The challenge for marketers in the digital age is to better measure the ROI of online marketing activities through the use of smart analytics. The problem is digital analytics and the sort of data you get from Google about traffic can get confusing.

Web and digital analytics are a world apart. One is useful for ascertaining website performance, the other provides data used to judge the success of marketing campaigns – think of it this way, web analytics are like a venue and digital analytics are the expos.

The venue can tell you who came on which day and how long they stayed but that’s about it, they can’t give insight on conversions and place in the sales process of leads. The stalls at the expos are your marketing campaigns, they can tell you how many people came by, used a voucher or discount code, how much they spent and the demographic profile of the average buyer. And it is this knowledge that you get with digital marketing analytics that tells marketers what is giving them their best ROI.

Digital Marketing and Web Analytics – the difference

It’s important to have a comprehensive view of the performance of marketing activities whatever the budget and attempting to get that information from the venue owners (web analytics) is a pointless waste of time and money. How would they know? They just own the building.

Marketers need to assess and compare the performance of social media and email campaigns and website data isn’t going to offer the complexity of detail required. Web analytics alone aren’t enough to better procure leads and convert them into customers.

Better quality data for your sales team

Digital marketing analytics provides integration across different marketing channels so marketers can better understand the customer journey and tailor future campaigns to their behaviours by tracking the journey from start to finish. It’s like having the data from every stall at the expo so you know what works, what doesn’t and what visitors want and how they got there.

This is a much more efficient and powerful way of tracking leads as it is based on the behaviours of individuals not web pages. And it is this sort of intelligent information that marketers can turn into something actionable and better qualify leads.

The data collected through digital marketing can help shape and inform future campaigns. It can also help optimise the marketing budget by better determining the relationship between campaign lead generation and conversion rate through CRM integrated analytics.

Integrated analytics and CRM

CRMs come in all forms with myriad capabilities and varying price points – some are free, others cost thousands of dollars – but price isn’t always an indicator of suitability or performance. Zoho, Batchbook, Hubspot, SugarCRM and MailChimp are in the free to low cost basket and millions of small businesses rely with resounding success. At the high-end there market leader Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft, often favoured by enterprise. It’s best to speak to a digital marketing specialist about integrating digital marketing analytics to give a comprehensive view of marketing performance.

By being able to compare the performance of each prong of activity marketers can better plan their campaigns and have access to real-time data on their progress of hitting their targets. If a certain campaign isn’t yielding the expected results then digital analytics will give them an early warning allowing marketers to adjust their strategy and funnel resources into better performing channels.

If you’re running the expo you’d be delighted to have detailed data on how to increase sales for your stall holders, better utilise the space taken up by failing stalls and attract more visitors by having more of the stuff they like. That’s digital marketing analytics in a nutshell.

The more data you can collect and decipher the smarter your marketing will become and the easier it will be to connect the dots resulting in huge cost savings, increased sales or often both.

An elevator pitch is a compelling synopsis of your business you can deliver in the time it takes to travel between floors in an elevator. Whether you’ll ever give a pitch in an elevator is moot – the real benefit is the ability to explain what you do in a comprehensible, convincing and compelling manner.

How often has the question “what is it you do again” flummoxed you? Explaining what you do to another person can sometimes be hard. Crafting an elevator pitch is the perfect way to have a concise description of what you do ready to go when the opportunity to convince someone to use your product or services arises. Here are some tips to help you build your elevator pitch.

Know your business

Crafting a great elevator pitch will get you thinking about how to condense your message into something memorable and attention-grabbing. This process can help you understand your business better so you have something meaningful to follow up with if pressed for more information.

Take the time to understand what is behind the pitch and you should end up with lots of concise nuggets of information that can be put to good use in your collateral and on your website —more on that later.

Don’t undersell yourself

It is fine to use sales-y terms just make sure they’re relevant. If you’re number one, pioneering something, or industry recognised then say so. Keep it short, concise and ensure you mention your business name and what you do in plain English.

E.g. “Webuyyourwheels.com is the number one vehicle valuation and purchasing company in Australia. We buy any road-worthy vehicle and pioneering the instant price check and one click sales method with same day payments and the best average purchase price in the business.”

Avoid jargon

Never make the assumption that your audience knows what you are talking about. “I work for the market leader in vehicular acquisition and asset amortisation maximisation” isn’t going to capture anyone’s attention even if they do understand what that means. Buzzwords and jargon can come off a little superior so speak only in plain English.

