales CRMs. It is practically a household word these days, but it is also famous for being highly complex and expensive to deploy. 

Salesforce setup is time-consuming. The system’s complexity will require specialized resources that are almost always unavailable internally. Also, it may leave you with limited options. Although Salesforce claims to be integrated, additional apps are more bolt-ons than enhancements. 

Salesforce uses its market dominance to lock you into a single CRM type. A single type of CRM means you will be stuck with a solution that will evolve slowly. That leaves you with a problematic tool to use and constricts you to its technology. 

One of its main drawbacks is its high initial price point and recurring costs. The pricing structure is as confusing as it is costly. Development and user interfaces can be tricky to use. There are steep learning curves and user adoption issues that both admins and end-users need to surpass to get the most out of it. This makes the total cost of ownership very high.

The major advantage to Salesforce is also its major drawback: it’s a popular solution so theoretically you can hire people who already have experience in using it. However, it’s so highly customized by each organization that going from one Salesforce instance to another is akin to starting over. 

Niche player CRM: HubSpot

HubSpot’s primary focus is on marketing and marketing automation; its CRM came later. 

HubSpot is often perceived as a closed system that does best when it is not subject to integrations. As an example, companies with multiple and intricate sales technologies may not find it easy to integrate their complex environment with non-HubSpot technologies. 

A common concern about HubSpot is that it lacks flexibility and robustness when it comes to customizations and sales reporting. When identifying duplicate accounts and contacts, data synchronization is another example of its inflexibility.

Also, keep in mind that if your business or organization is in growth mode, it’s likely that you will outgrow HubSpot at some point. Thus the process of selecting and implementing a new CRM will be on the horizon for you again. 

How to choose the right type of CRM

While classic one-type CRMs noted above perform well within their strength areas, they can get you and your team stuck in a data silo. Whether it’s technological, price, or people-based, sooner or later, you’ll end up with a solution that doesn’t meet your needs. 

Legacy and niche solutions come with their own set of problems, including the risk of difficult user adoption, counter-intuitive UX, costly time, and investment losses due to additional customizations. 

You know you need to choose a CRM that will grow with your business, integrate easily, and not break the bank. It’s time to explore a modern, unified CRM as the answer to this need. 

Why modern unified CRMs are the answer

Modern CRMs save you time and money because they are easy to set up, so you don’t have to engage with expensive integrators to implement your CRM. Implementation is quick, so you won’t need to wait months to experience the benefits of your new system.

The six main reasons to choose a modern unified CRM are as follows: 

1. Improved collaboration and automation – Modern CRMs like Insightly ensure that your sales, marketing, and customer support teams find and work on the information they need. Winning a customer’s business and loyalty takes a united effort, not a siloed one. With modern CRMs, you can give your teams the ability to work in a united and carefully tracked manner due to the enhanced collaboration and automation. 

2. Maximized marketing automation – Most marketing teams juggle multiple tasks and projects at the same time. Marketing automation can allow you to maximize your marketing team’s time and effort. For example, by using Insightly Marketing, your team can create and recreate campaign structures quickly instead of having to reinvent the wheel. In addition, they can rapidly deploy workflow-based processes like web-to-lead forms that automatically generate new records and update data fields to ensure proper categorization. Easy-to-create workflows can trigger drip campaign emails that keep prospects highly engaged. Marketing reporting is easy as well, and is visible to all other teams. 

3. Streamlined sales automation – Unnecessary data entry means sales teams waste time and energy instead of concentrating on deals and the pipeline. Modern CRM sales automation can streamline sales aspects such as lead nurturing and routing. Insightly Sales makes lead-building email outreach campaigns easy for your team to manage. New leads receive emails automatically within moments of requesting information. All additional emails will seamlessly go out throughout the buyer’s journey without creating new manual task bottlenecks that are inefficient and prone to error.

4. Concise customer service automation – Closing new business is the goal, and it’s just the beginning. There’s so much more work to do to communicate the needed handoffs to deliver on promises and serve the customer. It’s vital to get these tasks right so you can retain your newly-won customers. Insightly Service, which is built on the same platform as Insightly CRM and Marketing, includes key features like an easy-to-access blade showing knowledge sidebar, macros, and full history, making it easy to share information and communicate quickly. It also includes quick visibility to SLAs, so reps can stay on track. Convenient dashboards and reports help managers analyze workflows and deploy resources more efficiently.

5. Deeply integrated – Modern CRMs like Insightly are more agile than legacy CRMs because they allow you to quickly build sophisticated integrations with the applications you already use in your organization, like Google, SAP, DocuSign, and much more. Imagine building workflows and integrations without writing a line of code. Insightly’s AppConnect is a no-code solution, so you don’t have to hire developers. AppConnect uses drag and drop functionality, automated error handling, built-in versioning, plus instant deployment and provisioning so your team can build and run sophisticated integrations efficiently.

6. Easy to implement and onboard new people – Legacy CRMs are complex and challenging to implement. They require a deep knowledge of the technology and often require third-party consultants to help, and that’s just with the install. The extreme amounts of documentation and training options demonstrate the complexity in deploying and rolling out to end-users. Modern CRMs like Insightly are built with the user experience in mind. They are designed to be intuitive and to perform like common consumer apps that are already familiar to users. They eliminate the need for long and complex implementations and get your team up and running as quickly as possible so you can experience CRM success in no time.

Where to start?

Not sure where to start? Get your personalized demo of a modern, unified CRM today to see it in action.

The post The 4 types of CRMs and their differences appeared first on Insightly.

At my own company, a tech startup in the San Francisco Bay Area, we had to weigh the benefits and challenges of working remotely before deciding to become a remote-first company. Below are a few takeaways from our decision-making journey and tips to ensure remote work success.

Remote work benefits

1. Freedom to move

One of the positive aspects of remote work is that it provides freedom for employees to move and work from anywhere. For many employees, especially in tech and other industries that have traditionally been concentrated in specific geographic areas, remote work allows people to stay connected, collaborate and contribute without enduring a high cost of living or other limitations. At my company, this fact alone contributed to a higher employee satisfaction rate.

