Fear not.

We’ll walk you through the basics to help you start your successful CRM strategy from scratch.

What was once the traditional buyer-seller model has shifted from transactional to customer-centric. Customer relationships today require higher levels of maintenance, which is why businesses now have entire CRM strategies dedicated to managing them.

One of the reasons is that consumers have bigger expectations than ever when it comes to customer service. They’re not going to think twice about going elsewhere if yours isn’t up to scratch.

When we hear the words ‘CRM strategy’, we’re inclined to think about CRM software or CRM technology. But software is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

The best strategic customer relationship management incorporates both people and software. It also includes pieces such as:

• CRM data (such as contact information)
• Management tools
• Marketing efforts

What will CRM strategy do for my business?

There a number of reasons why your business needs a CRM marketing strategy.

A good CRM strategy will help you:

• Provide an enjoyable customer experience at all touchpoints of the customer journey, leading to customer loyalty
• Strengthen collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer service teams
• Clearly and quickly identify the most worthwhile leads and opportunities, and move them down the sales pipeline with the help of marketing automation
• Keep track of your leads and customers as they move through the sales funnel
• Run targeted marketing campaigns 
• Provide data insights for sales forecasting and inform your future business strategies

Read more: 8 Key CRM Benefits for Small Businesses

How to create a CRM strategy from zero

There are 8 essential steps to follow when creating an effective CRM strategy from scratch. 

Step 1: Define your CRM strategy vision and goals

The first thing to do before creating a CRM strategy is to revisit your overall business strategy and high-level business goals.  

Create a vision of what you want to achieve from the CRM strategy. That way it has a clear purpose from the very beginning. 

Think about how you want to contribute to the success of your business.

Increased customer satisfaction, higher productivity and efficiency, and decreasing customer churn rates are all examples of common CRM strategy goals.

Remember, your CRM strategy is not an end in itself. It exists to drive business goals. So you need to integrate it into the overall strategy of the business.

2. Define your target customer with buyer personas

Source

Create a buyer persona that represents your ideal customer based on market research and the marketing team’s collective insights. Make it as detailed as possible. Include customer information such as demographic and behavioral characteristics, as well as interests, challenges, and aspirations.

Here are some research methods you can use:

• Interview your sales and customer service teams 
• Study different customer profiles and even interview customers directly
• Send customer surveys

To maintain strong customer relationships and attract quality leads, you need to understand exactly who is purchasing from you and why.

Having a clearly defined buyer profile is essential to becoming a customer-centric business. It’s key to ensuring your teams are focused on the true needs and expectations of your customers.

That’s not all. Knowing exactly who to target will also ensure your sales and marketing don’t waste time on unsuitable leads.

Step 3: Define your customer journey

Customer journey example from GCH Hotel Group (source)

To master customer relationship management, you need to know each and every step of the customer journey. Then you need to ensure a top notch customer experience at each of those touchpoints.

Start at the beginning.

Map every single customer interaction from the moment they first discover you. It might be through digital ad campaigns, email marketing, direct contact with team members, or other processes.

This is where you’ll highlight areas for improvement and establish who is responsible for what.

When mapping each stage of the buyer journey, ask yourself:

• Which team/process is interacting with the customer at that moment?
• How can these interactions be improved?
• Look at the buyer personas developed in Step 2. Based on what you know about your customer, is this his or her preferred means of communication? Could there be a more effective way to get your message across?
• What’s the customer trying to achieve?
• What challenges does the customer face? How can you offer better support?
• What content is the customer coming into contact with?

Step 4: Plan how to provide a 360° customer experience

Your CRM strategy planning so far should have highlighted the areas that need improvement.

Now you’re going to look at the structure of your internal processes. Do you have the resources in place to provide a 360-degree customer experience?

Do an audit of roles and responsibilities to check all the necessary bases are being covered.

Here are examples areas to optimize processes:

• Presales: How are you doing when it comes to analyzing customer needs, gathering information, and putting together business cases?
• Sales processes: What sales tasks can be automated to increase efficiency?
• Customer relationship management: Are your offers tailored to your customers’ needs? Are your communications personalized and relevant?
• After-sales: Have you got the necessary support systems in place to resolve customer problems quickly? What feedback do you receive on the quality of your customer service? Do you need to be able to follow-up with customers regularly?

In short, ask yourself ‘How can I do it better?’ and then make the necessary changes within your organization.

Step 5: Study the market and decide your positioning

It’s always a good idea to look to the competitive landscape for inspiration when developing CRM strategies.

Ask yourself:

• Where does your company fit into the market?
• What is your unique selling proposition (i.e. what makes you different from others in your space?)
• How do your competitors differentiate themselves?
• What opportunities exist?
• Can you learn anything about how your competitors handle customer relationships?
• What are the trends in your industry right now?

Step 6: Know your product or service

Take the time to revise and develop your product/service narrative and elaborate your value proposition.

What are the messages you want to transmit? What benefits do you want to highlight? Why should a customer choose you over your competitors?

Communicate this narrative internally and implement employee training where necessary. Everyone needs to be on the same page, relaying the same message.

This is also a good opportunity to define your brand tone of voice and put in place best practice guidelines for communicating with customers.

Step 7: Implement CRM software

It’s impossible to drive forward your CRM strategy without a CRM software for your business.

A CRM system streamlines collaboration between teams, stores customer data, and tracks all interactions between you.

A CRM solution streamlines contact management

To choose a CRM platform, evaluate your existing business processes and get input from your various teams. The main factors to be considered are price, capabilities, and ease of use. It’s also important to choose a CRM tool that integrates with the other marketing tools you use. 

Good news – Brevo’s Sales Platform is now available for free!

As a part of the Brevo CRM Suite, the Sales Platform is fully integrated with the other marketing channels offered in it. Manage deals in the pipeline and assign tasks to your salesforce for a more effective workflow.

If you already use Brevo for marketing, communication history will appear in each contact profile along with engagement metrics. You can set task reminders and send emails directly from the contact profile page.

With the Meetings feature, you can also create custom booking landing pages and schedule demos, consultation sessions, and other meetings directly with potential customers.

Once you have the software, define best practices to support your outlined CRM strategy. Designate an admin to manage user access. When and how will your teams use this software? What would be the experience for your customer base?

Then, set up what counts as a lead, a prospect, or opportunity according to your CRM strategy. Remember to clean your contact list before importing it to start off with an organized and up-to-date database.

Step 8: Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

All strategic actions need to be backed up by figures and data – and your CRM strategy is no exception. You need to be able to measure its progress.

You outlined your CRM strategy goals back in Step 1. Now you’re going to give your sales team some concrete targets to work towards. 

Remember to set smart goals for your marketing and sales teams. S.M.A.R.T stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

Examples of performance metrics you may wish to include are:

• Customer satisfaction
• Customer retention
• Customer churn (when a customer leaves the company)
• Profits (overall total, totals per customer/account)

The success of your CRM strategy depends on the levels of engagement and collaboration of your teams. 

Get your employees on board from the beginning. Keep them informed, educated, and up to date on all aspects of your CRM strategy.

Launch your CRM strategy today

A well-thought out CRM strategy will do wonders for your customer retention and bottom line.

Follow the 8 steps above and you’ll be well on your way to customer relationship management success. And the best CRM is the one fitting your business needs and budget.

The post 8 Steps to Creating a CRM Strategy for Your Business appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Working from the couch in a blazer and pajama bottoms is the new business casual, and video calls are the new conference rooms. So knowing how to manage your Zoom meetings is absolutely essential. 

Setting up a Zoom call from your Zoom account is a great start, but you won’t be able to have your clients book meetings directly from your calendar. You also can’t accept payments or send email or text reminders. 

How to schedule a Zoom meeting: 3 ways

There are three ways to schedule a Zoom meeting: via the Zoom desktop app, the Zoom web portal, or the mobile app. 

For all of these, you will need a Zoom account. If you aren’t already a Zoom client, that’s the first step.

For each of these methods, you will be able to customize all the same meeting details. 

Schedule a meeting with the Zoom desktop app

1. Click the schedule button

Schedule menu on the Zoom desktop app

2. Select your meeting options from the preferences window

Meeting details on the Zoom desktop app

• Add a meeting topic 
• Set your date, time, and time zone 
• Choose if you want this to be a recurring meeting by checking the box 
• Select your type of meeting ID, personal meeting ID, or automatic 
• Set up a meeting password or use the recommended one
• Decide if you want to enable your guests to join before the meeting starts, or if you want to enable waiting room so you can make your grand entrance 

Meeting details on the Zoom desktop app

• Choose if you want the host’s video and your participants’ video to be on or off when they join the meeting 
• Set your audio preference (computer audio is the default unless you have speakers)
• Add your meeting to your calendar
  • On Mac, you will see the iCal option. 
  • For Windows users, Outlook calendar will appear instead.
  • Google Calendar is available for all users.
  • Other Calendars will allow you to copy the meeting invitation with the meeting details to email or text to your clients. 

• Select your advanced options preferences from the list

Advanced options on the Zoom desktop app

Allowing your participants to join anytime means they can join before the meeting starts. This also enables them to join before the host. 

Once you click save, your scheduled meeting will appear as a calendar event in your calendar of choice. This calendar event will show on your screen as a new pop-up window.  

If you choose “other calendar” then the meeting invitation will pop up as a text box. 

Meeting confirmation and invitation from the Zoom desktop app

If you are wondering how to create a Zoom meeting link, fear not. The link is automatically generated when you schedule a meeting. 

3. Send Zoom invite

You have two options for how to send a Zoom invite:

• Copy and paste the meeting invitation from the text box into an email or text. 
• Invite guests with a calendar invitation from your calendar app.

Your meeting invitation will include all the important details like the meeting link and meeting passcode so your guests know where to find you, and how to join. 

How to invite someone to a Zoom meeting varies depending on which calendar app you use. Your calendar will prompt you for important information like which guests you want to invite. 

Invite guests field for Google Meet

No matter which calendar you use, your guests will get an email invitation. They can choose to add it to their own calendar or not. 