Use a question

Questions in elevator pitches are excellent for grabbing attention or gauging interest. E.g. “Have you ever sold a car? (Yes) Did it take more than a day? (Yes) With webuyyourwheels.com you can get an instant online valuation and sell your car with one click. You can get paid the same day too. Here’s my business card with the QR code to download our free app.”

One of the additional benefits of creating an elevator pitch is it gives you so much quality material to use in your collateral and on your website. Featuring elevator pitch material in web design has become really popular. It helps generate leads and keeps sites clean of unnecessary copy.  It’s the simplest way of letting your site visitors know precisely what you’re about in a clear and concise terms.

Elevator pitches on websites are superb uses of white space and you can really make it sing by making good use of typography and colour to emblazon a bold statement on your website. It can be used across your social media to form a coherent narrative and on your landing pages.

Landing pages are often full of rich media, copy and internal hyperlinks which can take a little time to load. A pared back page with a powerful elevator pitch and compelling call to action would load in half the time and keep your most relevant visitors interested.

An elevator pitch is worth taking the time to craft so it is easily understood and says precisely what you do. And when done well it can really enhance your website’s ability to generate leads.

How do businesses attract new customers and continue to engage with their existing audience when traditional mediums like print and live TV are in decline? The simple answer is to move online but that approach won’t cut it in a world where people need to be targeted specifically.

TV still has a place but it’s not like the 60s when the whole country would be watching the same show – shotgun marketing isn’t going to get you the returns you need.

The future of marketing is in the platforms that prospective clients use like Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat.

The Basics

Snapchat is a social media app that allows user to send messages, videos and pictures to their contacts but the catch is that media is only available for 24 hours. Now, Snapchat has added custom filters that allow you to add frames or even replace your face with a custom graphic.

The custom filters Snapchat has added to their app has given endless marketing possibilities to businesses. The majority of Snapchat users are millennials and post-millennials and with a market of over 100 million users worldwide (over 3 million here in Australia) you have an insanely large audience to target. If you’re after a conversation with millennials, then this is where you will find them.

Snapchat’s inherent functions allow you to connect with your customers in the following ways:

• Sharing your story or brand through images or videos
• Personalise filters that tap into the authentic marketing movement
• Analytics built into the app that track views and content so you know what works

On top of this, you get a free platform that is nearly completely organic in terms of content. If you’re not using Snapchat or any social media for your marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a major opportunity to increase the ROI for your advertising budget.

How It Works

So how do you get in on this game changing form of marketing? To get started you should understand some of the basic requirements. For example, in order to create a custom filter you have to have a location where it will be applied and a design. You also have to determine the length of time the custom filter will be available.

It is crucial that you plan your targeting for custom filters. You’ll want to understand how the filter will be used and who will be adding them to their “stories”. Essentially, who will see your custom filter? Design is important, your filter needs to be memorable and humorous – Taco Bell’s filter made users’ heads turn into tacos for example.

Make the Most of Your Location

A defined location is a requirement of a custom filter and a successful custom filter campaign will largely be determined by the location you choose.

Custom filters can only be used by people within a certain, designated area. Everyone can see it and read it – so you can be sure your message has the ability to travel far and wide – but in order to use it, your audience has to be in your defined area.

Create a persona of who will use your filter and choose a venue that suits their interests or they are likely to visit – such as a local art or music festival. Your audience doesn’t want to be “sold” to so try to avoid restricting the location to your store as they won’t feel like you’re trying to create something fun they can share with their friends.

Unlimited Marketing Potential

Using Snapchat and custom filters to market your brand is an engaging and personal way to connect with your customers. You’re also using a relatively new and trendy form of marketing which also clicks with your target demographic – millennials and post-millennials.

This brand of marketing accepted and even expected by this audience. The results of early adopters explain why so many are jumping onboard. However, it’s still early doors for this type of marketing so now is a good time to get ahead of the curve and ride the wave. Snapchat custom filters are the next big thing worth getting in on the ground for.

Moving from television to social media marketing and other digital platforms makes sense, especially if you have a limited budget and want to maximise the ROI of you commercial resources. Contact us today to discuss how we can help leverage free to use social media features to engage your customers.