2. Custom workspaces

For quite some time now, open office spaces have been the norm for businesses across industries. Yet, for work that requires a high level of focus for long periods of time, an open office environment—with all its distractions and noise—is far from ideal. Remote work allows employees to design their own workspaces for maximum focus and productivity.

3. Bigger hiring pool

You can now compete for top talent anywhere in the country and the world. More than that, hiring remotely allows you to build a more diverse team in every sense, attracting people from different backgrounds and skill sets.

Remote work challenges

1. Loss of community

There are a few things that are hard to replicate in the virtual work environment, and among them are impromptu brainstorms, team outings and friendly conversations at the proverbial water cooler. For many companies, in-person interactions fueled a sense of community and were a big part of company culture.

2. Communication gaps

It can be hard to get a read on people during a video call. It’s also easy to miss social cues we often use during in-person interactions without even thinking about it. But just being aware of this fact can help you build understanding and figure out ways to close the communication gap.

3. Burnout

The past year presented new challenges for all of us in every aspect of life, including health, family and work. Working remotely while caring for loved ones and/or coping with social isolation came at a huge physical and emotional cost, causing burnout.

Tips for successful remote work

Every challenge is also an opportunity to learn and grow. Here are a few battle-tested tips to help you overcome the challenges of working remotely.

1. Think digital first

If you haven’t done so already, adopt digital tools and systems that are easy to use and meet your team’s unique needs. If all you need is Zoom and Google Workspace and you’re off to the races, that’s great. But if you’re planning to transition into fully remote work or a hybrid model where part of the workforce remains remote, then you’ll need more than just basic planning and communication tools. For example, you may need to adopt learning management systems to deliver everything from onboarding to HR training to ongoing internal product and service seminars.

We live in the digital age where new data is generated every second. All that information, including customer data, is useless if you don’t properly manage it and integrate different parts of business to implement continuous data-driven improvement. Consider a data management platform to keep your business and customer data secure, align remote teams around key performance indicators and track progress across the entire organization.

2. Prioritize communication

More doesn’t mean better when it comes to communication. Zoom fatigue is real, and meetings are no more popular now than they were when we worked in physical offices. Keep your meetings to the minimum and prioritize clear, consistent and written communication. Make face-to-face meetings more intentional and purpose-driven.

3. Encourage work-life balance

While working from home has its appeal, it can cause burnout. On the flip side of flexibility, the lack of commute and comfortable clothing are the absence of structure in terms of a clear start and end to the workday. The burden is on both leaders and employees to set clear expectations for work hours, response time and meetings, taking into consideration different time zones. It may seem overwhelming at first, but honest and open conversations can help find and maintain balance.

4. Check the pulse of employees on a regular basis

As time goes by, our sentiments about remote work and its impact on our lives may change. Don’t wait until you start noticing productivity dips or a lower employee satisfaction rate. It might be unrealistic for you to check in with everyone individually on a regular basis, but you can use brief surveys to give your employees an opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions.

5. Introduce remote work policies

Remote work may look different at different companies. To make sure your employees understand how remote work is going to affect their daily work and lives in the long term, consider introducing remote-work-specific policies. The policies can include anything from allowing employees to work anywhere within the same time zone or country to offering an ergonomics stipend to planning regular in-person outings once it’s safe to do so. At my company, we did a series of employee surveys to determine our team’s priorities and policies as we adjusted to a new normal.

At this point, it’s clear we aren’t going back to the way we worked before the pandemic. Now the task is to make remote work the best it can be and to keep work productive and meaningful.

The post What to consider when switching to long-term remote work appeared first on Insightly.

This shift in consumer behavior has spurred disruptive changes in the way we do business. Brands are now looking to invite voice-based conversations with users via web and mobile apps. Studies and reports point to an exponential rate of adoption, with stats like:

• A total of 31% of global smartphone owners reported using voice tech at least once a week.
• It is predicted voice-shopping spend will grow to over $40 billion in 2022 alone.
• 40% of all internet users in the US, and a third of its total population, are users of voice search.

Voice user interfaces, search, and technology are changing the user experience and transforming the world around us.

Voice interaction & technology

Voice interaction is a major focal point for process development and it’s all about convenience. A user can bypass the need to type, read, or think—all requirements of the screen-and-keyboard style interfaces. Instead, an individual has their objectives met through conversation.

Voice technology combines powerful platforms into a simplified programmatic interface. Some common voice-based programs include:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)
• Natural Language Understanding (NLU)
• Text to Speech (TTS)

UX designers are working to develop solutions that transform the way people interact with machines, systems, and services.

Although the concept of “conversation” seems rather straightforward, the building blocks of technology underneath it are quite complex. Moving beyond the screen-and-keyboard style UI opens a business up to greater levels of accessibility and inclusivity.

How does a voice user interface work?

The general definition of a user interface is the point of human-computer interaction and communication on a webpage, device, or app. A typical user interface can include a display screen, keyboard, mouse, and desktop. It enables a person to effectively control the device they are interacting with.

A successful user interface is clear, concise, and familiar. The system must be responsive and consistent with attractive features that are easy to navigate. Ultimately, a user interface must be efficient and forgiving. This entire process is refined when you add voice technology.

A voice user interface (VUI) makes spoken human interaction with computers possible. It uses speech recognition to understand spoken commands and text to speech to play a reply. These are the primary ways of interacting with virtual assistants on smartphones and speakers.

Voice command device

VUIs are designed to control a voice command device (VCD) which includes everything from a washing machine to automated attendants and automobiles.

Older voice response systems respond to the pressing of keypad buttons via DTMF tones. Newer VCDs, with a full voice user interface, enable callers to speak requests and responses without the need to press buttons.

