SharpSpring CRM Automation: Tips to Score More Loyalty
SharpSpring CRM Automation, the acronym CRM also known as Customer Relationship Management, is a comprehensive platform that helps companies generate more leads and convert more prospects into customers. A growing number of businesses are learning that implementing the system enables them to streamline and optimize their marketing and sales processes.
From behavior-based email and campaign tracking to reporting and analytics capabilities, SharpSpring has all the features companies need. In fact, TrustRadius named the system to its “Top-Rated Marketing Automation Software for 2019” list. It’s on the list with a number of other well-known platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, and Oracle Eloqua. SharpSpring was also in the top 10 for “The Most Revolutionary Software of 2019.”
That’s high praise! We’ll explain why it’s deserved in this post.
However, if you’d like to watch our Freaky Fun Friday webinar where we discuss SharpSpring CRM with a panel as well as hear from our audience about their CRM challenges, check out this video below:
Why Email Is So Important
One of the activities SharpSpring CRM Automation assists with is email marketing. While many new channels for connecting with customers and prospects have become available to companies in recent years, email is still the most important form of business communication. This is true for many reasons, including that it’s the least expensive form of communication to implement and it produces a high return on investment (ROI).
Email, enabled by a cutting-edge CRM system like SharpSpring, also lets you do things like send clever emails to people who have visited your website customized based on how they interacted with the site. This is a powerful way to create engagement.
Some impressive stats on email marketing include:
- 40% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are most critical to content marketing success
- 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email
- 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI
The Rewards and Risks of CRM Platforms
In 2018, CRM software was a $40 billion industry. And it continues to grow, as more companies come to rely on their CRM system as essential for running their business. There are over 3,000 different marketing and sales automation applications on the market today.
This, of course, makes it challenging for companies to choose a CRM system. And the stakes are high. Leading business observers say that CRM implementations fail more than 60% of the time! One of the reasons they fail is that they don’t have the right feature set. SharpSpring is gaining traction because it does.
SharpSpring CRM’s Powerful Features
SharpSpring CRM Automation has many capabilities that make life easier for busy marketers. One is the detail it can provide on the “life” of a lead. Where did it come from? What pages on the website did the person visit? In what ways are they interacting with the brand? Answers to these and other questions—including as displayed in a useful timeline form—help marketers assess a lead’s interests, preferences, and level of engagement.
Another great feature is the ability to integrate with calendars. This can, for example, allow a prospect to book time to talk with someone on your staff. Not only does this provide a positive user experience, it saves time for team members who no longer need to pull up emails and compare meeting requests to calendar availability.
SharpSpring also has powerful analytic capabilities. This includes being able to assign costs to marketing activities so that you can easily determine the ROI on them.
Evaluating and scoring leads is another type of analysis that SharpSpring does for you. This allows your business development team to prioritize them effectively. The last thing you want is for a hot lead to turn cold because you failed to connect with the person in a timely manner.
Once leads have been identified, the platform makes it easy to design email nurture campaigns using dynamically segmented customer lists. These campaigns build brand awareness, create relationships with prospects, and guide them down the sales funnel. And this is just one type of workflow automation in SharpSpring that can be created using a defined set of behavioral “triggers” to produce subsequent actions by the system.
Plus, SharpSpring integrates easily with a long list of other platforms including:
- Shopify
- Salesforce
- Google Ads
- SurveyMonkey
- And many more…
And finally, SharpSpring is designed to ensure that your emails are considered “authenticated” and therefore aren’t treated as spam by the email systems of your recipients. You’ll hear technical experts use acronyms like CNAME, DKIM, and SPF when discussing authentication. But the takeaway here is that SharpSpring handles these considerations for you!
SharpSpring CRM’S Security and Privacy
SharpSpring CRM Automation understands that data security and privacy are important issues for every business. These facts about the company and product give organizations the confidence to adopt this platform:
- Regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- Multi-cloud architecture (HA)
- GCP (ISO 27001 Certified)
- AWS (ISO 27001 Certified)
- Sensitive data is secure
- Encrypted in-transit
- PCI-DSS payment processor
- SharpSpring doesn’t store credit card numbers
- SharpSpring is not Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant as it does not store consumer health information. SharpSpring is also not in the industry regulated by HIPAA standards, therefore SharpSpring does not need compliance to operate.
- Continuous auditing
- GDPR compliant
5 Tips for making your CRM more Powerful
To maximize the benefits of SharpSpring or any CRM system, follow these five tips:
- Use email automation to nurture relationships.
- Set aside 30 minutes to 2 hours each day for prospecting.
- Stay on top of how teams are using your CRM.
- Continuously monitor activity and analytics.
- Whenever you can, use the power of the visual workflow automation (available in some of the mid-tier CRMs like SharpSpring) to wow your audience!
Picture Sharpspring CRM Automation in Your Workflow
How would your company use SharpSpring and what would be involved in implementing the CRM integration? Need workflow automation? Contact Azence and let’s talk about increasing your sales pipeline with AI and business automation.
AZENCE provides free consultation in choosing the right CRM platform for our clients. Even though AZENCE is a silver partner of SharpSpring CRM, we are technology agnostic. This means that we help clients pick the platform that is most suitable to align with their business goals.
SharpSpring CRM is now Constant Contact. SharpSpring has been acquired by Constant Contact in September 2021.