 

 

 

A great logo can provide your company with a boost but actually visualising an image that embodies your company and projects what you stand for isn’t easy. Creating it is even harder so this article seeks to help you understand what you need to consider during the logo design phase.

The five main principles of design are: simplicity, memorability, adaptability, uniqueness and colour scheme. When your logo is being designed make a checklist of these five things to measure how viable and appropriate your logo will be.

Simplicity and memorability

Great logos are memorable and easy to describe. Ask the next person you see to describe, not draw, these logos including the colour scheme: McDonald’s, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Nike, Adidas, Qantas and Vegemite. They’ll pretty much describe them to a T because those logos are simple and memorable.

Iconic brands like Starbucks are the exception to this which proves not all logos have to be overly simple but the easier your logo is to describe out loud the more eye-catching it will be in actuality.

Adaptability

Logos needs to be versatile so when designing a logo consider all of the mediums it will feature in. Detailed logos can lose a lot of its effectiveness when shrunk as they can if the colour is changed. Your logo is going to look different on a billboard than it will on a computer screen, in a magazine, on a business card or company stationary.

Uniqueness

They say there is nothing new under the sun but that isn’t an excuse for not even trying for some innovation. Copying logos or even taking heavy inspiration from a popular design isn’t a great idea as you risk looking cheap or being sued for plagiarism. Anyway, you want your logo to be about you, not a knocked off version of someone else.

Colour scheme

For branding experts it’s possible to identify patterns in logo colours that fit certain feelings and how they play a part in purchasing decisions and brand association. A study undertaken by the University of Winnipeg, Canada, found that almost 9 in 10 initial reactions to products and logos could be linked back to the colour.

The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science also found that purchasing decisions can be affected by how colours manipulate and influence brand perception.

Colours are considered to be indicators of the personality of a brand. There are 8 main colour schemes that companies use to convey their personality or message: monochrome, green, blue, purple, red, orange, yellow and combination.

What do the colours say?

Monochrome is favoured by companies like Apple, Nike, Mercedes, Adidas and Playboy. It is said to project balance, calmness, neutrality, sophistication and aspiration, especially with high-end products like you find with Apple and Mercedes.

Green is used for health, nature, peacefulness and growth. You’ll see it with brands like Land Rover who market their cars to rural consumers; food businesses like Tropicana and Whole Foods to enhance their healthy living credentials and Starbucks to imply fresh, natural ingredients.

Tech companies like Intel, Dell, IBM, HP, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress use blue to highlight their trustworthiness, dependability, competence and strength. It’s also favoured by conglomerates, popular car manufacturers and financial providers like American Express, JPMorgan, Ford, VW, GE and Walmart because they want to be seen as reliable and consistent.

Food and drink brands like Coca-Cola, KFC and Budweiser, who appeal to under-25s more, employ red as it is considered an exciting, bold, youthful colour. It also plays well with new technology like video-streaming on Netflix or YouTube.

Purple implies creativity, imagination and wisdom – perhaps that is why wizards are so often pictured wearing purple robes – but it also blend elements from blue and red. Cadbury’s is an example of this as it wants to be seen as exciting yet dependable whilst Hallmark wants to be seen as trustworthy and creative.

Companies who want to exude confidence and cheerfulness opt for Orange. Orange works well with children and is favoured by Fanta and Nickelodeon. It is also used as an accent by companies like Harley Davidson and Amazon.

Yellow exhibits optimism, clarity and warmth. McDonald’s, IKEA and Best Buy are all about clarity. You know exactly what you are going to get with them. SubWay is dominated by yellow for clarity but they also accent with green for the healthy food aspect and white for balance.

Combination has to be done really well because it’s easy to confuse your audience – notice how the main brands who use combination are technology/internet giants like Google, Microsoft and eBay.

Get designing

When it comes to matching your brand personality to a colour scheme, remember that there is no evidence to suggest one colour will be more compelling than another. How your logo interacts with the colours is more important that the colours itself. The relationship between colour and brand is steeped in the perception of appropriateness and therefore your logo could be completely transformed with a colour change.

The feeling your logo creates will play a huge role in the perception of your brand and the strength of its persuasion. For that reason you must ensure that first your brand is simple, memorable, adaptable and unique before settling on a colour scheme. Think about your company’s core values, aims, strengths and achievements. This is what your company is made of and should be the factors that shape your logo.