Newer voice command devices do not require speakers, so they can respond to a variety of voices, regardless of tone, accent, or dialect. These systems are also capable of addressing several voice commands at once, separating vocal messages, and providing the appropriate feedback. By doing this, VCDs more accurately mimic a natural conversation.

How can voice search be used?

As most people are well aware, voice technology has a multitude of applications. Voice search users find different uses for the science depending on their age and information-related needs.

A recent study showed that 62% of people use voice search to look up fact-based information like term definitions, 46% the weather, and 32% the news. It also found that nearly 30% of voice search users aged 18-34 use it to issue commands to their device (i.e. set timer, add to list). This is compared to 19% for those ages 35-54 and 16% for over 55.

Some common uses for voice search technology include:

Form & data input

This is a task that is particularly challenging on mobile devices. Adding a conversation focused on data capture for a simple form can simplify the user experience. It also minimizes input time and errors.

Context-aware voice assistance

All types of businesses can add conversation to their mobile apps from retailers to grocers, malls, and campuses. Users can ask questions like “What aisle has soup?” or “do you sell paint?”

Combining a conversation with geo-location and the purveyor’s own data allows for easier access to context-aware information.

Voice-enabled workflows

Brands can improve efficiency and productivity through voice commands. These interactions help to streamline processes and speed up outcomes.

Developments in voice technology

As voice technology continues to evolve, there are a lot of interesting developments. Now that software teams can add a unified, cross-platform speech-based exchange for customers and users, expect new tools like:

AI-empowered voice-bots

Moving a step beyond a simple chatbot, voice-bots that are powered by artificial intelligence will be able to carry on conversations like never before. A mature AI foundation ensures the interaction is quick and as relaxed as natural conversation. This, in turn, leads to a faster outcome and since it’s intuitive, there’s no significant learning curve for users.

Voice analytics

New voice technology will leverage analytics to monitor emotions. This means the program is working to determine if a user is happy, sad, confused, disappointed, etc. Voice analytics can also track keywords to better inform and direct the interaction.

Voice analytics will also assess the quality and style of user responses and tweak a voice bot’s delivery to an exact situation. In a sense, chatbots will seem more empathetic. These are tasks that are simply impossible for screen-and-keyboard interfaces.

Voice biometric technology

Voice biometric technology enables a safer online experience. Internet privacy, security, and identity protection are major concerns for a user. Your voice is unique. Acoustic characteristics and behavioral features can be monitored and leveraged for authentication and access services.

Summing it up

Voice technology is exciting. It’s made leaps and bounds in the past few decades that have turned science fiction into modern life. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and smart devices are all part of the foundational IoT. They work in conjunction with voice-based software to create a higher level of convenience, save on corporate costs, drive sales, and solidify business and customer relationships.

The post How voice search is transforming the user interface appeared first on Insightly.

Here, we share our tried-and-true advice for another year —or more— of working from home.

Tips for staying motivated with remote work

Work when you feel the most focused.

Don’t lock yourself to your desk from 9-5. Remote work should be flexible. If you’re more creative and have a better focus in the early morning or late at night, work those hours into your schedule.

Take breaks.

Often, we are most jazzed when we’re in a state of flow. However, if you’re constantly in a state of flow, you’ll begin to burn out your energy supply. Notice when you’re overworked, and take a half-hour to think about anything else but work. Go for a walk, take a nap, or do something non-work related.

Pump the jams.

One of the benefits of remote work: no headphones. If your space and “co-workers” allow it, make a playlist for each of your work tasks. Blasting “Songs for Cold Emailing” while mail-merging makes the task much more fun.

Explore professional development.

When remote work from home began, most of us were trying to keep our heads above water. We back-burnered new skill development to keep the ship afloat. Now that we’re in this for the long haul, don’t sacrifice your professional growth. Take a course, join a networking group, and focus on learning something new.

Build a new relationship.

Simulating the water-cooler conversation over Zoom is tough. Yet, we are all missing the work friendships that bloom outside of our direct responsibilities. It takes a little effort, but reach out to someone at your organization who you don’t regularly talk to. It is a boon to personal motivation to hear about the successes of another team or share tips on overcoming challenges.

How to focus while working remotely

Created a dedicated workspace.

We don’t all have the luxury of a built-in home office. Yet, we all need a space to focus and think only about our tasks at hand. Do all you can to build your remote workspace as your custom productivity den. You shouldn’t be looking at your unfolded laundry while you try to run a business operation.

Use alerts, reminders, & alarms.

Dedicated focus time should have a start time and an end time. And, you shouldn’t be glancing at the clock every five minutes to see if your focus time is up. For example, you can use Google Calendar notifications to fire whenever your next block is two or five minutes away. This way, you’ll know when to wrap up and get ready for the next thing.

Stop multitasking.

Another hard one for marketers. Why is it so hard to close a tab that I *might* need later? I tend to remind myself that only one thing can be done at a time. Closing out of all non-current tabs, tasks and apps makes this a little easier.

You can also try the Pomodoro Technique to stay focused and complete specific tasks. Pick a task and work on it for 25 minutes, take a five-minute break, and then return to the next 25-minute working session. If you finish your task in the middle of a session, use the remaining time to review or learn something new. After four working sessions, take a longer 15-30 minute break before moving on to the next task.

Bake social media time into your day.

Spending 20 minute scrolling Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter used to be the ultimate way to slack off. Now, it may be the only social ‘interaction’ you even have in a day. Don’t beat yourself up for taking a social media break. Just make sure you’re using it as an actual break, and not a distraction. Set a time limit on your phone, so you don’t lose track of time.

Prioritize items on your to-do list.

We are so reliant on our to-do lists. These never-ending litanies are the anti-project management system. As you start your day, pick the top three or five tasks you absolutely have to complete that day. Move the rest to the “future” list. By making your to-do list shorter, you’ll see how easy it is to finish.

Remote working recommendations for ultimate productivity

Scope your time.