How to schedule Zoom meetings on the Zoom website

1. Log into your account

2. Click the meeting button, or click schedule 

How to schedule a meeting on the Zoom Website

3. Customize your meeting details (meeting topic, meeting date, time zone, duration)

4. Save your meeting details

5. Add your meeting to your calendar (optional) 

Zoom meeting invitation on the Zoom website

6. Email or text your invite link or copy the full invitation to send to your guests 

Start the meeting immediately if desired by clicking “start.” 

You can also send the invitation through your calendar app. Just click on the event, and add guests or invitees where prompted. 

How to schedule a Zoom meeting on mobile (iOs/Android)

1. Open your Zoom mobile app and click the schedule button 

Schedule meeting menu on the Zoom mobile app

2. Set your meeting details on the “Schedule Meeting” page

Meeting setup on the Zoom mobile app

3. Click “Save” (this will trigger a review page to pop up called “Meeting Details”)

4. Click “Add invitees” from the scheduled meeting confirmation seen below

Meeting details on the Zoom mobile app

5. Send the Zoom invite via text message by clicking “Send Message” or

6. Send the Zoom invite via email by clicking “Copy to Clipboard” and pasting the invite in an email

Send meeting invitation options on the Zoom mobile app

You did it! Now don’t forget to show up to your meeting by opening your Zoom app the day of. Your scheduled meeting will appear on the homepage of your app and is easy to find. 

Alternatively, you can get to your Zoom meeting through your calendar if you added it there during setup. 

Why you shouldn’t schedule a meeting on Zoom 

While Zoom’s very popular, each additional tool in your stack complicates things. Relying on a service just for video calls will eventually make your customer relationship management messy.

Back-and-forth scheduling wastes your time

Why spend three days going back and forth trying to pin down a date with your client when your client could just book a meeting like *that*?

Zoom doesn’t let you share your availability to speed up bookings. For a more client-friendly meeting scheduling, look at Calendly or alternative services.

Discover more appointment scheduling apps here.

No way to send automated meeting reminders

Leaving it up to your clients to set up reminders and notifications often results in missed meetings and no-shows. 

This is valuable time lost for you and your client and means you have to start over from scratch to reschedule a meeting. Using a tool that automatically sends reminder emails saves everyone’s time.

Awkward payment reminder emails 

Once you successfully have your meeting, you need to make sure you get paid. But sending reminder emails isn’t fun for you or your clients. 

Using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform is a better way to manage your meetings and your time. 

Why spend your time going back and forth between Zoom and your email, when you could have an easy, clean, straightforward meetings experience? 

If your goal is to manage your clients efficiently, using a strong CRM platform is essential. Discover some of the best CRM software examples out there. 

Why it’s better to integrate Zoom with a CRM

Using a CRM platform allows Zoom to work alongside all of your tools so you can manage your contacts, payments, and meetings all in one place. Don’t just schedule video calls, build an experience your clients will trust. 

It only takes a few clicks to set up and will save you loads of clicks in the future. You still have access to all of Zoom’s meetings settings. But connecting it to a CRM expands its capabilities and your opportunities.

Set up a booking calendar based on your availability 

You can send your booking page to your clients, include it in your email signature, or put it up on your website to attract curious new leads. Start the process of scheduling a Zoom meeting one step closer to the goal, skipping the back and forth.  

Setting meeting availability with Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) Meetings

Allow your clients to make bookings 

Two-way calendars make booking flexible and available when your clients need it. Let your clients book a meeting directly on your booking page. 

Coordinating with your clients will be far easier in a single platform than by using Zoom separately. 

Brevo has a Meetings platform that cuts away the needless scheduling by creating a booking calendar that you and your clients can use to schedule a meeting. It also hosts the meeting — standalone or via a Zoom integration.

Collect payments for your meetings 

No awkward follow-up emails trying to track down payments. Set up a payment method before and have it complete when the meeting is done. 

Setting payment options with Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) Meetings

Manage contacts easily 

Meeting contacts will add to your contact list, so you can easily integrate clients into your CRM and engage them after the meeting. 

It also makes setting up a meeting with existing contacts a no-brainer. Send a meeting invitation right from within the CRM and track interactions. 

Sync your meetings automatically with all of your calendars

Having all of your calendars synced to your booking page means you won’t double-book time slots. Plus, you can see everything you have coming up in one place. 

Send email and text reminders to your guests

With a CRM integrated with your Zoom account, you’ll be able to set up automated reminders (text and email!) to avoid no-shows and provide better customer experience.  

Integrate your booking calendar on your website

Let new customers and leads find you. Learn how to integrate booking page to your website for even more visibility. 

Schedule a Zoom meeting for a seamless customer experience

So now you can host a Zoom meeting and you know there is a better way to do it. 

Using a dedicated CRM platform will help you create a seamless scheduling experience for your clients and customers. 

Brevo Meetings allows you to use Zoom as part of your CRM strategy so you can grow your business efficiently. 

The post How to Schedule a Zoom Meeting appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Booking online apps are a great way to streamline scheduling and boost customer satisfaction. Without a business booking app, you might face problems like repeated no-shows, double bookings, and back-and-forth email chains.

That’s where an appointment booking tool can come in handy. These tools help automate the process and simplify how customers book meetings.

Want to learn more? In this article, we’ll introduce you to booking online apps and show you how to create an online booking system with Brevo Meetings. 

• What are booking online apps?
• Key benefits of booking online apps
• The 4 best booking online apps
• Meetings: how to use Brevo’s booking online app

What are booking online apps? 

A booking online app, or appointment scheduling software, is a tool that helps businesses better manage incoming appointment requests.

Booking online apps let you create a landing page for time slot booking. This custom landing page displays different meeting types and your real-time availability. From there, clients can choose a time slot and book meetings instantly.

Different types of service providers, from freelancers to small businesses, can use booking online apps. For instance, a salon or spa might use booking online apps to let clients schedule wellness services. A career coach can also use an appointment scheduling tool to offer consultations.

Key benefits of booking online apps

Software for online booking is a great way to simplify meetings and delight customers. Here are a few key benefits of online booking apps.

1. Streamline the booking process

Booking online apps simplify the booking process by eliminating repetitive tasks. Clients can book appointments themselves on your calendar rather than sending emails back and forth. 

Your online booking tool should automatically send notifications alerting you to any changes in plans, such as rescheduling or cancellations. 

2. Boost the customer experience

Show your clients that you are available to meet and let them book right away. By even offering an online appointment booking app, clients can schedule meetings seamlessly. This helps reduce friction and increase customer retention.

3. Sync with other tools and channels

You may be able to sync your booking software with your calendar (Google Calendar, Outlook). This lets you manage all of your meetings in one place and prevents double bookings. 

As a bonus, you can set up your appointment scheduling app to send SMS and email reminders. Sending appointment reminders on different channels is a great way to prevent no-shows.

The 4 best booking online apps

Here’s how some of the top booking online apps compare.

1. Brevo Meetings

Brevo Meetings is the online appointment scheduling tool in Brevo’s CRM suite. Brevo’s biggest advantages include its price and functionalities. Meetings offers fully customizable booking pages, video calling, and online payment processing — all for free.

Sync Meetings with your calendar (Google, Microsoft Outlook) and send automatic email reminders. Host meetings via Brevo’s native video calling app or with a third party software (Zoom, Google Meet). Brevo’s Stripe integration also helps you get paid directly on the platform.

Brevo Meetings is also part of a broader CRM suite. It’s easy to use it alongside Brevo’s other sales and marketing tools, including Marketing Platform and Conversations.

2. Calendly

Calendly is a popular online appointment scheduler, especially for one-on-one meetings. 

Share their easy-to-use booking pages across your website, email signature, and social media. You can also connect Calendly with popular meeting tools like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Slack.

Calendly’s free plan includes a booking page and basic features. You’ll have to upgrade for branding customization, email reminders, routing forms, and multiple team members. Paid plans start at $8/month.

3. Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling is an online appointment scheduling software. They help business owners create custom booking pages and manage appointments online. They also give you the option to offer things like gift certificates and group classes.

Acuity Scheduling has a range of third-party integrations, including Quickbooks, Zapier, Stripe, Square, and Paypal. Their features can suit the needs of many service providers, as well as small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs).

However, Acuity Scheduling doesn’t offer a free plan. Paid subscriptions start at $14/month. You’ll need to upgrade for more advanced features, such as SMS reminders.

4. Simplybook.me

Simplybook.me’s appointment booking system lets you create custom booking pages. Send customers email and SMS reminders, as well as accept online payments.

It’s available in 32 languages, making it a good option for service providers with an international customer base. Simplybook.me also has advanced features, including gift cards, membership, and intake forms.

Simplybook.me offers a free plan, which includes a non-branded client app and basic features. Paid subscriptions start at $9.90. 

Meetings: how to use Brevo’s booking online app

Brevo Meetings is a free, user-friendly appointment scheduling tool. Easily book meetings, host video calls, and even collect payments — all in one place.

Get started with Brevo Meetings in five simple steps.

Step 1: Create your custom booking page

Brevo lets you create a booking page that you can easily share with your clients. 

Start by customizing the booking page template with your name, profile picture, brand colors, and company icon. You can also change the URL of your booking page (e.g. https://meet.brevo.com/your-company-name).

Step 2: Set up meeting types 

Create different meeting types (in-person meetings, virtual coffees, consultations, etc.). Host virtual meetings with Brevo’s native video calling tool. Or, use external apps like Zoom and Google Meet.

You can also charge for different meeting types and set your fees. From there, customers have the option to pay with their credit card. Brevo offers secure payment processing via Stripe.

Step 3: Embed your booking page 

Make sure your booking page appears where it makes the most sense, or even share it across channels. Try embedding your booking page in your website or email signature. You could even post your booking link on social media.

Step 4: Sync with your calendar

Make sure your calendar syncs with your online booking tool. When a client books a meeting, it will appear automatically on your connected calendar. Your booking pages will accurately show your availability in real time. This helps you avoid double bookings.

Step 5: Manage your meetings

Brevo Meetings makes it easy to view upcoming, past, and canceled meetings. Once the meeting starts, join virtually from the dashboard or a calendar link. 

If needed, reschedule meetings or add participants. You can even schedule meetings with customers directly by clicking on Plan a meeting.

