At omelett.es we work with organisations of all sizes to offer independent CRM consulting. One area we are currently looking into is marketing or sales force automation software. It seems to us that this area is still unexploited by small business and we want to know why.

If you only have a short period of time, we’d really appreciate it if you could complete our really short survey just click here to take survey.

First up ‘marketing automation’ is how this software is normally described. Here is a quick break down of the kind of thing it does:

1. Somebody visits your website, their details such as where they came from, pages they look at, etc. are captured automatically (this part is similar to Google Analytics)
2. The visitor completes a ‘call to action’, such as filling out a web form. Their contact details are automatically tied to their site history, you are alerted and hopefully the details are also added to your CRM system (if you use one).
3. The visitor might visit your site several times and you start to get a good idea of exactly what a specific (named) visitor is interested in.
4. You can then use this information you have captured to call/contact the lead.
5. As you move through your sales process you capture more information, if the person visits the website you are automatically alerted.
6. If you win/lose the sale this closes the loop so you can build more useful information about your site visitors.
7. The software can ‘nuture’ leads by sending them emails depending on what they have downloaded, a series of emails to get them to further interact with you, etc.

All of this is easy to integrate with your website/business but can have a great impact on the number of sales you win.

There are already a number of larger organisations offering software like this at the top end of the market, these include:

• eloqua
• LoopFuse
• Marketo

Traditionally this has been called sales/marketing software but what would you search for in google if you were looking for this type of software? We’d love to hear you comments and ideas/thoughts, let us know in the comments below.

Lots of people start trying to choose a CRM system before they know exactly that they want. These aren’t the only things to consider but they will certainly put you on the correct path for making a CRM supplier short-list:

These tips should help you get on your way to choosing a CRM system/supplier.

Need more help? omelett.es is an independent CRM consultancy who can help you with all stages of a successful CRM project – call us today on 01865 920 400 to see how we can help you and your CRM system be a success.

Social CRM is getting a lot of press coverage of late, and rightly so – it’s a great way to expand your customer reach, become known as an expert in your field and win new business.

However it’s not the ‘silver bullet’ that will save/expand your business with no thought given to your current CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. We see lots of people trying to jump into Social CRM before they even have the basics right with their current CRM system/process.

Social CRM is perceived to be easy and cheap – it’s not. Think about how much time you are spending tweeting/face booking/etc. – it is definitely worthwhile doing right, see how our friends at Pepsmedia are helping people exploit scrm, but before you jump headlong into a scrm strategy make sure your crm is in order to handle all those new customers/enquirerers.

This can be as simple as a spreadsheet to keep contacts and information upto date and a good todo application if it’s just you. A simple CRM system for your small business, how about our easy contact management system Tactile CRM, Highrise or Capsule CRM. Or something a bit bigger such as Salesforce, Dynamics or Sage CRM if you business needs more process.

We’ve really pleased to have just released our referral program after lots of feature requests by our users – we wanted you to be able to share in our success, so all do you need to do to start earning 20% of all paid for plans is login and visit the admin section.

You can sign up for the referral program and start earning straight away. Full details are on the Tactile CRM website, and you can track referrals in real time from your account:

The brief: Tactile CRM‘s website is need of an overhaul, and as part of the plan this year we’re measuring and reporting on the the changes we make to see what is and isn’t succussful. We want to increase our conversion ratio on sign ups so we’re currently doing some market research on sites that people have felt comfortable buying from and leaving the credit card details.

The current list includes:

• Campaign Monitor
• Xero
• CrowdSpring
• Amiando
• SlideRocket
• Carsonified Events
• TSheet
• Cloud Contacts
• Ever Note
• Remember the Milk
• MailChimp
• Moo
• LinkedIn
• EventBrite
• Concept Share

Are there anymore you have brought from, or can suggest?

2009 is going to see a fair few exciting changes and new things for us at omelett.es. One goal is a big push on the number of signups for Tactile CRM

With the new features we have released (and will be), the platform is really great and we know will be of great benefit to people. Part of this push will be some updates and tweaks to the website, which leads on to my main question:

Have you ever brought [business to business] services based on presentation/brand, not just price? If so, who from?

Let me give you an example, I am about to send off a stack of business cards to Cloud Contacts, however I was recommended several other companies, but chose them on their website presentation and look and feel of the business. Hopefully, I won’t regret it, but the decision was certainly based on looks.