How to Choose a CRM Software for Your Business!
Stuck on how to choose a CRM for your business? Find out how to choose the right CRM for you and what experiments I did to choose mine!
Quick Links:
- TIP: How to choose a CRM for your business [Infographic Download]
- Episode Overview – My CRM Experiment: Selecting the Right CRM Software for Our Small Business
- Personal Note from Jenn Neal on How to Choose a CRM
- Episode audio [Podcast on Spotify]
- Blog Post – How to Choose a CRM Software for Your Business
- Related Posts
TIP: How to choose a CRM software for your business
Time needed: 7 minutes
TIP: How to Choose a CRM
- List size
Now and future growth plans
- Operations Needs
How do you function as a business? Do you need marketing automation and sales pipelines built in?
- Media Types
What forms of communication are built in and what do you need or want?
- Integrations
You’ll always need to connect some other tool so make sure it is compatible with ones you already know and use
- Reporting
How detailed and simple are the reporting options?
- Mobile Apps
How will you and your team use this and is a mobile app necessary?
- Support
How simple is the tool and how good is the support?
- Adoption
Are there good onboarding and training tools to make it easy for your team to learn and start using the new tool?
What’s In This Episode
Selecting the right CRM software for your small business can be a daunting task, and one I get asked about all the time. I’ve been experimenting for years with different CRM software and I share CRM software examples in this episode, along with how and why I have made decisions through the years to change CRM software systems.
Jenn Neal on How to Choose a CRM
Email Marketing Pro tip: MailChimp, easy, cheap, very simple to send stuff out. All I had to do is keep track of my list. No problem.
-Jenn Neal
How to Choose a CRM Software for Your Business!
Let’s face it. Selecting the right CRM software for your business can be daunting. There are SO many to choose from and they’re all slightly different in terms of functionality. There’s only so many times you can look through the specs at what each one has to offer before your head starts spinning. And although it would be a TON easier to just try them all out, the price tag attached to doing that is not pretty.
Well, I have a little surprise for you! I have been experimenting with different CRM software for years. And, it was quite the journey to find the right one for me; but I did it! Instead of letting the journey frustrate me, I turned it into my own fun little experiment. What better thing to do with experiment results than to share them, right? So I’ve decided that instead of keeping all of this information to myself, I wanted to share my experience and experiment results with you! Let’s dive right in!
The Nitty Gritty
There are tons of CRM software to choose from. Each platform does something different than the next. And, depending on where you’re at in your business, you may need software just to keep up with your list or you may need software that’s going to automate a lot of your process.
When you’re first starting out and you need a simple, cheap and effective way to keep track of your list, MailChimp is a great option! It’s easy to learn, and cheap to use. When I first started my business, I used MailChimp also! It provided a simple way to not only keep track of my list, but to also send emails! It was very fitting.
Growing Pains
While simple is ideal when first starting out, as you progress and grow your business, you’ll need something that’s a little more advanced. A tool that’s able to automate processes for you will be a huge help.
When I came to this stage in my business, I was introduced to Infusionsoft. It was great! I was not only able to automate my processes, but it also gave me room to track additional information. So, I moved everything over. To this day, I still have notes in Infusionsoft from 8 years ago. Unfortunately, after a few years, I noticed that deliverability rates were dropping and it was time to find something new. This is when I started my CRM experiment!
ClickFunnels vs. Infusionsoft
As a growing business, you know you want the best for your company. You want to implement the latest technology that will solve as many of your problems as possible. Now, I completely understand that each business has its own needs. And each business owner has their own specific wants. Believe it or not, most of our wants and needs are similar – a way to keep everything in the same place, organized, and easily accessible.
When I started looking for something to better suit my needs and the needs of my business, I looked through tons of software. I started comparing them, and eliminating them one by one. It eventually came down to Infusionsoft and a new company called ClickFunnels. I will admit that I was kind of excited when ClickFunnels was brought to my attention. It was a new company and their headquarters are based here in Boise, ID. It made me happy to be possibly supporting a local company. Once I dove a little deeper into their product, I loved what I saw.
ClickFunnels introduced a tool called Actionetics, and of course, my interest was piqued. This product was created to directly compete with Infusionsoft… and it did EXACTLY that. Actionetics allows you to automate processes and segment your email list to target each step in the buyer’s journey.Thus, my experiment began. I wanted to get geeky and really dive in to see how Actionetics held up against Infusionsoft.
The Great CRM Experiment
To start the experiment, my team and I started doing test projects for ourselves and our clients. We would build the projects out in both Actionetics and Infusionsoft. This helped us determine how each platform works. It allowed us to see in depth what each platform could do, and understand it more fully. It also helped us see if there were any bugs that may cause issues.
While most businesses generally were not using Infusionsoft to its full potential, we found that Actionetics measured up to most of the things that you could do with Infusionsoft. ClickFunnels had the sales process, and backend follow up processes nailed. Ultimately, Actionetics seemed to be an excellent solution.
In the end, we moved all of our business emails from Infusionsoft over to Actionetics, hoping to increase our open and click through rates.
Clickthrough and Deliverability Experiment
Of course we all want to know how our emails and content are converting. For CRM email purposes, the deliverability and open rates are what we need to track. So, to cover all ground, I made sure that we experimented with this also! We moved all of our emails into Actionetics, and after some time, also took ActiveCampaign into consideration as well.
When we moved all of our emails into Actionetics, we initially saw a spike in deliverability rates. And our open rates, which primarily have to do with the subject line, not the actual software, did go up as well. All in all, we found that clickthrough rates come from content… and have very little to do with the software we’re using.
For quite a few years, we stuck with Actionetics, but unfortunately, ClickFunnels is no longer going to build or support Actionetics. After a lot of careful consideration and number crunching, we decided to move our list to ActiveCampaign. The last step was to look at the cost and numbers.
Pay Attention to the Numbers
Typically, you want to use the platform that serves you best in terms of pricing. Also, consider the amount of data you want to track, how big your list is, how long it takes to send the emails, the user experience, how easy it is to build things inside the platform, and reporting.
Are your emails getting where they’re supposed to be going? Watch the numbers and track what’s happening with your deliveries, opens, and clicks. In general, you want to track when people visit your website and social pages because of your emails.
If you’re sending emails with something to sell, what are your conversion rates? If you have a nurture sequence, which ones are people clicking on and opening? What subject lines get attention? Where do you notice people dropping off? These questions reveal the data that is so much more important than the tool.
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