Get started with booking online apps

Reach your customers with Brevo Meetings. Our booking online app makes scheduling a breeze with its user-friendly platform and flexible functionalities.

Meetings is part of Brevo’s CRM suite, which offers all the tools you need to grow your business. Run campaigns over email, WhatsApp, and SMS with the Marketing Platform. Or, use the Sales Platform to manage team members and track your deals.

Sign up for Brevo’s free plan and start scheduling meetings for free.

The post How to Get Started With Booking Online Apps (2023) appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

We’ll walk you through different booking methods, and show you how a dedicated meeting platform can save you and your clients time. You’ll never have to send another “What time works for you?” again. 

How to book an appointment: different methods

Traditional methods

Phone call. Scheduling an appointment over the phone is direct and efficient. It gives you the chance to ask questions, which helps you determine when to meet, and for how long. 

Make sure to write down the date and time and confirm it before you end your call since you can’t reference your call once it’s done. Keep a note of your appointment in a paper calendar, or on your phone or computer calendar app. 

In-person. If you’re making appointments in person, the chances are it’s spontaneous, such as at tradeshows or because you’re in the area. Once you agree on a time, you’ll add the date to your paper or digital calendar.

 If your meeting itself is in person, you can still schedule it in a calendar and invite your client that way. 

Email. Emailing is convenient to initiate but takes a lot of back and forth to finalize. You can reference your email to check your appointment date, so at least there can be no confusion as to the meeting time. 

Add your meeting to your paper or digital calendar, and if you are providing the service, send a reminder email before the date. 

Related: How to schedule a meeting via email

Online methods

Calendar App. The great thing about a calendar app is that every device comes with one built-in. It’s a great quick way to behind scheduling appointments, but does have some limitations. 

Pros

• Appointments appear on your calendar
• Meeting details, date, and time are clearly defined
• Invitees can be directly added to the appointment from the calendar
• Alerts can be sent out to guests 
• RSVPs are clearly displayed
• You can schedule recurring appointments

Cons

• Clients can’t make appointments 
• There is no way to set up payments 
• Calendars do not have video calling built-in

Scheduling API. A scheduling API is a software communicator that integrates a calendar function into your website. Because it’s code that can be customized, an API gives you full control over the look and capabilities of your website’s booking page (such as setting up different meeting types for your clients to book or even choosing the colors). 

Pros:

• Highly customizable

Cons:

• Requires technical knowledge to implement
• Takes time to set up

Scheduling Plugin. A plugin is an online tool you can use to give your website more features, like a scheduling page, without having to code anything. You can connect your website to certain plugins depending on what integrations your website provider offers. Look for these features when choosing a scheduling plugin: 

• Allows you to customize for meeting type and length
• Allows you to make a schedule based on your availability 
• Allows clients to make an appointment 
• Accepts payments
• Sends booking confirmations to clients
• Sends reminders to you and your clients
• Integrates into your customer relationship management stack (CRM)

Online Meeting Platform. An online meeting platform is a website or app that allows you to schedule meetings and host video calls. Zoom is a well-known example. Syncing meeting platforms to your calendar is easy to do in the platform, but it is up to you to set it up. 

Pros: 

• Host a large number of people 
• Record meetings 
• Sync with a calendar app

Cons: 

• Can’t accept payments
• Doesn’t send confirmation emails 
• Doesn’t allow clients to book an appointment
• Can’t integrate client information into your CRM for follow-up communication

Related: How to schedule a Zoom meeting

Scheduling Software. Having a dedicated booking system allows you to create your own shareable booking page based on your availability. Clients can schedule meetings, and reschedule, easily and directly on your booking page. Scheduling software apps are ready to use and require no coding knowledge.

Booking page by Brevo

Pros:

• Syncs to your calendar app
• Supports Zoom integration
• Offers built-in video calling 
• Provides payment processing 
• Automates email/text confirmations and reminders
• Allows clients to book/cancel/reschedule directly
• Creates a custom booking page based on your availability
• Integrates onto your website
• Supports social media integration
• Displays adjusted time zones for clients in different regions

Cons: 

• Pricing varies for different booking software
• Features vary with each software

It is important to note that not all service providers include all features. Specialized scheduling apps, such as Vagaro and Square Appointments, are built for specific niches and needs. Check out this comparison article if you are looking for the best app for clients to book appointments. 

The best part about scheduling software is that it often is part of a larger CRM platform. Using Brevo Meetings, for example, allows you to use all scheduling features and can also connect to useful sales and marketing tools if you want to build an exceptional customer experience.

Further reading: How to Get Started With Booking Online Apps (2023)

Appointment scheduling software essential features

To have a smooth scheduling experience for your clients, and to minimize no-shows and rescheduling, look for a platform with these features. 

1. Smart automation 

Stay on top of appointment details, reschedule notifications, confirmations, and appointment reminders by choosing software that automates these emails.

2. Calendar synchronization 

The best appointment-booking apps will be able to connect to popular business tools like Google Calendar. Syncing your calendar with your appointment booking app ensures that any changes you make on your calendar appear on your booking page. This also means all of your available time slots for clients are always up to date, so you don’t risk double booking. 

3. Payment collection 

An online scheduling system that can securely process credit card payments from your clients upfront will save you from having to send awkward follow-up payment emails. Plus, you’ll have the added benefit of having your receipts and transactions all recorded. 

4. Shareable booking page

Look for software that creates an online booking page, where clients can directly book appointments with your team. The ability to embed this page in your website, link it on your social media, and put it in your email signature are helpful add-ons.

Embed a full booking page to your website, or a simple “book now” button that takes clients to your booking page. 

5. Video calling integration

Unless you have a business that relies 100% on in-person meetings, video calling capabilities, whether built-in or third-party integration, are a must. 

6. Integration to CRM stack

Having access to a larger CRM stack allows you to schedule follow-up emails and keep track of important client details. If your goal is to maintain long-term relationships with clients, find an app that is part of a larger platform. 

Further reading: Best CRM software examples

How to book an appointment: Best practices

The following steps can help you create a smooth experience when setting up an online booking system for your clients. 

• Set up a calendar with time slots that you and your team can manage. Make sure there is some time between slots so nobody has to rush between clients. 
• Decide on pre-meeting questions for your clients to fill out to make sure everyone is prepared before the meeting. This is a good time to communicate your cancellation policy and ask your client if they would like meeting reminders. 
• Set up automated booking confirmations and reminders. Confirmation should be sent immediately after a booking is made. A reminder can be sent a few days before the appointment to avoid no-shows.
• Allow clients to easily book an appointment online. Include the link to your booking page in your email signature or on your website so it’s easy to find. 
• Have a payment solution in place by creating chargeable meetings for your booking page. 
• Automate a follow-up email to ask for feedback or say thank you!

The best online scheduling tools give your clients the ability to schedule appointments directly on your booking page and give you the power to customize your meeting type and availability. 

Brevo’s Meetings feature is completely free and will take care of your meeting reminders and take direct payments. It’s easy to set up, so you can get your booking page up and running in a matter of minutes. 

The post How to Let Clients Book Appointments with You Online appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Booking landing pages are a great way to make your team available to your clients and customers. This is especially true when your landing page is customized to your team’s needs and represents your brand well.

Let’s look at some good examples of booking pages and the best practices for creating one for your business.

What is a booking landing page?

A booking landing page is simply a web page where clients can book meetings with your team. It displays your availability for meetings so clients can reserve appointment slots. 

Booking pages are usually created with appointment scheduling tools. They sync your calendar to make sure there are no double bookings or appointment conflicts. And meeting invitation emails are sent when the meeting’s booked. Good customer experience through and through!

Real-life landing page examples

Appointment booking landing pages can work for teams of all sizes and businesses. If you interact with clients directly rather than sell as an ecommerce, chances are you could benefit from adopting booking landing pages. 

Some of the most popular use cases for booking landing pages are shown below.

Here are a few sample landing pages to inspire you as you build your own. They’re all created with Brevo Meetings.

1. Online coaching business

When meeting with clients is your main business activity, managing your schedule and arranging new appointments easily is essential.

A booking landing page lets your clients find the perfect time to meet you based on their needs. Set up “intro session”, “60-minute coaching session”, and all the other meeting options you offer. 

The best part is you can easily manage your schedule with all booked meetings.

2. Travel agency

A travel landing page can capture potential travelers at the peak of their interest with a “Book a call” button. 

Travel booking pages can speed up your customer service. Offer online consultations to warm up leads and reach new demographics  who wouldn’t drop by in person.

Read more: How to Schedule a Zoom Meeting

3. Event planners

Booking landing pages make total sense for event planners. Vet potential customers and quickly explain your services without wasting time traveling to meet them.

4. Freelancers

Freelancers’ meeting requests often come in from a variety of sources. A booking landing page can simplify this process and consolidate all your scheduled appointments in one place. Plus, it’s easy to share the booking link — paste in a popup box, on social media, or simply embed it on your site.

5. Personal trainers and fitness instructors

If you offer both in-person and online services, it can get messy managing all bookings. One calendar to keep track of all your engagements can actually open up more time for new clients!

6. Commission-based business

When not just the business, but your livelihood depends on talking to prospects, it’s important to be easily accessible. Why not include a booking option right on your sales pages? 

In the sample landing page below, you see the booking link actually reveals the booking options right there. Smooth experience that doesn’t waste the visitor’s time!

7. Real estate

The schedule of any real estate professional can get hectic. Between being on the go and working deep in focus, you probably don’t want to answer the phone to arrange meetings with new clients. 

That’s where a booking landing page comes in to grow your business with online appointment scheduling.

Related: A Comprehensive Guide to Real Estate Email Marketing

Booking landing pages: best practices

Customize your booking landing page

While a standard booking page will get the job done, a custom landing page design gives you consistent branding and will make a positive impression on your website visitors.

You don’t need any website design or graphic design skills to do this. Simply arrange the elements on the booking page as you want them and add your branding (logo and fonts) for seamless customer experience.

Link the so-created booking landing page from a CTA button and you’re done. Or embed it in a landing page template from your page builder for a more complex design.

Clearly list all meeting types offered

Make it easy for your clients to book the best meeting format for their needs. Phone, video call, or in person — let people choose listing all details in one simple view.