For marketing professionals, conventional wisdom suggests you to under-promise and over-deliver. Meaning, if a request will take an hour, scope out four hours and provide an even better deliverable. With remote work from home, this doesn’t fly. For those of us balancing work and home priorities, accurate scoping goes a long way. Estimate the amount of time something will take, and then stick to that timetable.

Exit Slack.

Slack is an amazing productivity tool for remote work. It’s kept us connected and GIF-ing throughout the entire pandemic. But, as soon as you sit down to get something done, it’s inevitable that you’ll hear the recognizable ‘ping.’ If you’re trying to work uninterrupted, do a hard “Quit” of the Slack app and get back to your messages later.

Limit your email time.

Like Slack, email can be a black hole of distraction. There’s always something new that needs your attention. Consider blocking out 30 minutes for email when you start your day, and 30 minutes when you end, or whenever you are the least focused. You’ll get to everything urgent, and can leave the non-urgent messages for the next day.

Ask for help.

Before remote work, asking for help was as easy as popping your head into someone’s office. It was easy to tell if someone could find ten or 20 minutes to teach you an Excel formula or chat about an upcoming event. Now, asking for help is tougher. We don’t have a great concept of our co-workers’ free time. For ultimate productivity, it’s crucial to ask for help when you need it. Instead of waiting for a one-on-one or team meeting, normalize reaching out at the time you need help.

Adjust your expectations & your deadlines.

Even though we may be ‘used’ to our situation, that hasn’t made remote working any easier. I’ve found most co-workers and stakeholders to be more flexible with adjusted deadlines. Marketing remotely does not have to feel like a pressure cooker, but you need reasonable deadlines to keep things moving.

Effective communication tips for remote work

Start with kindness.

‘Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle’ is a cliche, but it could not be more true. With unprecedented death, illness, and economic turmoil, this tough year has affected everyone. There is no excuse for curtness while we continue to navigate our global situation.

Confirm understanding.

As noted above, asking for help has become tough during these times. When speaking to your stakeholders, it’s worth taking a moment to ask for their questions. By clarifying that they understand you (and vice versa) you avoid miscommunications and create a more collaborative virtual team.

Use Zoom if you have to, avoid it when you don’t.

Zoom has kept our entire world afloat this year. Yet, we’ve become reliant on it for every communication instance. Consider whether each of your meetings would pack the same punch if it were an email or a phone call. If so, consider these options instead. This makes each Zoom rarer and more valuable.

Avoid small talk, but embrace chit chat.

Over the past year, I’ve missed catching up with my work friends about their lives, families and pets. What I haven’t missed is the awkward conversations about the weather or the commute. Ask your co-workers interesting and thought-provoking questions about their lives. Skip the mundane and give that time back.

Texting is your last resort.

Email. Slack. Zoom. You basically live in your co-workers’ computers. You don’t need to live in their personal cell phone as well. Unless it’s emergency-level urgent, use the work-approved communication channels.

Tips for managing remote employees

Check in daily.

You would say ‘good morning’ to your employees every day in the office, why wouldn’t you now? Even the smallest daily touch is a good reminder that you are a team.

Resource readily.

Are there software solutions that can make your remote team’s work smoother and easier? Now is the time to invest. Your employees should see that you value your time, even when they’re out of the office. By investing in the proper tools, like CRMs, they need to get their job done, you show how much you value them.

Be flexible.

This cannot be said enough. Employees have stepped up this year to still succeed at their jobs under unprecedented circumstances. They may ask for extended deadlines or rescheduled meetings. Just by asking, you can know they are still prioritizing work even during these trying times.

Understand emotional needs & respect confidentiality.

We’ve all experienced loss this year and some of us more than others. Employees may need extended bereavement or mental health days. Consider allowing them without additional explanation or excuse.

Celebrate when you can.

We haven’t just lost in-person work. We’ve lost birthday lunches, baby showers, and holiday soirees. Many companies have had historic successes and some have had huge comebacks. Consider a Zoom party, gift basket, or even a celebratory email thread to celebrate life’s good parts.

Tips for being managed remotely

Check in daily.

If you don’t hear from your manager, send a brief update or follow up on specific tasks. These conversations often increase rapport and build trust between colleagues.

Report on your successes.

It’s up to you to prove your value to your manager, which is harder to do during remote work. If you have a win, make sure you share it with your manager and team right away.

Take things off of your manager’s plate.

Free up your manager’s time to focus on what’s important to your remote workforce. You can handle the weekly team agenda or send out the Zoom links. This builds trust and can relieve some of the stress of working remotely.

Prioritize your professional development.

If you’re early in your career, time hasn’t stopped. Make sure you are still learning and growing your skills for career development. Work with your manager to incorporate professional development into your 2021 plan.

Embrace the phone call.

Sometimes talking on the phone allows people to be clearer and more candid than they may be over Zoom. Without the self-conscious nature of a video call, you can get a better picture of what your manager needs.

Techniques for work-life balance

Take days off.

During a global pandemic, we all worked more. Instead of investing in our own self-care, we spent more time on our computers. This year, take your vacation time when you feel like you need a break—you don’t need a better excuse than that.

Invest in the things that make your life easier.

I wish we could all hire a laundry/grocery/childcare/dog walking/dinner-cooking service. That’s not realistic, but there are a few affordable COVID-safe services as options. The space that outsourcing household tasks creates in both your brain and on your schedule has great value.

Don’t forget about your friends.

There were long stretches during the pandemic where I only talked to my immediate family or my co-workers. When the only channels for chatting with friends are the same as those you use for work, it can be exhausting. Yet, keeping up these relationships is crucial for your mental health. They are the one thing that isn’t work or home—cherish it!

Take your lunches.

When your kitchen table is also your office, it’s easy to work with a sandwich in-hand. Try to avoid this: our lunchtime is ours, and it’s a built-in time in the day to step away from your work.

Shut down your computer at the end of the day.

Don’t log off or put it to ‘sleep.’ When I hit that shut down button, it’s a wave of relief from the day. Your computer doesn’t need to be glowing in the background of your personal time.

How to make the most of remote work

Spend your commute time doing something you love.

