Digital Systems
Thinking about a digital transformation strategy for your small business can’t exist without sales and marketing. You knew that already. But did you know that digital transformation can actually help you generate more leads, nurture more leads and close more sales?
Probably. Did you know that it doesn’t have to be hugely complicated?
Sales and marketing are key components when it comes to thinking about a digital transformation strategy for your small business. As digital transformation can generate more leads for business as well nurturing more leads and closing more sales.
The hardest part of the digital transformation process is often the first step, when you are trying to decide which system to use. But ask yourself, by not doing this, what percentage of sales are you missing out on?
Why should you invest money and effort in a high-tech system, especially if the one that you’ve been using before has worked perfectly well so far? And what even is GDPR?
One of the UK’s leading technology speakers, Warren Knight says 39% of small businesses have generated real-time sales online as a result of digital transformation. 28% of small businesses also say digital transformation strategy has helped them acquire new customers.
So, if you just don’t have enough hours in the day to dedicate to your sales and marketing activity, find out more about designing a digital transformation strategy roadmap for your sales and marketing and see how your business can benefit.
Digital Transformation Strategy for Sales
Sales are a vital part of your business. From scheduling appointments, quoting, chasing leads and following up customers with calls and emails, looking after sales takes up a lot of work and responsibility.
This is where a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) tool like HubSpot, Infusionsoft and Capsule can help take the strain, saving you time and making your business more efficient.
As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and this is also true for your business. The more information you can collect about your customers, like last purchase or preferred products, the better service you can offer them, and this will lead to happier customers.
Research shows that customers are 75% more likely to spend more money if they have had a positive customer experience.
Your customer list and the information therein needs to be accessible to you and anyone else in your team, especially at times when a lead or customer calls.
This is where a CRM is ideal, it means that all of the information about buying habits and more is on hand and gives your whole team the same knowledge as you.
A CRM system can also be great for when it comes to closing sales, you can use it to automate filling in forms, sending invoices and even providing the terms and conditions.
The time you save on the paperwork will free up more time for your sales team. Giving them more time to generate sales and increase your profit margin.
Still not convinced that CRM would work for you? Take a look at what Salesforce has to say about the benefits of CRM systems.
Marketing
Marketing, especially social media marketing can be incredibly time-consuming. From blogging, to sending sales emails and logging into each of your social media accounts separately to post the same update, the stresses soon add up.
Marketing automation can take away some of this stress and make your marketing work more efficiently. One of these tools, HubSpot describes marketing automation as:
“In a nutshell, marketing automation refers to software that automates your marketing for you. The software is designed to help you prioritize and execute your marketing tasks in a more streamlined and efficient way.”
There are many ways in which you can use marketing automation. For example, you could schedule social media posts, your system will even suggest times to post that can give you the best engagement rate.
Rather than send out a sales offer to your entire email database, you can use it to target a certain set of customers who have shown interest in that particular subject.
From a customer’s perspective, this feels more tailored and personalised which is more likely to capture attention.
From the point of view of the business owner, this method works out to be more efficient. With higher click rates and less money or time spent sending emails that will remain unopened. This can also feel more efficient from the business perspective. Freeing up time from doing mundane tasks or sending out irrelevant emails.
GDPR
GDPR is a new EU legislation that gives EU citizens updated rights over how their personal data is used.
This means that businesses are expected to follow better data management practises. New consumers rights also mean that your customers have the rights to know what your business knows about them. If your business doesn’t comply, you can be fined.
GDPR will affect companies differently, depending on how they handle data. But the good news is that some marketing automation tools, such as MailChimp, can help you remain compliant.