Read more: 12 Virtual Meeting Best Practices to Boost Productivity

Automate billing and payments

A booking page is the perfect place for listing your pricing. People need this information when they book.

Pro tip: Brevo Meetings lets you collect payment after the consultation too!

Easily manage your services

Show all the details you need to get people to book you. And hide meeting types when you want to pause certain appointment types (see beauty professional example above).

Create individual booking pages

Each team member can have their own booking landing page with the various services and meetings they offer. This way, clients can quickly reach their main point of contact. Just make sure to have each one’s name and title in the header of the page and they can start sharing it with their leads.

Use the calendar to put order in your workload

Once people book meetings with you, they all will appear in your schedule. Don’t miss a thing and follow up, reschedule, and remind as needed. 

Related: How to Get Started With Booking Online Apps (2023)

Booking Landing Pages FAQs

Do I need coding experience to make a landing page?

No! With Brevo Meetings, absolutely no HTML or coding experience is required to build a beautiful booking page. Simply use the Meeting page editor to modify the color, fonts, and images on your landing page.

Where to place your booking pages?

Your custom booking page should be displayed where it’s easy for your clients to find:

• Social media: Display the booking link in your social media bio or share in a post
• Home page: Add a call-to-action button to your home page 
• Email signature: Include your booking link in each email you send so it is always accessible to clients

Are the booking landing pages optimized for mobile?

Yes, booking landing pages created with Brevo Meetings can be accessed across devices, including iOS and Android mobiles.

Create your own booking landing pages

Appointment scheduling apps make it easier for you to schedule and meet with clients. Brevo Meetings can make scheduling a breeze with its user-friendly platform and expansive functionalities. The best part? It’s 100% free.

The post 7 Booking Landing Page Examples for More Client Meetings appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

On the other hand, inaccurate forecasts have serious consequences. 

Underestimating future revenue can mean missed opportunities and lower profits. And overestimating potential outcomes results in demotivation, frustration, and burnout as your sales team struggles to meet unrealistic targets. 

That’s why it’s critical to choose a sales forecasting tool carefully.

A good sales forecasting tool is like a crystal ball for your business — only, with correct predictions. It estimates how much money you’re going to make, points out potential blockers, and saves you headaches down the line. 

In this guide, we’re featuring sales leaders’ favorite tools for sales forecasting that deliver reliable predictions. Let’s dive in.

How Sales Forecasting Tools Help Business

You can do sales forecasting in Excel manually. Why invest in technology? 

There are many advantages to using sales forecasting tools. 

1. Accuracy

For one thing, creating an accurate sales forecast is a science and not all salespeople nail it. It involves a deep understanding of sales data, market trends, and customer behavior.

2. Time saving

Manual sales forecasting is a time-consuming process. It takes hours of work every week to collect and analyze the sales data needed to make informed predictions. Fore the forecast to be of any use, it needs to be constantly updated.

This can be a drain on sales teams, taking away valuable time that could be spent on actual sales.

3. Error-free

Perhaps most importantly, manual sales forecasting is simply not as accurate as machine-based forecasting. Sales forecasting platforms use sophisticated algorithms that update in real time and are not prone to mistakes like humans. 

So why do you need a sales forecasting tool?

In short, sales forecasting software collects and analyzes historical sales data, market trends, and other relevant information to identify patterns and make predictions about future sales. 

It not only saves you time and resources but also improves the accuracy of your sales forecasts.

Sales Forecasting Methods Offered by Software

Different tools employ different forecasting methods. The most popular are:

• Historical forecasting: Uses past sales data to predict future sales. It assumes future performance won’t differ much from the past so historical data can be used to identify trends and make predictions.
• Weighted pipeline or opportunity-stage forecasting: The idea behind this method is to assign a probability of closing to each stage in the sales process. The probability increases down the sales funnel. Then estimates about future sales are calculated based on how many deals you have at each stage with the corresponding probability.
• Lead-driven forecasting: This technique involves evaluating every lead source’s potential to bring sales based on past data. These scores are then used to forecast sales for each lead source. This method helps you focus on the most promising lead sources if you can’t cover them all.
• Length of sales cycle forecasting: When using this method, you look at the time it takes to close a deal and make predictions about future sales based on that.

There’s also a difference in the technology sales forecasting tools use to make revenue predictions. Some platforms are AI-powered, which means they use real-time data and artificial intelligence to deliver forecasts with minimal input from sales teams. If you feel comfortable with relying on AI insights, you’ll find some AI-powered tools on our list.

Most platforms on our list, however, combine the power of automation and human input, creating accurate forecasts.

The Best Sales Forecasting Tools Compared

Here are the most popular CRM software with sales forecasting functionality. As you see, not all are geared towards small businesses but it’s important to mention and compare them so you see the difference.

Related: 8 Best CRM Software Examples for Small Business

1. Brevo (ex Sendinblue) — the best sales forecasting tool for small businesses

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) is an all-in-one marketing platform that offers a convenient sales forecasting tool to help businesses predict future revenue.

The tool uses a weighted pipeline approach. This means estimating your future revenue based on the probability of closing deals at each stage of the sales pipeline. 

This approach lets you customize the forecasting process to better reflect your business’s unique sales cycle and customer behavior.

Additional features

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) offers a full marketing and sales toolkit:

• Customer relationship management system (CRM)
• Meeting scheduling
• Task and pipeline management
• Email marketing
• SMS and WhatsApp marketing
• Transactional email
• Marketing automation
• Landing pages and signup forms
• Push notifications
• Live chat and chatbot

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) pricing

The sales forecasting tool is a part of Brevo (ex Sendinblue) CRM, which is completely free. Manage deals, tasks, and sales reps without limits! 

Best for:

Brevo (ex Sendinblue)’s sales forecasting tool is best for businesses that want to make data-driven decisions with improved revenue forecasting accuracy. 

It’s also a complete toolkit under one roof. All Brevo (ex Sendinblue)’s products integrate smoothly with each other for a 360-degree management of customer relationships and engagement. With its affordable pricing plans and easy-to-use interface, Brevo (ex Sendinblue) is the most affordable, beginner-friendly, and comprehensive solution on this list.

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales CRM and pipeline management software with revenue forecasting functionality.

To get started with Pipedrive’s sales forecasting feature, you need to set up your sales pipeline. Input relevant data for each deal such as deal value, expected close date, and deal stage. 

Pipedrive’s algorithm analyzes the information to create a sales forecast for the upcoming weeks or months. The more data you enter, the more accurate results you get.

Additional features

You get access to a sales automation toolkit when you sign up for Pipedrive:

• Lead management
• Pipeline management
• Email scheduling
• Task management
• Workflow automation
• Meeting scheduling
• Mobile app

Pipedrive pricing

Revenue forecasting is available on Pipedrive’s top-tier plans, starting at $49.90 (billed yearly) or $59.90 (billed monthly) per user per month.

Best for:

Pipedrive is a decent solution for small and mid-sized businesses looking specifically for a pipeline management tool. That’s usually SaaS businesses. It gets pricey as you add more users.

3. Zoho

Zoho CRM is sales software that offers a flexible forecasting system using real-time data.

Zoho’s forecasting feature uses AI, which is both good and bad. Zia, the AI-powered assistant, finds patterns in historical data and predicts the chances for each deal to convert.

On the downside, users express concerns about the accuracy of Zia’s predictions. Complete automation of sales forecasting yet doesn’t feel right to many.

You can play around with Zoho’s predictions to make the most of the data. For example, use Zoho’s forecasting feature to compare your actual sales performance to your forecasted performance and identify areas to adjust sales activities.

Additional features

• Sales automation
• CRM
• Basic email automation
• Mobile app

Zoho CRM pricing

Forecasting isn’t available on Zoho’s free plan for small teams up to 3 users. You can access predictive insights on the Professional plan, starting at $23/user/month billed annually.

Best for: 

Zoho is preferred by small and mid-market companies that already use other Zoho tools.

4. HubSpot

HubSpot’s sales forecasting feature is part of its Sales Hub. The tool monitors your pipeline, predicts future revenue, and tracks progress towards sales goals.

Similar to Brevo (ex Sendinblue), HubSpot forecasts revenue based on the deal stages. It also displays a progress bar to show you how individual sales reps are doing in reaching their forecasted quotas.

Additional features

In addition to sales forecasting, HubSpot users get access to:

• CRM
• Meeting scheduling
• Sales automation
• Email sequencing
• Live chat
• Chatbot
• Signup forms
• Mobile app
• Predictive lead scoring (only on Sales Hub Enterprise)

HubSpot pricing

HubSpot’s sales forecasting is only available on the premium tiers of Sales Hub and Service Hub, starting at $450/month each. New users are also charged a one-time $750 onboarding fee.

Best for:

HubSpot is best for bigger companies that use the HubSpot Sales Hub or are looking for a customizable CRM solution (and can afford it). Discover more HubSpot alternatives here.

5. Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based sales automation platform that offers a powerful sales forecasting feature. It uses historical data and AI to make predictions about future sales revenue.

In Salesforce, users can create custom forecast reports and dashboard views. Complex sales processes can be tracked here with the right amounts of credits to sales overlays, by revenue, contract value, and more. 

Managers can set quotas for team members, track progress toward meeting those quotas, and adjust them as necessary. 

Salesforce’s AI-powered forecasting tool is called Einstein Forecasting. It uses machine learning and data science to provide sales teams with predictions based on sales history.

Additional features

Salesforce Sales Cloud offers a comprehensive toolkit for salespeople and marketers:

• Lead generation
• Contact management
• Sales automation
• CRM
• Reporting & analytics
• Quote management
• Mobile app

Salesforce pricing

Pipeline forecasting is accessible on the Professional plan ($75/user/month) and higher. Sales Cloud Einstein is available starting from the Enterprise plan ($150/user/month).

Best for:

Salesforce is clearly not an out-of-the-box solution. It’s suitable for larger companies with complex processes and big budgets.

6. SugarCRM

Sugar Sell, a part of SugarCRM solutions, is a sales automation platform with forecasting capabilities. 