It might be getting an extra hour of sleep. Or, it might be reading, doing a puzzle, or chatting with friends. You’ve gained this time back into your life—use it for something good.

Dress comfortably and for yourself.

Even if your workplace had a relaxed dress code, it probably was not as relaxed as working from home. Pursue your original style in your remote-work wardrobe and find a ‘uniform’ that makes you comfortable.

Connect with your new “coworkers.”

They might be your spouse, your kids, or your neighbors or pets. Take time during your day to treat your new “coworkers” like you would your work teammates. Check in about their day, share a snack, or go for a walk (dogs like this one best).

Explore a new space.

If you’re safely able to, consider working from a new location. Many remote workers have been able to explore the world while maintaining their jobs. This unprecedented lifestyle was once on the fringe, but is now accessible for anyone able to travel safely.

Make it yours.

For the entire history of the modern workplace, workers have played by their company’s rules. When to work, where to work, what to wear: this was all determined by one person in charge. Now, this power has returned to employees. Consider what truly makes you happiest in your work life, and pursue it.

Sources:

Forecast Analysis: Remote Work IT Spending, Worldwide. Ranjit Atwal, Neha Gupta, Dean Blackmore, Christian Canales, Grigory Betskov. Gartner. January 31, 2021

9 Tips for Managing Remote Employees. Mary Baker. Gartner. January 4, 2021

The Psychology of Flow. Kendra Cherry. Very Well Mind. January 13, 2021

The post 40 tips for remote work appeared first on Insightly.

Customer experience (CX) and satisfaction are some of the driving forces behind modern business success. To meet customer-centric goals, new CRM tools with greater precision are being developed.

Every year, new trends come up in the CRM space. Keeping track of these trends will help you plan ahead, meet changing business needs, and gain a competitive edge.

So, here are the top CRM trends for 2021.

IoT technologies

IoT stands for “the internet of things” and is used to describe a network of physical objects that are tied to the internet through sensors, scanners, software, and other technologies.

In 2019, it was estimated that 93% of enterprises had adopted IoT technologies and by the year 2025, there are expected to be over 64 billion IoT devices worldwide.

One of the main purposes of connecting the physical and digital worlds is the exchange of information. There has been an upward tick of CRM integrations with IoT tech to make life a little easier.

Enriched IoT data

IoT technology helps to monitor and service clients in proactive ways. Data generated from these solutions is used to increase customer satisfaction and retention.

CRMs are integrating with compact resources that have flexible offline/online capabilities, such as:

• Wearable monitors
• GPS systems
• Cybersecurity scanners
• Smart appliances
• Energy meters
• And more…

These advanced solutions lead to greater visibility and cost efficiencies. The more mobile people become, the more IoT integrations we will see.

Workflow automation

Automation-enabled self-service is another emerging trend in 2021. The concept of self-help in the CRM world is catching on.

New virtual assistants are designed to not only ask questions, but engage customers, sum up details, and provide productive and personalized answers. Artificial intelligence (AI) can then automatically guide users through sales and marketing pipelines.

This synergy has enabled chatbots to complete more contact management tasks without any human interference. They can quickly guide users through the right channels and provide actionable insights. Integrate that with a CRM, and you have an entire workflow that’s completely run by machine learning.

This extends to email communications as well. The concept of self-service CRMs means customers get quicker answers with little to no effort on the part of employees. Entire drip campaigns can be automated to nurture sales prospects down the funnel.

Workflow automation enables a business to offer high-quality customer service while optimizing operational costs. This is something that CRMs are supporting in new and innovative ways.

Flexible APIs

In CRM, APIs are the roadmap to customer intelligence. An API is what integrates platforms together. It is the glue that binds enterprise systems and helps to capture greater revenue growth.

Flexible APIs create a valuable record of customer preferences, while driving successful strategies. It’s one of the key technologies that enable cloud-based CRM applications to flex in response to sales and marketing needs. They’re fueling an unprecedented level of data-driven insights.

Additionally, CRMs with open API integration are enabling entirely new business models. As the development becomes increasingly customer-centric, APIs allow for greater versatility and  flexibility in designing custom:

• Workflows
• Graphical user interfaces (GUI)
• Screen designs
• Process steps

Over time, APIs will redefine the nature of how cloud-based CRMs operate. Today, nearly every CRM will offer API features (some more scalable and mature than others).

Cloud-based CRMs have enterprise-grade APIs that orchestrate a wide variety of databases. Cloud management is helping APIs become more customer-oriented by providing scalable integration frameworks and technologies. This allows for greater collaboration across departments, teams, divisions, and channels.

APIs are facilitating a new era of integrated CRM systems that are innovative and data-driven.

Dynamic user interface

One of the top CRM trends for 2021 also involves dynamic user interfaces. As CRMs evolve, the need to manage multiple functions in one spot becomes apparent. Rather than using separate systems for sales, marketing, service, and operations, new CRM dashboards are multifaceted.

A business can condense robust sales and marketing tech stacks into a single spot. Brands like Insightly provide several dashboards for universal insight. Toggle between opportunities, projects, and leads with a simple click. Colorful visuals that include charts, graphs, and gauges help a business assess important data at a glance.

Dynamic CRM dashboards display a quick overview of your most critical reports. It presents complex information that’s easy to digest and share with the team. As CRMs continue to evolve, the user interface will convey more and more data streams, in less amount of time.

Voice & conversational AI

As technology like Alexa and other voice-activated hardware hit the market, business software will soon follow. Customers are getting comfortable with conversational AI and this means, CRMs are following suit.

According to an Adobe report on voice technology, 94% of users consider voice technology not only easy to use, but state it also improves the quality of life.

That means that conversational apps are critical for the evolution of CRM tools. Voice technology is a key factor for accessibility and helps to increase user engagement.

Voice-assisted virtual assistants within CRM infrastructures are helping salespeople track, manage, message, update, and notify teams about customer data in real-time. This leads to faster decision-making and a quicker close.