We recently updated our logo to reflect the growth of our business and have had amazing feedback both from our business partners and customers. If you’re looking for assistance in this arena, you can learn more about here design services here. If you’d like to discuss what you’re after in a new logo, you can also contact us and we’d be thrilled to help.

 

 

Customer profiling may sound like a politically incorrect term used in airport security but it’s actually an innocent business term for understanding who your customers are.

Imagine a manual for how to most effectively reach your target demographic with details on what they like to buy, how much the spend, how they use your products or services, what will help retain their custom and what matters most to them as consumers. That is your customer profile.

How to create your ideal customer profile

Customer profiles help you understand the things that matter to your customers so you can tailor your offerings and messages to better appeal to them.

Selling products and services without understanding what your ideal customer looks like is akin to doing paint by numbers with your eyes closed. You’ll get paint on the canvass, so in a sense, job done, but it’s not going to look pretty.

Let’s examine how you can easily create a customer profile to determine your target demographic.

There are four simple parts to creating profiles for the customers your business should be targeting: Describe. Connect. Locate. Understand.

Describe

The first thing you need to do is create a description sheet for each of your ideal customers. You need to determine, in a broad sense, the two or three main types of customer you have or want.

Build profiles by sorting customers using these basic criteria:

• Demographics – age, gender, income, location, etc.
• Psychographics – personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests lifestyles etc.

If you work B2B then what you should define includes: Sector, number of employees, revenue and budget, national/global reach, and decision-making process.

Each type of customer will have varying motives for why they chose your company or your product. Not appreciating their individual motives means you cannot address their individual needs. Don’t lump them together.

Connect

Lots of companies use data-mining or just good old-fashioned polling of their customers to gather information. Interview your current customers and ask them what they like about you, what they don’t; what attracted them to you, how they found you originally; what makes them stay, what makes them want to leave; what others do they wish you did, what you do others don’t. Encourage complete honesty.

The information you get back will enable you to create your customer profiles. This information is vital in so many ways. It not only allows you to use that information in the most effective manner for your market strategies but also gives you invaluable feedback on your strengths and weaknesses.

Locate

Knowing where your customers are isn’t as simple as where they live. We covered that kind of location in demographics. What you want to know is where they go — be that physically or digitally. Where do they spend their time? What websites are they visiting? What papers do they like to read? What social media networks are they attracted to? What do they search for on the internet? Where do they go on holiday? What continents do they prefer to visit?

When you understand where your customer types are at any given time you can target them more effectively. You might be spending money on ad spaces in a national gym with loads of members but few of them fit your customer profiles. That’s wasted money but it can sometimes seem like a good idea to go for numbers.

Knowing where your customers are located can help you decide what numbers make more sense. A small online forum where the average user is 60% likely to fit one of your profiles or a national newspaper with 5x the active readers but with an average profile fit of 25%?

Understand

We all have a purchasing process — an unconscious method for making spending decisions. Understanding what drives your customers to make the decisions they do is a key part of building a winning strategy.

You need to understand what their problem or need is. Are they making purchases proactively or reactively? Are they trying to fix a problem or fulfilling a desire? How are they researching solutions to their problem? How are they researching ways to fulfil their need? What benefits are they looking for?

How are they making their final decision? Are they looking at reviews? Comparing features and benefits with competitors? Are they buying on a whim? Do they need to get approval?

When you understand how they make purchases you can tailor your message to speak to them on their level. Your strategy can be designed to match the flow of their purchasing process resulting in higher conversions.

Create personas

One of the best ways to create specific profiles for each distinct group is to name them and give them a picture — this is known as a persona. Visual aids are really helpful in building customer personas and familiarising your team with the motives, desires and concerns of that type of customer. Also, down the line it will enable seamless switching of strategy between customer sets.

An extraneous example would be marketing for a new face cream. A broad target would be “active females in their 30s and 40s”. Customer profiling could allow you to break that down into ‘Molly the stay at home mum’, ‘Charlotte the career woman’ and ‘Adventurous Alice’.

Molly is in her mid-30s; she has two children, one at school, the other is under a year. She lives in the suburbs, drives a hatchback and has a household income of $80000. She doesn’t get much sleep so is concerned her skin is starting to look tired. She wants to try a new face cream but is easily put off by negative reviews on a mum’s blog forum she visits most days.