Sales managers can create forecasts based on their current pipelines and set quotas for time periods.

AI-based predictive forecasting is also available. The tool uses the company’s historical performance to identify trends and make sales predictions.

Additional features

Sugar Sell offers the following features for sales teams:

• Sales automation
• Omnichannel customer communications
• Customer journeys
• CRM
• Quote management
• Reporting & analytics
• Mobile app

SugarCRM pricing

Sugar Sell starts at $49/user/month. All plans include the manual sales forecasting feature.

Predictive forecasting is a part of the Sell Premier plan that costs $135/user/month and requires a minimum of 10 paid users.

Best for: 

Mid-sized businesses

7. Outreach

Outreach, a sales execution platform, specializes in pipeline management for mid-market companies and enterprises.

The tool automatically aggregates the forecast for each team and sales representative, providing a full picture of your sales pipeline. It uses a combination of historical data analysis, machine learning algorithms, and predictive modeling to provide sales forecasts.

Additional features

Other than sales forecasting, Outreach has a lot of features:

• Scenario planning
• Opportunity management
• Deal health intelligence
• Sales workflows

Outreach pricing

Outreach doesn’t display pricing publicly.

Best for: 

Sales teams of mid-sized and large companies looking

Plan Your Pipeline With a Reliable Sales Forecasting Tool

When choosing a sales forecasting solution, pay attention to how easy it is to create and manage forecasts with the tools on your shortlist. Oftentimes, advanced capabilities and complex interfaces bring nothing but confusion to small teams. 

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) is an intuitive sales automation tool for small businesses. It makes it easy to create a reliable revenue forecast and plan your pipeline. 

The post Top 7 Sales Forecasting Tools for SMBs in 2023 appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

To help you find your perfect CRM solution, we’ve handpicked the best alternatives to Zoho CRM for small businesses. 

Related: Best CRM Software Examples for Small Business

What Zoho CRM Offers

Zoho CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to help businesses manage interactions with customers and clients.

The platform offers a wide range of features including:

• Lead management — a centralized system for capturing, tracking, and nurturing leads

• Sales automation — automates many routine sales tasks such as lead scoring, opportunity tracking, and forecasting to increase productivity

• Marketing automation — automate and personalize marketing campaigns across channels, including email, social media, live chat, WhatsApp, and more

• Customer service — case management, knowledge management, and a customer portal

• Collaboration — marketing, sales, and support teams can collaborate on deals, leads, and customer support cases in real-time

• Integrations — Zoho CRM integrates with a range of other Zoho and third-party tools

• Mobile app — for both iOS and Android devices

Drawbacks of Zoho CRM

Although it offers decent standard functionality, users report some limitations:

• Limited customization — While there are some no-code customization options such as custom fields and modules, it’s not enough for companies with complex sales processes. You’ll need a developer to customize your workspace using Zoho CRM’s APIs.

• Steep learning curve — For users new to CRM software, it can be time- and effort-intensive to master all of its features.

• Limited reporting options — Somewhat limited compared to other CRM platforms, making it difficult to gain insights into customer data and business performance.

• Performance issues — Slow load times and system crashes are known to happen during high-traffic periods.

• Support — Users, especially those located in Europe, report bumpy support experience. The problems often cited are time zone differences and language barriers.

• Narrow focus — As the name Zoho CRM suggests, the primary focus are CRM functionalities. It means you need other apps or third-party integrations to unlock other marketing features.

• Costs — Zoho CRM’s pricing plans are affordable but it gets costly fast when you start buying applications to extend its functionality.

Here’s what users say about the problems they’ve faced with Zoho CRM:

“I am not always able to find solutions quickly and easily using the included help database. It feels like a pretty steep learning curve to be able to maximize the usefulness of the platform. Response times to support tickets can also take some time.”

“Their support could be better and better catered to each country. There is a bit of a language barrier and I often get put in touch with the wrong person. This can definitely improve.”

“You will have to either buy the entire Zoho One suite or buy the applications you need individually, which will make the overall billing very costly”

Zoho CRM pricing

Zoho CRM has a free plan for solopreneurs and small businesses. It supports up to 3 users and includes the essentials such as contact management, email marketing, automation (up to five tasks), and basic customization options.

Paid plans start at $20/user/month when billed monthly.

Top Zoho Alternatives Compared

1. Brevo (ex Sendinblue) — the best free Zoho alternative

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) offers a full digital marketing suite, a part of which is a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) tool.

It can organize and track the sales process, deal management, task allocation, sales forecasting of unlimited contacts, deals, and sales reps for free. That makes it the best alternative to Zoho on the market.

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) CRM features to switch to from Zoho

• Pipeline management involves lead qualification, multiple pipeline creation, and tracking deal progress. Custom pipelines are available too.

• Sales automation lets you automate multiple steps in your pipeline and trigger workflows based on set rules

• The sales forecasting tool calculates expected revenue at each stage of the deal cycle Discover a better way to forecast sales than in Excel

• Team collaboration is made easier with Brevo (ex Sendinblue). Assign tasks, leave notes, and track team members’ progress in the same place where you track your deals.

• Meetings is the Brevo (ex Sendinblue) appointment scheduling feature. Set up booking pages, let clients book meetings with you, host the actual meeting, and get paid in the end, all through the app! 

• Rich customization capabilities for creation of custom attributes, list views, deal stages, etc.

Brevo (ex Sendinblue) vs Zoho CRM

What makes Brevo (ex Sendinblue) a good alternative to Zoho CRM? First, Brevo (ex Sendinblue) Sales CRM’s fully free. And also, Brevo (ex Sendinblue) offers a lot more than standard CRM features:

• Email marketing automation: powerful email marketing automation is built into the CRM for seamless email sending. Zoho CRM has some basic email marketing functionality, but not the same level of automation and customization as Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

• SMS marketing: Add SMS messages to your marketing arsenal. Zoho CRM doesn’t offer this functionality.

• Transactional email: Send order confirmations, account notifications, and password reset emails via Brevo (ex Sendinblue) SMTP. This is an essential feature for ecommerce businesses that you won’t find in Zoho CRM.

• Live Chat: Unlike Zoho CRM, Brevo (ex Sendinblue) has a built-in live chat and messaging feature (including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram DMs), allowing you to communicate with your customers in real-time. 

• Landing pages and forms: Catch leads with signup forms and pages, easily created with Brevo (ex Sendinblue)’s drag-and-drop builder. Zoho CRM doesn’t offer this feature as a part of its core functionality.

• Appointment scheduling: Create and share booking pages for people to schedule appointments with you, and then host those meetings and even get paid — all within Brevo (ex Sendinblue). You need to sign up for Zoho Bookings to do that.

Free Zoho alternative

Best of all, Brevo (ex Sendinblue) CRM is a free alternative to Zoho. Unlimited contacts and users, plus up to 300 emails/day and even sales forecasting! Sign up today to access all the Brevo (ex Sendinblue) CRM features at no cost.

2. Sage

Sage is a CRM platform helping small- and mid-sized businesses manage their interactions with customers and prospects. It’s a good Zoho CRM alternative for those looking for a simpler CRM solution.

Sage’s features include:

• Contact and account management: A centralized database for storing and managing customers and prospects, including contact information, account history, and interactions

• Lead and opportunity management: Lead categorization, lead prioritization, and opportunity tracking

• Sales management: Sales forecasting, pipeline management, and territory management features

• Customer analytics: Real-time customer demographics, sales trends, and customer engagement data

• Collaboration tools: Notes and tasks for teams and projects

• Mobile apps: Android and iOS apps

Sage vs Zoho CRM

Here are the key advantages Sage CRM has over Zoho CRM:

• Easier contract management. You need dedicated software called Zoho Contract for that.
• More modern, user-friendly user interface (while Zoho CRM’s interface needs UI/UX improvement, according to Zoho users)
• Built for businesses looking for simple, lightweight solutions for beginner users. Zoho CRM focuses more on startups and SaaS companies.

Sage pricing

Sage doesn’t list their pricing publicly. According to G2, you can expect to pay from $39/user/month.

Related: Top 7 Sales Forecasting Tools for SMBs in 2023

3. SugarCRM

SugarCRM is a flexible CRM platform that can be customized to meet specific business needs. It offers a range of deployment options, including on-premise, cloud-based, and mobile.

There are three types of CRM packages: Sugar Market, Sugar Sell, and Sugar Serve. We talk about Sugar Sell here as it’s an automation tool for sales teams.

Like a Zoho CRM alternative, Sugar CRM has the following features:

• Lead management: Track leads through the entire sales process, from capture to conversion

• AI-based predictive forecasting: Sales forecasting tools predict future sales based on historical data and current trends

SugarCRM vs Zoho CRM

Let’s go over the features that SugarCRM has and Zoho CRM doesn’t:

• Quote management
• Customization options
• Automated call triaging and task management
• Omnichannel customer communications

SugarCRM pricing

The Sugar Sell package has no free plan and pricing starts at $49/user/month.

4. Insightly

Insightly is a customer relationships management platform for businesses of all sizes.

Its products are split into different packages called Insightly Marketing, Insightly CRM, Insightly Service, and Insightly All-In-One. Again, we’ll be focusing specifically on Insightly CRM as it’s the closest Zoho alternative by the company.

Insight CRM has a standard set of features for a CRM tool:

• Contact management: Store and manage information about their contacts, including contact details, activity history, and communication preferences

• Reporting: Create custom reports and dashboards. However, it’s worth mentioning that Zoho’s reporting tools are more robust.

• Integrations: Connect the tool with other business software, including Mailchimp and QuickBooks

• Mobile app: Similar to other solutions on the list, Insightly also offers a mobile app

Insightly CRM vs Zoho CRM

Although Insightly and Zoho CRM have very similar functionality and pricing, there are reasons to consider Insightly over Zoho CRM:

• Stronger lead management capabilities
• Project management tool (including project management modules, Gantt charts, pipelines, and milestones) on all Insightly’s plans. To access similar features in Zoho CRM, you’ll need to sign up for Zoho Projects.
• Product lists, pricebooks, and quotes

Insightly pricing

You can test Insightly for free, but you’ll need to upgrade eventually. Insightly CRM’s paid plans start at $29/month.

