UPDATED September 14, 2023

If you are currently shopping around for the right CRM System, chances are that you already understand the value of customer relationship management. Right? 

Do you have a clear plan or strategy for how your company will use a CRM system in your business? New technology is fun and the idea of automating processes is very appealing. The hitch is that the planning work needs to be handled before you start importing contacts and setting up automations / workflows. 

If you have already created a CRM Strategy, then jump down this page to the "Intro to Zoho CRM" section.

Marketing Is About Offering Value: Listening, Watching, and Asking.

Clients often ask me how to write social media posts that will connect with their customers or emails that will get high open rates from a strong subject...

Hello, fellow Zoho Campaigns users! It comes as no surprise that there have been a series of improvements in 2023. This article digs into the specific updates.  

What is Zoho Campaigns?

Zoho Campaigns is Zoho's email marketing software that is primarily utilized for broadcast messages, such as a newsletters. A company can create email campaigns that are mobile-friendly (responsive designs) with customized messaging using contact field data, such as company name. You can segment email campaigns based on a variety of data points including email activity and contact fields. And you can use a simple drag-and-drop builder to create robust workflows that are automated.

One of the biggest advantages to using Zoho's email marketing application is the long list of built-in integrations including Zoho CRM, Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho Commerce, Shopify, Zoho Flow, Google...

The people who've worked with Beckmann Collaborative over the years always knew us as marketing strategists who appreciate following a smart process. About 6 years ago, a client in the financial services sector asked us for help with his processes within his Zoho CRM account. We weren't Zoho CRM Consultants then. But this client knew Candice DeRiso (then Beckmann) well enough to trust she would dive in. Boy oh boy, did she get into that CRM, and there was no turning back.

From Marketing Consultant to Zoho CRM Consultants Within A Year

After just a few days "tinkering" in this Zoho CRM account, Candice found herself ready to leave her old database provider (Insightly) - yes, it seems embarrassing now in comparison to Zoho. Within 1 year, Candice was certified in Zoho CRM and consulting with several existing clients. We found the connection between powerful content marketing...

While we are huge fans of using a customer database tool such as Zoho CRM for your business, one of the biggest pain points can be CRM analytics and reporting. After you and your team have gone through the process of dutifully inputting data and keeping things up to date, how do you measure sales and marketing success?

This article aims at preparing CRM users, especially those using Zoho CRM, for how you can slice and dice your data to make the most of your CRM analytics. 

What is your goal for CRM Analytics?

Yes, this may initially seem like a silly question but we promise it is important. When we've asked clients this question, often there is a long pause. Sometimes the client will tell us they need to think about it more and get with the team. Why? Frankly, people know that data analytics is important but without a goal in mind it's just a bunch of...

Have you considered the hygiene of your CRM Data?

Yes, dirty data could be a major problem in your organization. Maybe you have been doing some spring cleaning around the house. Well, it's also a good time to give your CRM data clean-up. 

Clean, organized, and accurate data is essential for the success of your sales and marketing efforts. This is the data you use for personalization of your marketing campaigns and automations. 

How Does Your CRM Data Get "Dirty" to Begin with?

"Dirty" or bad data is information in your CRM that is inaccurate, duplicate, missing, outdated, or simply input in the wrong format. These are the most common ways for your CRM to have "dirty" data.

1. Information gets outdated every year... 

• 40% of email users change their email address at least once every two years
• 20% of postal addresses change each year
• 18% of phone...

This is the fifth and final article in our business and marketing automation series. If you missed the other articles, we recommend checking them out too. Here's what we've talked about so far...

1. Sales Team Automations in Your CRM offers some specific ideas for automations you can setup to help your sales team close sales faster and make them work more efficiently. 

2. Email Sequences talks about the smart ways to use email automation that help your business and how they compare with email templates. 

3. Marketing Automations in Kajabi is a unique topic for our community interested in hosting online courses and using that platform. 

4. Automating Accounting and Bookkeeping shares automation ideas (mostly in the Zoho Finance Suite) to make your life easier. 

 Invest in Nurturing Client Relationships

What if you could...

Accounting and Bookkeeping Automation Ideas

As we continue our journey through some great automation ideas, this week the focus shifts to finance.

Yes, there are things in your bookkeeping and finance software to automate and make your life easier. Since we use the Zoho Finance Suite, most of the automation ideas here will reference those apps. However, many of these can be done in other platforms or by using tools such as Zapier.

If you missed the previous articles in the automation series, you can catch up. The first article was about Automations for your Sales Team.  That one provides useful CRM Automation Ideas to help your sales team close deals faster. The second article talked about Email Sequences and Email Automations where we shared clever Email Automations to engage both prospects and customers.

Avoiding Double Data Entry

Connect...

Clever Email Automations to Engage Prospects and Customers

Email Automation Vs. Email Templates

Before jumping into the list of CRM email automation ideas, first we should identify whether your email SHOULD be automated or not. 

Both email automation and email templates are great tools. It's important to know how to use each one based on what you need to accomplish.

As long as your CRM data is clean, you can draw upon the information you have about prospects and contacts to send customize emails and deliver highly relevant information using email automation. This means that you and your team are vigilant about keeping things up to date and entering information in the correct data fields.

One way to gather clean information from prospects and customers is to quiz or survey them. Keep it simple. A few questions you could ask are: how did they hear about your company in...

If you are new to the Zoho Suite of applications, then you will understand what I mean when I say there are a LOT of options - so many that it can be overwhelming at times. What's more challenging is that you can find similar features and functions available in different Zoho apps, and they are used in slightly different ways.

Over the years of learning as much as I can about this suite of software tools, I have often enjoyed the variety of challenges. Other times, I just want a straight answer. Among the apps that the Beckmann Collaborative team has learned (and will continue to learn about) is Zoho Analytics. What a powerful tool for a business!

What is Zoho Analytics?

This is a business intelligence (BI) data analytics platform. It lets you create beautiful charts and reports to easily analyze your business data. Who doesn't love data visualizations?

I can get...

Part 3: CRM Workflows

Welcome to the third and final installment of our CRM Best Practices series.  These articles walk you through how to evaluate, setup, and properly use your CRM software.

If you missed the first article, then you can get started with your CRM evaluation. The second article includes valuable tips on CRM user best practices.

This article covers important tips for your CRM workflows through both initial setup and recurring maintenance of your database. These tips can help the growth of your business and improve decision making.

What is a Workflow?

A workflow is simply a routine or recurring process used to get the best results in the most efficient amount of time. It can be illustrated as a series of steps in a diagram or a checklist showing what needs to be completed and the sequence.

Read more about marketing workflows in this...