Charlotte is in her late 20s, has no children and is dating. She drives a convertible, lives in the city, travels for work a lot and earns $50000. She has noticed a few wrinkles around her brow and wants sometimes to help smooth them. She’s always busy so tends to take the advice of sales clerks or chooses products she has seen in her favourite magazine which often has free samples.

Alice leads a very active, outdoors lifestyle. She surfs, cycles, swims, rock-climbs and runs. She’s into extreme sports and spends most of her life in the sun. Alice is worried her lifestyle is drying out her skin and wants a product that is compatible with her activities. She tends to use consumer comparison sites to find the best deals and research the benefits of products.

All three would benefit from using the same product but they have different motives, purchasing processes, incomes, backgrounds and lifestyles. You can’t create a campaign that will reach everyone but by creating customer profiles you can create appropriate and targeted campaigns for your ideal customers.

Acutely targeted marketing strategies, created with these ideal customers in mind, should enable you to better reach the new and existing customers to positively affect sales and grow your business.

The decision to re-brand your business is a big one. A lengthy process that can sometimes cost a bit of coin, and it’s certainly a decision not to be taken lightly. However, if done for the right reasons and at the right time, a rebrand can be a great investment to the immediate and future growth of your business.

Done for the wrong reasons and at the wrong the time it can not only be a costly mistake but a PR disaster.  A recent example, one we can all learn from was by a household name, with a product we all grew up with and loved. Arnott’s rebranded their famous Shapes biscuit ‘updating’ some of their renowned flavours in the process. Australia went into meltdown. It’s possible we’re still in the midst of this meltdown as the benefits of this change have yet to be seen or understood.

Another famous example on the worldwide stage was when Coca-Cola made an attempt to re-brand their product to appeal to younger consumers in 1985. A strong consumer backlash forced the company to bring back the original “Coco-Cola classic” a mere three months later.

Evolving

If your business has evolved since opening its doors, it’s possible that the logo and brand you started with is no longer consistent with your current message or offering. It’s good practice to have a brand that consistently reflects your business’s message. New direction is the primary reason for re-branding.

Moving or Expanding

Moving your business or expanding geographically? If your branding includes geographic information or contains messages or meanings that only apply to one area, re-branding to appeal to the new location will be required.

Updating

Has the market or trends within your industry changed considerably? Has your brand become outdated as a result? Your brand reflects your business and is directly responsible for prospective client’s perception of you. An outdated and dull brand will not appeal to new customers- especially if you’re a company that sells these sort of services. It’s important not to get this confused with you feeling bored with your current branding – which can happen to the best of us.

While it is totally normal for any business owner to want to shake things up, it’s vital to recognise that this isn’t a good enough reason to re-brand, at least not on it’s own. If however you’re considering updating due to an outdated logo or niche a complete change may not be needed. A simple refresh may be enough.

Appealing to New Audiences

If you’re wanting to appeal or attract a new audience, then this is a solid enough reason for rebranding and one of the most popular. If you want to break into a new demographic, updating your brand to reflect their behaviours, likes and interests can position your business favourably. It is important to make a well-informed decision backed by research if considering this. Using an experienced agency to assist with re-branding is beneficial beyond the obvious design reasons. An agency familiar with branding will have years of knowledge and tested and tried experiences behind their expertise.

Merging or Acquiring

Another reason you may be considering a rebrand is if your business is merging with another or you are you acquiring a new one? Updating the brand to reflect the new dynamic not only creates and helps keep the brand consistent with offerings and message but it can also be a great marketing and PR strategy. Just be careful not to alienate existing loyal customers.

It’s not only important to get the timing and the reasons for re-branding right but to also make sure it’s done with longevity in mind. We can’t stress how important it is for a brand to remain consistent, solid and trustworthy in the eyes of consumers – no matter what type of business you’re in.

When considering rebranding you need to consider all elements of your business’s marketing platforms. With website and digital being a strong player in today’s business environment it’s important that a brand presents well in a digital environment as well as on traditional promotional material.

Get Expert Advice

Rebranding can be an expensive exercise and even more expensive if it isn’t done right. It’s a good idea (and a good investment) to get advice from a team who know and understand the branding process.

We recently re-branded our business to reflect the growth of our business and have had glowing feedback from many of our partners and customers. Digital is an important part of a re-brand strategy, contact us today to discuss how we can help.