5. HubSpot

HubSpot is one of the most decent alternatives to Zoho CRM for its wide range of tools for all business needs. However, it gets pricey as you buy add-ons.

The HubSpot toolkit offers many features for successful customer relationship management:

• Pipeline management: Tracking sales opportunities from initial lead to close
• Sales workflow automation: Automate various sales tasks such as email follow-ups, lead scoring, task allocation
• Forms: Create custom lead-gen forms 
• Analytics & reporting: Customize website engagement and sales performance reports
• Meeting scheduler: Manage your calendar from the same place
• Quotes: Create and send quotes to prospects 
• Mobile CRM app

HubSpot vs Zoho CRM

Some HubSpot features that Zoho CRM lacks:

• Live chat & chatbot (Brevo (ex Sendinblue) offers that too)
• Call tracking
• Recurring revenue tracking
• AI-powered insights

HubSpot pricing

HubSpot CRM’s free plan gives access to a limited set of features. If you need more credits and tools, you have to upgrade to HubSpot Sales ($50/month billed annually) or HubSpot CRM Suite (1,600/month billed annually). 

Steep price? Discover more HubSpot alternatives

Choose the Best Zoho Alternative for Your Business

Which tool is the right Zoho replacement for your company? If you’re looking for a tool with built-in marketing capabilities, go for Brevo (ex Sendinblue) or HubSpot. If you need project management features to improve your business processes, choose between Insightly and SugarCRM. For easier contract management, you can turn to Sage.

But Brevo (ex Sendinblue) is the only truly free Zoho alternative.

The post 5 Alternatives to Zoho: Find Your CRM appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Sales forecasting is not the most fun task for small business owners, but it’s important to get it right. It impacts your cash flow, inventory needs, budgeting, hiring, and financing options. So we’ll give you examples of a sales forecast and how to create your own sales forecasting calculator. 

How to Do Sales Forecasting in Excel: Step-by-Step

We’ll walk you through the steps of creating your own sales forecasting calculator in an Excel workbook.

1. Create a new Excel worksheet

Open a new Excel spreadsheet and enter your historical data (sales over time). You need a time series parameter (dates, months, years) and the corresponding sales numbers (monthly sales for example). That’s your sales forecast Excel template. 

2. Create your forecast

Go to the Data tab and find the Forecast Sheet option.

Source

A Create Forecast Worksheet box will open. There, you can choose the form of your graph (a bar or a line chart) — how you want to see the forecast values displayed. Pick an end date as well. Then, click Create.

3. Adjust your sales forecast

Now, you can go into the finer details. Excel lets you customize:

• Forecast start date
• Confidence interval
• Seasonality
• Timeline range of your dataset
• Values range of your dataset
• Missing data points using interpolation

4. View your ready sales forecast

A new worksheet with the graph and the forecast data will be created. You’ll find your predicted sales as well as the lower and upper confidence bound. 

source

Forecasting Models in Excel

Now, if you know your math, you might be interested in the different sales forecasting methods  or forecasting techniques available. Indeed, Excel offers many forecast functions depending on your business goals and data. 

So the forecasting methods available in Excel are:

• Straight line: Takes the historical growth rate as the only predictor of future sales
• Moving average: Uses the average sales of the previous periods, suitable for short-term forecasting 
• Simple linear regression: Basic prediction based on available data points without seasonality or cycles

Why You Shouldn’t Forecast Sales in Excel: Limitations

Microsoft Excel is a miracle app for sure, but it can also be very intimidating. While creating the forecast sheet is relatively easy, the real work comes after.

Constant data updating

Just think about the amount of manual work you have to do to update your Excel database all the time!

Any new data point (a new product for example) you want to include to see an updated sales growth projection, you have to add manually. Then, update the graph again. 

And if you need real-time data, it can be a pain — and someone’s daily task.

Let’s look at this example of a sales forecast, made in Excel.

To keep the forecast up-to-date, you have to go in the file and enter any new data on a regular basis (every month or day, depending on the granularity you’re after). And you still won’t have real-time data between date points.

Tied to human skill

You’ll have to come up with your own process of updating and keeping track of your sales forecasts in Excel. 

When your business grows and you delegate the task to an employee, you have to train them to keep the process up and running. You’ll probably need to set up reminders in another app, too, to make sure they don’t forget to do it regularly.

And all that assuming you’re comfortable enough with creating spreadsheets in Excel and using other tools to get sales data in the first place. 

Inflexible and unrealistic

Another problem with forecasting in Excel is that, despite its mathematical accuracy, it doesn’t take into account the sales process at all. It gives you a total sales number to expect but no insight into how individual deals impact this number. 

That leaves you with no way to improve projected performance before it’s too late.

A more practical approach is to look at the sales cycle and how deals at different stages impact revenue. This way, you know where to focus to increase your sales and hit your targets.

A Better Way to Forecast Sales Than in Excel

Now, unless you’re an Excel wizz, all that effort doesn’t sound like fun. What if you could automate the whole process and do without Excel spreadsheets altogether?

What if your CRM where you manage your deals could do the sales forecasting for you too? Brevo can!

What’s Brevo Sales Platform?

It’s one part of our integrated multichannel marketing platform where you can track deals, manage your pipeline, monitor your sales funnel, and organize contacts and companies. 

In short, it’s a customer management system. You or your sales team input new leads, set up your deal stages, and keeping track of what’s going on with your sales suddenly gets easy.

The beginning of a sales pipeline you can customize 

What’s even better is that you have a sales forecasting calculator built-in!

Sales forecasting calculator

Brevo Sales Platform offers an alternative to sales forecasting in Excel that saves you time and effort. All you have to do is:

1. Open a free Brevo account and activate the Sales CRM app (it’s 100% free!).
2. Import your contact list and input deals (it’s as easy as adding a new contact to your database).
3. Customize the deal pipeline to fit your business (one time only).
4. Start seeing your sales forecast in real time.

No manual updating, no steep learning curve and it’s free just like Excel! 

If you use our CRM to manage your sales deals, you’ll have an accurate forecast ready automatically, available any time. All it takes is a one-time setup unlike Excel.

What you have to input are the win probability percentages for all deal stages.

Don’t be alarmed: win probability is just how likely the prospect is to convert at that stage. Obviously, the further down the sales funnel, the more likely a sale is likely to happen. So your win probabilities can look something like this, starting from just 10% and growing to 80% (a win is clearly 100%):

How’s that sales forecasting, you wonder.

Naturally, the best-case scenario is when you close all your deals in the pipeline. It’s easy to calculate too — simply sum up the deal values of all deals and that’s the revenue to expect.

But if you want high sales forecast accuracy, Brevo calculates the expected sales you’ll get based on these win probabilities.

For example, you have 4 deals at stage Demo scheduled with a win probability of 25% (image above) and a total value of $4,000. The expected revenue equals 25% of $4,000 as it’s likely that you’ll close 25% of the deals at this stage. 

Our CRM does this calculation automatically for every stage and deal in your pipeline in real time. As deals move through, the estimation is updated accordingly. This way, anytime you check, you get an up-to-date sales forecast so you’re always in control of your sales growth. No need to manually update aggregate data or switch between tools!

Related: 

• 8 Key CRM Benefits for Small Businesses
• CRM Sales Management: A Beginner’s Guide to CRM Software

The beauty of this automated sales forecasting without Excel is that no matter how many deals, products, prospects, and sales people you have, it stays that simple and requires no extra work on your side. It’s perfect for small businesses and larger ones alike because it’s flexible and easy to adopt.

Forecast Sales Without Excel Headaches

Excel is a to-go tool for SMBs, but if you’re sick and tired of updating spreadsheets and dealing with formulas, you have another free way to forecast your sales revenue. Up your business planning game and hit your targets with a sales forecasting tool. 

The post How to Do Sales Forecasting in Excel appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Luckily, there are many apps out there that can help you plan your meetings efficiently. The right scheduling solution helps you save time, effortlessly schedule client meetings, and won’t keep important features locked behind overly expensive paid plans. 

But how do you know which online scheduling tool is best for your company? That’s why we’ve put together this list: to help you find the ultimate Calendly alternative for your business. 

At a glance: Best Calendly alternatives?

At a glance, the best business scheduling tools to replace Calendly are: 

1. Brevo (previously Sendinblue)
2. Meetfox
3. Zoho
4. Doodle
5. Jotform
6. Simplybook.me
7. Acuity Scheduling

What is Calendly?

When your days are filled with calls, meetings, consultations and more it can be hard to keep track of your availability. You may be losing valuable time with back-and-forth emails, constant rescheduling, and juggling multiple time zones. 

That is where scheduling automation tools come into play.

Calendly is a scheduling automation platform. It helps your business save time and streamline business communications. 

It lets you create events and share your availability based on open hours with interested parties. You can also sync it with your other calendar apps through integrations to avoid time conflicts. 

Calendly creates a custom link to be added to your website, email signature, or social media. Clients can then follow the link to see your availability and book an appointment directly. 

Additional Calendly features available on the higher pricing plans include automated email reminders, the ability to create different event types, and allowing as many as six calendars per person. 

Calendly: pros and cons 

What makes Calendly stand out among all the scheduling tools available? 

• Embedded scheduling pages and routing forms
• Integrations including Zoom, Google and Outlook
• Activity and trend analytics 
• Accessible via browser, mobile app, and CRM integrations
• Collects payments via PayPal or Stripe 

On the downside, Calendly users usually experience the following drawbacks:

• Tool limited to scheduling capabilities
• Rigid free plan 
• Team-based functionalities only available at the highest price tier 
• Limited customer support available 

The best Calendly alternatives compared

If you’re thinking of moving away from Calendly, here’s a summary of the features and prices of Calendly alternatives. 