In the near future, you should expect to see an increase in the usage of voice assistants and supporting hardware in CRM processes and interfaces.

One last thought

Most trends in CRM are influenced by brands that can quickly pivot to meet evolving customer needs. In order to stay relevant to tech-savvy consumers, top CRMs need to offer tools with advanced automation, IoT integrations, flexible APIs, a dynamic user interface, and conversational AI technology.

Does that seem like a big ask? 

Not really. The truth is, most of this technology is currently in place. More intelligent and contextually-aware CRM applications already incorporate machine learning, AI, and business intelligence.

The companies that are getting ahead use CRMs to build lasting customer relationships, drive sales, measure performance, and contribute to business growth; all while keeping customer satisfaction at an all-time high.

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, customer relationship management platforms will continue to outpace all other business software growth. This is because the technologies and strategies that CRM applications support contribute directly to new customer acquisition and retention, gross margin growth, and a healthy return on investment.

If you’re looking for a CRM that stays on top of trends, Insightly is a great place to start. You can try it for free, with zero commitment.

The post Top CRM trends for 2021 appeared first on Insightly.

In today’s business environment, where more people are working remote than ever before, businesses need a way to centralize customer data and make it accessible on the go, from anywhere. For nearly every company, this means a CRM platform with a mobile app.

According to a recent Mobile CRM Market report by Future Market Insights, modern businesses are placing customer satisfaction at the top of their priority list and are actively seeking fine-grained insights for their sales realms to access on the go. This, in turn, is preparing the grounds for high-scale adoption of mobile CRM platforms across the globe through 2029.

While accessibility from any device at any time is a powerful advantage, it requires added security to protect the valuable information housed in your CRM. When properly managed, CRM data is an important asset to your business. So as you consider introducing mobile CRM use to your team’s daily tech stack, make sure both your CRM provider and your team understand and meet data security and customer data privacy standards. It’s important to your customers and it should be important to you.

Here are the top four mobile security questions to ask your CRM provider.

1. How do you manage mobile CRM security?

Start with the basics. Make sure your CRM uses the same high security standards across all applications, including mobile. Check to see if your CRM has been independently assessed for compliance to SOC 2 Type 2 for secure data management and customer privacy. Double-check the company’s compliance with EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the General Date Protection Regulation (GDPR).

2. Is there an option for custom user permissions?

This may seem pretty straightforward at first, but access is about more than just the number of users on your platform. If your CRM provider uses unified endpoint security solutions, then you’ll be able to control user permissions and role-based access to CRM data consistently across all devices. It’s great to bring cross-functional teams together using a single source of truth on customer data, but not every person in your organization needs access to all of the details of every account and project. Make sure your mobile CRM app can capture different user roles with the added security, so that each role only sees the information that is relevant to their work.

3. What are ongoing proactive security measures?

While adherence to established data management and customer privacy standards is non-negotiable, you want a CRM provider to continuously improve overall security rather than just respond to malicious threats. If you are in a highly regulated vertical, like finance or healthcare, you may need custom security solutions and ongoing maintenance.

4. Are there any safeguards against employee oversight?

While a mobile CRM offers freedom, convenience, and speed, it comes with certain risks. Your mobile CRM can be used as an entry point into your core CRM system. Phones and tablets get stolen or lost. So in addition to user permissions management, double-check that your mobile CRM has robust user authentication and end-to-end encryption. On your part, include mobile CRM usage best practices in your internal customer data management and user guidelines.

Depending on your industry, you may need a CRM provider with custom security solutions. There are also a few auxiliary things to consider, such as user interface (UI) and integrations, that can impact a mobile CRM’s security. Even though modern CRMs are able to balance user interface with security measures without sacrificing the quality of either, make sure that your mobile CRM app was designed for security, not just to please the eye.

It takes a lot to keep data safe, secure, and accurate. It takes only one data leak or data breach to ruin a company’s reputation and hard-earned trust with the customer. Take your mobile CRM security seriously and you’ll set up your team and business for long-term success.

Read more like this:

• What is data integrity? How to achieve it?
• What are different types of customer data?
• How to organize customer data in a CRM

The post 4 questions to help you ensure your mobile CRM’s security appeared first on Insightly.

Without disruption, we’d remain in a static state of stagnation and never evolve.

So why is “disruptive marketing” such a catchphrase today and what led it to this point? Marketing disruption is more important than ever due to rapid technological advancements, rising consumer expectations, and fierce competition in most industries.

In this post we cover the forces that have propelled marketing disruption and share actionable tips that will kickstart your own disruptive marketing efforts.

But first, here’s a little background into disruptive marketing.

Disruptive marketing is not new

Between the ninth and twelfth centuries, merchant traders began holding the first-ever trade fairs.(1) That disrupted the preceding norm in which trading was driven by interpersonal connections.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg unveiled the first printing press, allowing businesses to place ads in locally-distributed newsletters.(2) Those ads were also early forms of disruptive marketing.

Marketing disruption evolved slowly until the 1990s when we entered the digital era. Then, it began to explode.

Why disruptive marketing is so important today

The increased need for disruptive marketing tactics is largely driven by technological innovation, the consumers who use that technology, and intense competition in most industries.

Rapid technological advance

In 1987, 0.005% of the US population used cell phones.(3)

Ten years later, in 1998, that number was 20%.(4)

By the end of 2017, 95% of Americans owned cell phones.(5)

Ponder that for a moment and consider how mobile phone technology alone has dictated how marketers reach their target audience.

New consumers with higher expectations

New generations of consumers display different purchasing behaviors than previous generations, including higher usage rates of rapidly-evolving digital technology.

Their technology usage has resulted in new and higher consumer expectations. Here are a few ways shifting consumer expectations and behaviors are forcing marketers to adopt disruptive marketing practices.

Social media usage

To be fair, social media is used by every generation of consumers today. However, younger generations use it more.