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As more small businesses embrace the Internet and move, it is becoming essential to have the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software so you can keep track of customers. Having the right CRM also makes it easier for you to interact with your customers, providing help where needed and give them a good experience as they shop with you.

The CRM you choose, and how right it is for your business, depends to a large extent on the kind of business model you have. While there are many great CRMs to choose from, they don’t all have the same features. For instance, lawyers may need a document and file sharing feature and that would not be important for a retailer who would benefit more from a Live Chat feature.

Another consideration, especially for small businesses, would be budget. The cost of many CRMs is worked out by how many employees will be using them as well as what features they have. You may be surprised to find one – Zoho – is free and is packed with some handy features.

Zoho

The biggest advantage of Zoho is that up to 10 employees can use it for free making it ideal for small start-ups with a tight budget. Crucially, it also has a free mobile version. It is easy to use even for those with no previous experience and if you get stuck there is a help button and live chat.

Features include: client interaction tracking, files sharing (not real-time), web forms, purchasing reports and Google docs integration.

Like all freemium products many of the best features – like creating and sending invoices, data backups, multiple currencies, lead capture from social media, marketing campaigns, integration with Google AdWords, customer support, inventory management, analytics and greater security – are saved for paid versions. You can purchase software that will integrate seamlessly with Zoho to perform these tasks though.

SugarCRM

This is a trustworthy CRMs used by many businesses worldwide. A cloud-based service, its better features include: – sales force automation and forecasting, real-time sharing, email integration, mobile app, large storage plans, up to 24/7 support and support for MySQL, Oracle and SQL Server. The user interface, while uncluttered and easy to use, is considered a little too simple and overly-focused on commerce.

Workbooks.com

In spite of the downside of a 25 users limit, this CRM is has a powerful suite of sales and marketing tools that can support sales teams around the world. Features include real-time sharing and easy configuration and customisation. Some users recommend taking a staged approach to integration to avoid headache.

Maximizer

A popular CRM for over 20 years, Maximizer can automatically generate email campaign based on company input. The design, similar to several Microsoft Office applications, makes it very easy to use. With many features, it is available in the cloud or on the premises. Reviews suggest the cloud version is improving but still has many bugs.

MailChimp

Whilst not technically a CRM – and in fact MailChimp is mostly used as an integrated add-on to manage email marketing campaigns – many small businesses are using it as a form of Customer Relationship Management tool. If all you need is a simple way to bulk contact your customers and create email campaigns then MailChimp could be for you but be aware that you won’t be able to benefit from all the clever analytics, lead tracking and reports you get with a true CRM system.

Apptivo

Another affordable CRM, Apptivo offers customisable solutions and has 24-hour support. Considered one of the most flexible and affordable solutions it has many features for just $10 per month per user. This makes it ideal for small businesses or sole traders.

Batchbook

Its cheap cost makes it ideal for the tiny business or entrepreneur that only needs to monitor social media and streamline customer communications. It’s good at what little it does, but if you want automated features to take care of invoices or anything else, you won’t get it from this CRM without third party add-ons.

Salesforce

They say you get what you pay for and Salesforce CRM comes with a price worthy of its consideration as one of the best, if not the best, CRMs on the market. Salesforce is not only intuitive, uncluttered and easy to use; it also has a great many features that will help you reach your business goals quickly and efficiently. As a cloud-based system, Salesforce keeps your information from accidental deletion and boasts robust security to fend off unauthorised access.

Contact information from Outlook or Excel can be imported into this CRM and you can also dial clients, send out automatic mass or single emails or send only to specific groups. It also boasts one of the largest third-party marketplaces for add-ons and apps with seamless integration – and it has its own social networking platform.

One downside is that when it is necessary to add a new contact, a new company account with a designated account number must first be created. Then the new customer can be added to it. Some people find this extra step a little frustrating, especially when they are in a hurry. However, managers will find this software invaluable for keeping a check on customer/employee interaction to make sure that the customer gets what they need, as well as for many other jobs. Performance evaluations can easily be carried out by managers.

Having the right CRM for your business will ensure that things run much more smoothly and efficiently but don’t get wooed by functions you won’t use. Select a CRM based on what you need right now. It might cost you a little more in the long-run should you need to migrate to a different platform but it’s better than getting stuck with something you feel obligated to use because you paid a lot of money for features you never needed.