Alternative features vs. Calendly 

Calendly/Alternative	Video calling	Customizable booking pages	Other meetings features
Calendly	Only through third party	Limited customizations	Routing forms; Meeting polls
Brevo Meetings	Yes! Brevo video calls or via Zoom integration		Payment processing within booking form Configuring no-show and cancellation policies Countless third-party integrations
Meetfox	In-browser video calling		Payment processing Third-party integrations
Zoho Bookings	Via Zoho Meetings or third-party integrations		Payment processing
Doodle	Only through third-party integrations		Group polls
Jotform			Email reminders
Simplybook.me			Gift cards; POS system
Acuity Scheduling	Only through third-party integrations	Editable templates available	SMS reminders; Online payments

Calendly pricing vs alternatives

The 7 Best Calendly alternatives in 2023

1. Brevo (previously Sendinblue) Meetings

Eliminate email scheduling back-and-forth

Brevo Meetings is a free Calendly alternative but there are more reasons to call it the best appointment scheduling app.

Its purpose? To free up your time to focus on the things that matter for your business. 

This is done by giving you three essential features:

That’s right, you’re able to get these three important features all in one place. Save your team’s time, automate your processes, prevent no-shows, and reduce the email back-and-forth. 

You can even automate multiple stages of the appointment booking process with helpful reminder notifications. 

The Brevo Meetings benefits 

• Give your clients a smooth experience: Brevo Meetings delivers seamless scheduling through customized booking pages and personalized links that you can share on your website, in your email signature, and even across social media. 
• Streamline your workflow: Keep everything on one platform, making it easier than ever to automate mundane tasks, and take control of your schedule. 
• Connect how you want: Offer your customers a variety of meeting types to fit everyone’s scheduling needs, including face-to-face meetings, group meetings, telephone calls, and video calls to enable virtual meetings in browser or through smart integrations. 
• No tech skills needed. Create booking pages, manage your calendar, and host meetings without any coding. It’s as easy as Google Meet but integrated with your marketing!

Easily create different meeting types

Increase your scheduling visibility 

Share your booking page wherever it makes sense! You can easily embed your booking page on your website, add it to your email signature, or even share the link across social media. 

A scheduling tool integrated with all other channels

Brevo Meetings is just one of the many apps available by Brevo. From email and marketing automation, to live chat and SMS/WhatsApp campaigns, it’s a truly multichannel platform.

How much does Brevo Meetings cost?

It’s free. Sign up for Brevo’s free plan to access all of the Brevo Meetings features at no cost! 

2. Meetfox

Meetfox is also a scheduling app that can replace Calendly. It offers video-conferencing, booking pages, payment invoicing, and more. 

You can easily add a scheduling button or pop-up to your website, social media, or email signature to connect with potential clients at the peak of their interest. From there, they will be taken to your custom booking page and quickly select the best time from available options. 

Meetfox has countless helpful integrations including Zapier, and calendar integrations such as Google Calendar, Gmail, Office 365.

Meetfox pricing

Meetfox offers a free plan as well as paid plans starting at $10/month

3. Zoho Bookings

Zoho Bookings is another Calendly alternative for business scheduling. Customers can self-schedule to meet virtually or in person through additional Zoho tools or third party integrations. 

The free version of Zoho Bookings lets you create and customize your booking page to match your branding. 

However, many important features such as email reminders and online payment processing are only available on their paid plans. With paid plans going up to $300/month, some features might be outside SMB’s budget.

4. Doodle 

Doodle is a straightforward online appointment scheduling tool. Its main advantage is that it is user-friendly and simple to use. Тhe booking page function and the group poll help you find the best time to meet. 

It’s also possible to connect Doodle to your favorite business tools, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more. 

Doodle comes with a few potential drawbacks. Doodle Booking Pages can only be shared as a link, unlike other Calendly alternatives which give you booking pages that can be embedded on a website or a pop-up. Their customization options are also limited for some SMB’s needs. 

Doodle offers a free version but this includes ads and only limited one-on-one appointments. Doodle’s paid plans start at $6.49/month.

5. Jotform

Jotform is a Calendly alternative that offers a variety of forms for booking meetings. 

Jotform is a good option for non-technical people. It uses simple booking page templates that you can customize for your meeting scheduling. 

The platform is focused on the different forms used in digital marketing. However, if you need an omnichannel marketing solution beyond forms, Jofrom doesn’t cover it. 

Jotform offers plans ranging from free to $99/month. The free plan limits the amount of users who can access the platform, which may be an issue as your SMB grows.

6. Simplybook.me

Simplybook.me is an appointment scheduling software that is tailored for service-based industries. With over 32 languages available, this is a tool for companies with an international reach.

The custom booking pages created are accessible through your website, social media, and integrated throughout other communication channels. 

Simplybook.me offers a free version and paid plans starting at $9.90/month. In order to access all of Simplybook.me features, you would need to commit to their premium plan at $59.90/month. This might be cost-prohibitive for many SMBs. 

7. Acuity Scheduling 

Acuity Scheduling is an online booking platform. This Calendly alternative, just like the others, allows clients to book appointments directly through your website. It also lets you create client signup forms to collect important information ahead of meetings. You can collect payments through Stripe, Paypal, and Square as well.

While it is able to offer many of the core services needed to replace Calendly, Acuity Scheduling may come with a few drawbacks. Its interface and customization capabilities are less user friendly than some other options’. This can cost you more time setting up and troubleshooting.

Acuity Scheduling does not offer any free plans. Paid plan subscriptions start at $14/month, with upgrades required to unlock features such as SMS reminders.

Try a free Calendly alternative

Appointment scheduling apps make it easier for you to schedule and meet with clients. And if the most popular one — Calendly — doesn’t fit your needs or budget, there are enough Calendly alternatives to switch to!

The post The Best 7 Calendly Alternatives to Make Scheduling a Breeze (2023) appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Warm leads are key sales prospects. These leads are aware of your brand and interested in what you have to offer. With a bit of lead nurturing, you can turn warm leads into loyal customers. 

Target warm leads to boost conversion rates and grow your business. Here are a few winning strategies to get you started.

What you’ll learn:

What Are Warm Leads?

Strategies to Generate Warm Leads

1. Use a CRM software
2. Offer lead magnets
3. Create a referral marketing strategy
4. Break the ice on social media
5. Share case studies
6. Run drip campaigns
7. Send personalized content
8. Write engaging email subject lines

What are warm leads?

Warm leads are potential clients that have shown interest in your product or service. They are looking for solutions and may have engaged with your marketing channels. 

Warm leads are typically receptive to outreach. However, their customer journey needs to be guided through the sales funnel.

A warm lead is one of many different types of leads. In the sales funnel, warm leads lie between cold leads and hot leads.

Cold leads come at the beginning of the sales cycle. The difference between cold and warm leads is that cold leads have shown little to no interest. With nurturing, some cold leads may turn into warm leads.

Hot or qualified leads have demonstrated the highest interest in your company. They’re also open to direct contact from sales reps. Unlike warm leads, hot sales leads are ready to make a purchase decision.

It takes time to turn potential customers into qualified leads. Although hot leads are a big business opportunity, they don’t come easily. Many sales teams focus more on nurturing warm leads. This helps boost close rates and maximize sales efforts.

Further reading: How to Create a Lead Scoring Model with Marketing Automation

Strategies to generate warm leads

Don’t let your leads turn cold. Get more warm leads with these lead generation strategies.

1. Use a CRM software

CRM software helps track leads as they move through the sales funnel. With CRM, you get a clear picture of your prospects and keep key sales data in a single place.

CRM software tools also store contact information and previous customer interactions. Use CRM to identify warm and qualified leads. Then automate follow-up reminders and marketing messages. That way, you never lose sight of a sales conversation.

Brevo’s Sales Platform is a CRM that helps you track leads and manage sales workflows. Try it for free and get unlimited contacts, CRM automation, sales pipeline management, and more.

2. Offer lead magnets

Lead magnets are one effective way to generate warm leads. This includes gated content like ebooks or other downloadable resources. Webinars also help generate warm leads.

People usually have to fill out a contact form to access the lead magnet. Afterwards, you can contact leads via email marketing campaigns or phone calls. That way, you build trust and continue nurturing the relationship.

Lead magnets should provide value to the target audience. Make sure to understand their pain points and plan each lead magnet accordingly.

3. Create a referral marketing strategy

Referrals are another great way to generate warm leads. In fact, referred customers convert at a 30% higher rate than leads from other channels.

Start by asking satisfied customers to refer your company to their friends. To make your referral program a success, consider adding an extra discount or reward. This will incentivize clients to spread the word.

4. Break the ice on social media

Social media is an important marketing channel for generating warm leads because many people prefer to be contacted there instead of email. 

Post engaging content consistently to build a following. Once you’ve won their interest, it will be easier to start a sales conversation.

LinkedIn is a key channel for B2B lead generation: as much as 80% of B2B leads are from LinkedIn.

5. Share case studies

What better way to lure in warm leads than with a success story? Share case studies on your website and social media.

People will learn first hand how existing clients use your products and services. Customer testimonials also give you credibility, which helps build trust with potential clients.

6. Run drip campaigns

Another way to warm up your leads is through drip marketing. Run drip campaigns to welcome new leads. Then send them a series of automated emails to build interest in your brand.

For example, you can send a campaign to thank new email newsletter subscribers (newsletters are a lead magnet!). Afterward, continue to send emails to get them interested in your company’s offerings — maybe a case study as discussed in the previous point.

7. Send personalized content

Personalized content helps generate warm leads. Targeted emails and landing pages are more effective than a non-personalized cold email. People need to feel that you solve their specific problem to make a buying decision.

Personalization is also key to improving lead quality — that means more return on your effort and warmer leads.

To create personalized content, take time to understand your audience’s needs. People are more likely to engage with content that’s relevant to them. Then, use segmentation and dynamic content to deliver personalized campaigns at scale. 

8. Write engaging email subject lines

Hook warm leads with an engaging email subject line. The best email subject lines encourage readers to open the email. They often do this by sparking curiosity or building a sense of urgency.

Another way to grab attention is to personalize the email subject line. Include the email sender name in the subject line to make your campaign stand out. This is easy, thanks to email marketing and CRM software.

Get more warm leads with Brevo (ex Sendinblue)

Start warming up leads! Brevo’s Sales Platform helps you build stronger customer relationships. Store vital customer information and manage your salesforce’s workflows. 

Try the Marketing Platform and send targeted campaigns across multiple channels, like email, SMS, and live chat. 

The best part? Brevo’s Sales Platform features are all free!

