Customers undergo several stages before finally making a purchase action. They don’t just look up for the product and buy it because it looks good at first sight. They consider, compare, analyze, and buy a product that also suits their needs and budget. So, it’s not difficult to accept that a consumer journey is no longer a straight line in today’s digital world. It is not possible to completely control the interaction between you and your customers, but you still can exert a guiding force to drive them differently based on their stage in the purchase funnel. That isn’t a manual job or guess-work because maintaining a relationship with clients requires strategic planning. That’s where a Customer Relationship Management or CRM cloud comes into play.
It is one of the most effective client management tools that guide consumer journey digitally. Not only does it bolster in-depth information about each individual, but it also envisions broader patterns in their behavior and allows the marketers to tailor their approach to meet the consumers where they are.
Here’re the ways CRM can map or drive the clients’ journey in the purchase funnel.
Customer Behavior Pattern Identification
This platform divulges comprehensive data about the clients’ buying behavior. It can go from having an idea of how they found the brand, ways they have been in touch, the items being purchased to the number of times they initiated a transaction. One, it promotes the creation of composite profiles of the ideal clients; two, it allows the marketers to go out and target similar prospects. Its ability to identify the patterns in demographics helps assess the viability of the prospects.
Lead Scoring
Lead Scoring is a process of determining the possibility of a prospect to turn into a customer. Now that the ideal client profile is identified, there will be an effort on pushing these leads further down the purchase funnel. Also, the prospects that are the most similar to the lead profile will gain more of the marketers’ attention. And those who fall outside the ideal traits will not be construed as hot leads because they will hardly ever convert despite offering quality products and services.
The Hottest Leads Look Out
Now that the behavior pattern and idealist profiles of the consumers are known, the time has come to keep a tab on the hottest leads. Yes, not every hot lead you have will be the best converter. It’s also the time to use CRM beyond tracking the existing clients and manage a relationship with the prospects. The hottest leads will be the most profitable and desirable ones, so, there is no point in letting them go. Most marketers try to move them towards trust and utilize a portion of the company’s marketing hourglass. Personalization is a bit of an effort that exerts positive responses from the prospects. Here, marketers usually reach out to them through emails thanking them for their precious time or offering them to sit for a consultation and better deals. Simply put, by the way of building trust, the hottest or promising leads can be retained.
Email Segmentation
Finding the hottest leads and sending them emails to push them further in the purchase funnel isn’t the end of the customers’ journey. Fortunately, CRM has in-built features that support the segmentation of people based on their different stages in the journey. Customers’ specific actions and the products they have purchased also set the grounds for segmentation. Thereupon, marketers’ responsibility is to target people in these groups through emails and earn their loyalty. The CRM software doesn’t only direct the actions of the sales and marketing department but also map the consumer journey. It paves a way to identify, target, and retain the prospects and ensures an excellent interaction with them at all levels.