Data from 2019 indicates that 90.4% of US Millennials use social media, compared to 77.5% of Gen-Xers and 48.2% of Baby Boomers.(6)

Given that Millennials are now the largest consumer demographic in the United States, this significantly impacts marketing tactics.(7) It forces marketers to invent new, disruptive ways to engage their target audience on social media.

Customer experience

Experts predict the customer experience will be the key brand differentiator by the end of 2020. Brands like Amazon and Netflix that deliver a deeply personalized customer experience have reset expectations in a significant way.

Moving forward, marketers should explore disruptive tactics to enhance the customer experience if they want to succeed.

Customer success

This goes hand in hand with customer experience. If your customers are not successful using your product or service, you’re likely to lose them to the competition.

You may be wondering how marketing and customer success are related. For one, customer success teams can identify satisfied customers willing to provide customer testimonials for marketing.

Second, marketing isn’t all about lead generation, it’s also about customer retention. If marketers find new ways to deliver materials that drive customer success, they’ll not only increase retention rates but encourage cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Increased competition across the board

Competition in many industries—particularly the technology space—is more intense than it’s ever been. Let’s take a look at how increased competition is driving disruption in marketing.

Catering to customers’ needs

Increased competition means it’s easy for a customer to leave you for a competitor because there are so many of them.

The days of ignoring your customers’ needs are over. If you don’t deliver unique value and cater to customers’ needs, they will leave for a company that does.

Marketers must find disruptive methods of differentiating themselves from the competition by standing out as customer-centric brands (more on that below).

A shifting balance of power

Consumers have more power in the customer-vendor relationship than ever before because it’s easy to leave you for a competitor.

If you deliver a poor customer experience, customers can go straight to social media and blast your company, doing serious damage to your brand reputation. How do you avoid this? Disruption.

Tips for embracing disruptive marketing tactics

Here are some tactics that you can implement today to start disrupting.

Use technology

While technological advances are forcing us to invent new disruptive marketing tactics, we can use technology to do the disrupting.

Technology can help you better cater to rising customer expectations. Customers want a personalized or humanized marketing experience. To deliver one, marketers must maintain deep insight into customers’ needs, challenges, goals, etc.

The Unified CRM

Unified customer relationships management (CRM) systems provide a great example. They track every touchpoint a brand has with prospects and customers. Marketers can use that insight to experiment with new tactics for personalizing outreach and delivering what customers need at each stage of the customer journey.

Plus, unified CRMs are great tools for experimenting with new tactics because they provide A/B testing capabilities and data analytics to track the results. With a unified CRM you can experiment with a sample group before pushing a disruptive tactic out to all your prospects.

Be prepared to fall

Disruptive marketers constantly test new ideas and many of those ideas don’t succeed. Be prepared for that because it’s an essential part of disruptive marketing.

Instead of viewing an unsuccessful tactic as a failure, think of it as a learning experience. The best lessons come from picking yourself back up after you fall. Few great things occur without some trial and error.

Leave emotions at the door

You may firmly believe you’ve discovered the golden key to success with a new tactic you devised. And it may be the next best practice everyone adopts. But it might not be.

Be careful not to fall in love with any new tactic you experiment with. If you do and the tactic doesn’t work as you expected, you’ll feel like you failed. This can lead to lost motivation and confidence, which are two of a disruptive marketer’s worst enemies.

Stick to your convictions

If you devise a new plan no one has ever dared to try and upon mentioning it you receive criticism, let it roll off your shoulders. Don’t let other people’s doubts deter you from going against the grain.

Otherwise, you won’t succeed at disruptive marketing. Disruption requires courage, determination, and an unrelenting sense of confidence.

Meticulously track the results of every experiment

Keep a running list of ideas you’ve tried, regardless of whether or not they are successful. If one didn’t succeed but still managed to produce some results, you might just need to tweak it a little to make it a winner.

This is another area where a unified CRM comes in handy. Every new campaign or tactic you try can be tracked in your CRM system. You can run reports on success rates, learn as you go, and maintain a view into which tactics are pulling in new leads or repeat business.

Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes

After all, you’re a consumer too, so this won’t be hard. Ask yourself, “What could Company X have done differently to win me over?” Then test that different approach out on your customers or prospects.

Validate before repeating

Don’t blindly throw a wrench in the spokes of your marketing machine. It’s important to test new, disruptive tactics on a sample group of customers or prospects before rolling it out completely.

This is why the reporting and tracking capabilities of a unified CRM are so central to effective disruptive marketing. Best of all, that same unified CRM system lets you A/B test disruptive tactics to validate them before you try them on a large scale.

Follow innovators & thought leaders

To be disruptive, you must stay at the forefront of emerging trends and innovation. Follow key thought leaders in your industry on social media. Pay attention to what they’re talking about.

Sometimes we have a revolutionary idea lurking just below the surface of our consciousness, but it’s missing a key element. All it takes is one fresh perspective from someone else to help you connect the dots, find that missing link, and arrive at the next winning marketing tactic.

Understand your customers & industry

Finally, it’s essential that you understand your market and customer base beyond data points. Otherwise, you can’t put yourself in their shoes, nor can you understand their needs and goals.

If you work in investment banking, experimenting with goofy humor in your marketing efforts is unlikely to produce results. But, dry, clever humor might work.

On the other hand, if you work in children’s toy manufacturing, the opposite is probably true.

Are you ready to disrupt?

Only you can answer that question. One thing we can say for sure is that if you don’t continually evolve your approach to marketing, you’ll end up treading water while everyone swims past you.

To be a successful disruptive marketer, you must have steadfast confidence in your own abilities. You also need the right technology to bring your ideas to life, test them, and measure and learn from the results.

Want to learn more about a unified CRM and how it can help you run disruptive marketing campaigns? Request a demo with an Insightly rep to see how you can align your sales and marketing to test different marketing ideas, measure results, and continuously improve your customers’ experiences with your brand.

Request a demo

Sources

1-2. “Infographic: A History of Disruptions in B2B Marketing,” Oracle, 2012

3-4. “Cell Phone Subscribers in the U.S., 1985-2010,” Infoplease, 2017

5. “Mobile Fact Sheet,” Pew Research Center, 2019

6. “US Social Media Users by Generation,” eMarketer, 2019

7. “Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation,” Pew Research Center, 2020

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Data is objective, unbiased information. Data-driven decision making is the process of studying large amounts of data, analyzing it to identify patterns, obtaining actionable insights, and using that insight to make business decisions.

Intuition is subjective, and business decisions should be made based on objective information. Intuition is effective when you don’t have data or the time to think logically before making a decision. And even though you can develop intuition based on knowledge and experience (a type of data), it’s still risky to use it in business decision making.

Experts suggest relying on data, not intuition

Experts almost unanimously agree that data-driven decision making is more reliable than intuition-based decision making. Cold, hard numbers are simply more dependable than intuition.

Nobel Prize laureate, Daniel Kahneman, says humans formed intuition as a tool to alert us to potential risks. It aids in our survival when we’re faced with fight or flight situations. However, Kahneman claims that using data to make decisions is critically important because it decreases our propensity to make poor ones.

Nevertheless, reliance on intuition is still widespread in business today. Let’s dig deeper to understand why.

Challenges in data-driven decision making

Businesses have the data at their fingertips, but how do they organize it in a logical way? Many still struggle to understand how data is used to make decisions.

Too much data for the human mind to analyze

There is so much data in the world today that it would take over 180 million years to download it. That poses a challenge for businesses because the human mind can’t analyze terabytes of data on its own. Gartner sums this challenge up perfectly, “Organizations have access to unprecedented volumes and variety of data, but deriving insights continues to be a struggle.” (1)

Struggling to effectively leverage data

A 2019 survey asked CEOs which factors impeded their ability to leverage data to make more informed decisions. Surprisingly, 54% cited a lack of data-driven skills and analytical talent. Additionally, 51% blamed data silos, and 50% pointed to unreliable data.(2)

Rampant skepticism around data accessibility & reliability

Humans can’t process and analyze so much data manually, but technology can. Many successful companies comfortably rely on customer relationship management (CRM) software to crunch the numbers.

Regrettably, many leaders either don’t trust their data or haven’t adopted the technology to analyze it. A recent Deloitte survey revealed that 67% of business decision makers aren’t comfortable basing decisions on data pulled from their current technology.(3)

What’s worse, another survey uncovered that 53% of senior executives feel they are too old to learn data analysis skills.(4) Yet, being an effective business leader increasingly requires data analysis skills. This is forcing a shift in thinking about data, all the way from the C-suite down to entry-level employees.

Considering the statistics above, how can businesses successfully transition to leveraging a data-driven approach to decision making?

How to become a data-driven company

Given the importance of data-based decision making, businesses must first understand the benefits involved. Then they must learn how data is used to make decisions and implement measures to begin a company-wide transformation.

Lead the way

When CEOs champion data-driven business cultures, performance results and revenue increase. The Deloitte survey illustrates that when CEOs lead the charge, businesses are 77% more likely to significantly exceed business goals. Plus, they are 59% more likely to gain new insights from the metrics they track and to use data analysis to drive business decisions. (5)

Create a company culture that supports data-driven analytics

Only 13% of businesses claim to have the proper culture, technology, and skills to support data-driven decision-making.(6) That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Identify “data champions” who can lead change across your entire organization. You can also hire a chief data officer to work closely with the C-suite on designing and implementing initiatives that foster a data-driven culture.

Gaining buy-in from your sales director is crucial. This will also create a trickle-down effect across the entire sales organization. The majority of data that decision makers want to see comes from sales. If the sales director enforces consistent data management, her team will be more likely to fall in line.

Use the right technology

Many (perhaps most) companies today use CRM software to capture and analyze decision data. CRM technology has evolved and businesses can now leverage unified CRMs that include tools to measure sales and marketing performance.

This delivers three key benefits. First, when all your data is stored in the same system, decision makers find it much easier to rely on the data and analysis these systems produce. Second, when you have all those functions in one system, you reduce software costs while giving everyone in your company access to decision-making data. Third, all your teams are better aligned with one centralized source of truth on customer data. Without the right technology, creating a data-driven business culture is exponentially more difficult.

Look to younger generations for support

Younger employees are more comfortable with data than “analog” generations. It makes complete sense—they grew up in the digital era. We should turn to younger decision makers for support in championing the transition to a data-driven business culture.

Plus, younger generations are more willing to embrace change. In fact, 76% of executives in their 30s or younger look for opportunities to leverage new technology to achieve business goals. Plus, 67% of them see risk as opportunity, not danger. (7)

In the coming years, we can expect to see more young people in decision-making roles. They will employ more technology—like CRMs—to capture and analyze data for decision making. Why? Because they more clearly recognize the vast array of benefits gained from CRMs and data analysis technology.

What does the future hold?

Increasingly more businesses are adopting a data-driven approach to decision making. But it may be a few years before this trend starts to dominate business. We still see laggards across industries despite the data that indicates businesses grow faster and outperform their peers when they leverage data to drive decision-making. As competition increases in the digital economy, using data insights won’t be a matter of preference, but rather of necessity.

Read more like this:

• 4 steps to building a unified business approach in 2020
• What are different types of customer data?
• How to improve customer experiences using data analytics
• What is data integrity? How to achieve it?

Sources:

1. “Tie Your Data and Analytics Initiatives to Stakeholders and Their Business Goals,” Gartner, 2020
2. “22nd Annual Global CEO Survey,” PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2019
3. “Analytics and AI-driven enterprises thrive in the Age of With,” Deloitte, 2019
4. “The State of Dark Data,” Splunk, 2019
5. “Analytics and AI-driven enterprises thrive in the Age of With,” Deloitte, 2019
6. “Data-Driven Mindset Report,” Mention, 2019
7. “How Younger Generations are Reshaping the Future Workforce,” Inavero, 2019

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