The post 8 Winning Strategies to Generate Warm Leads appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a vital framework for growing a company. Use a CRM tool to increase sales, communicate with customers, and improve productivity.

Ready to learn more? We’ve put together a list of the key benefits of CRM software for small businesses.

• What Is a CRM System?
• The Main CRM Benefits for Small Businesses
  
  • Increase sales
  • Boost productivity
  • Manage sales workflows
  • Steamline teamwork
  • Improve targeting and segmentation
  • Make smarter business decisions
  • Provide better customer experience
  • Boost customer retention 

What Is a CRM?

A CRM is a system businesses use to manage customer relationships. CRM software serves as both a centralized database and productivity tool. CRM solutions track customer interactions and streamline business processes.

CRM sales management tools help businesses with lead generation and deal tracking. Many CRM solutions let you generate sales reports and coordinate between sales reps. Some CRM platforms can also support customer service and marketing teams. 

That’s because customer relationship management systems store detailed customer information. Use it to analyze the customer journey and run targeted marketing campaigns.

Further reading: 8 Best CRM Software Examples for Small Business

What Are the Main CRM Benefits for Small Businesses?

Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions are becoming more important for sales teams. With a CRM in your toolbox, you can grow your company faster and more efficiently.

Interested in learning how CRM fits your business needs? Here are the key benefits of CRM software and how it can help your small business. 

1. Increase sales

The first CRM benefit is that it streamlines your sales process. In fact, CRM systems can increase revenue by as much as 29%.

With CRM, it’s easy to update data and monitor leads as they move through the sales funnel. That way, your salesforce can spend time closing deals.

Track important metrics and keep sales from slipping through the cracks. Visualization of the sales pipeline also helps you identify easy wins. From there, make the most out of every sales opportunity.

2. Boost productivity

CRM software simplifies how you track contact information and sales processes. Keep all important sales data in one centralized hub. That way, your team members spend less time updating spreadsheets.

CRM tools also let you set up automation. Automate repetitive workflows, such as sending follow-up emails or scheduling client meetings. With CRM, you’re free to focus on higher-value tasks.

3. Manage sales workflows

CRM tools make it easy to manage your salespeople’s workflows and assign tasks to different team members. You’ll also be able to keep tabs on each member’s workload.

This simplifies internal processes. It also keeps everyone on track to meet their goals.

4. Streamline teamwork

Another CRM benefit is the ability to store all contact information in one place. CRM tools centralize the data related to sales and customer interactions. That makes it easier to coordinate workflows within sales teams and across departments.

Use CRM to share customer information between sales, marketing, and customer service teams. This can help streamline your communication and business processes.

5. Improve targeting and segmentation

Yet another CRM benefit worth mentioning is the ability to segment your customers. Target them based on demographics, preferences, behavior, and more.

CRM tools let you segment customers and leads easily. Manage interactions across different channels like email marketing and social media. No matter your message, customer relationship management systems offer seamless communication.

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is an all-in-one marketing platform, offering a Sales CRM, email marketing tools, and more.

6. Make smarter business decisions

CRM apps let you analyze information and make smarter business decisions. Use CRM tools to analyze customer data and draw insights about customer behavior. 

The benefits of CRM analytics go beyond reports. With CRM, track your sales performance and improve your business strategy.

CRM software can also help with sales forecasting. This will give you a clearer picture of your expected revenue so you can plan accordingly.

Related: Top 7 Sales Forecasting Tools for SMBs in 2023

7. Provide better customer experience

42% of customer service reps can’t resolve issues because the data is stored in different places. CRM solutions can help improve the customer experience by recording past interactions with customers and leads in a central database.

 CRM gives customer support teams real-time access to each client’s purchase history and past complaints. 

This will help them better understand customer needs and align their customer service efforts

With CRM, you can provide better support to your clients. Customer satisfaction will go up as a result.

8. Boost customer retention

The better you can support your clients, the higher customer loyalty you’ll enjoy. CRM tools improve customer retention.

They can also help you identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities. That way, you’ll optimize your existing customer relationships over the sales cycle.

Further reading: CRM vs Marketing Automation: Differences & How to Combine Them in Your Strategy

Discover the Top CRM Benefits With Brevo

From supporting teams to creating loyal customers, the benefits of CRM solutions are undeniable. Sign up for a CRM tool and boost your business’ bottom line.

Still looking for the right CRM for your small business? Try Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)’s Sales Platform and get started with customer relationship management.

Use it to track your sales pipeline and manage your salespeople’s workflows. Personalize the deal pipeline according to your business needs. The interface is easy to use, even for CRM beginners.

Brevo is more than a free CRM solution. Use it to manage sales processes and marketing automation in one place. With our all-in-one platform, design beautiful email marketing campaigns and book client meetings.

Get all Sales CRM features at no additional cost.

The post 8 Key CRM Benefits for Small Businesses appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to the tools, strategies, or processes that help businesses manage customer data. These tools are vital for small businesses as they allow you to increase sales, drive growth, and improve the customer experience.

The goal of a CRM software system is to build stronger relationships with your customers. This improves customer retention and loyalty, which can have a significant impact on your business’ bottom line.

Ready to get started with CRM? Here’s what you should look for when choosing a CRM software for your small business.

Small Business CRM Solutions in Action

Did you know that CRM software for small business use cases span the entire customer life cycle? CRM tools can help you every step of the way, from your first contact with a potential customer, through customer support and follow-up sales. 

Here are just a few of the ways that you can use CRM solutions throughout your sales cycle. 

1. Prioritize your most important leads 

When you have a lot of leads it’s hard to know where to use your resources, especially if you are a part of a smaller team. Make sure that you are always using your time and team wisely. That way, important leads don’t fall through the cracks. 

A CRM solution lets you define custom “rules” based on what types of leads are most relevant to your business. Prioritize leads based on geography, job titles, or previous open rates. Your CRM system should rank leads for you. This helps you identify easy wins and effectively manage your time. 

2. Identify the age of your deals 

If your small business handles multiple deals at a time, it can be hard to keep track of the logistics. It’s crucial to monitor how long each deal spends in every stage of your sales process. In fact, this metric is a top sales metric to identify at risk deals. CRM platforms make tracking this information easy.

3. Access important information during sales calls

CRM tools are useful when speaking with existing or prospective customers. When you don’t have important customer information at your disposal, you risk frustrating customers and wasting time. Keep your customer information at your fingertips by storing it all in one place: your CRM software for small business.

4. Keep track of your customers’ history  

Improve your customer satisfaction by tracking their history and interactions with your team. Your small business has to keep track of lead management, act as sales reps, customer support, and more. 

While it may be hard to remember all of your interactions with one customer, they will expect you to pick up right where they left off. The best way to do this is to access the entire customer journey in real time. A small business CRM system will house this information. 

5. Automate mundane tasks

Your small business CRM system should optimize workflows and streamline processes. This can help take mundane tasks off of your plate, without having to expand the size of your small business. Let your CRM platform do the work for you, which can include tasks such as: 

• Creating email templates for marketing campaigns
• Data entry automations 
• Instant logging of customer interactions 
• Lead scoring 
• Repeatable sales processes 

What to Look for When Choosing a CRM Software

With so many different platforms out there, it’s good to have a list of core CRM features in mind. To help you out, we’ve put together a list of CRM features to look for in a worthwhile business tool. 

1. Contact management: This is a basic functionality that every CRM software should have. Your CRM should be able to store important contact information. This includes names, addresses, accounts for various social media apps, phone numbers, and more. 
2. Interaction tracking: Make sure that your CRM tool can track the entire customer history and record interactions. That way, all team members will have the tools to effectively help your client. 
3. Lead management: Your CRM software should help you convert new leads into potential customers. Use the tool to identify, score, and move leads through your sales pipeline. With this type of sales management, you’ll make the most out of your sales opportunities. 
4. Email integration: Make sure that the CRM platform can integrate with your existing email marketing platforms. That helps you avoid having to switch tools and creates a centralized communication hub. 
5. Pipeline management: Your CRM tool should give you an overview of your entire sales pipeline. That way, you can check the status of each individual stage in your sales funnel and even do sales forecasts. Every small business has a different process, so make sure you can configure the tools for your needs. 

Types of CRM Software

There are three main types of CRM systems: collaborative, analytical, and operational. The best fit will depend on your specific business needs. 

A collaborative CRM system will help your team work together. They make sure that all team members have access to the same up-to-date customer information. This can be helpful for a small business as you may have a few people wearing multiple hats. 

An operational CRM system streamlines processes revolving around the full customer journey. Generally, an operational CRM will be full of helpful automations. This can help your small business save time without overburdening your existing team.

An analytical CRM system helps you gain important insights through analyzing customer data. These systems can spot customer trends for you. That way, your team doesn’t have to manually compute this type of information. 

8 Best CRM Software Examples for Small Business

1. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) Sales CRM

Brevo’s Sales Platform helps you better manage your sales pipeline. This CRM software is designed to be intuitive for small businesses, with an easy-to-use interface.

Here’s a round-up of Brevo Sales CRM’s top features:

• Store unlimited contacts 
• Manage pipeline at each stage
• Identify easy wins through customer interaction tracking
• Easily track deal age 
• Manage your inbox through a centralized communication platform 
• Schedule meetings with in-app video calls

Brevo Sales Platform is FREE for all Brevo users. That makes it a great small business CRM to choose without overwhelming your budget. 

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive focuses on monitoring your active deals at all stages of the process. Pipedrive is a system that is designed by salespeople, for salespeople. They offer a wide range of benefits. However, their sales-driven features may not be suitable for all small businesses. 

Some of Pipedrive’s top CRM features include:

• Customizable pipeline stages 
• Communication tracking 
• Custom business metrics 
• Mobile apps and integrations 

You can get started today with a Pipedrive free trial. To upgrade, choose from a wide range of plans that cost between $14.90-99.00 per user, per month. 

3. Freshsales CRM

Freshsales CRM positions itself as a sales force automation solution. Freshsales CRM’s goal is to shorten your sales cycle. This can be a great goal for many types of businesses. But some customers appreciate a degree of personalization that can’t exist in a faster sales cycle. If your customer base prefers a quicker sales cycle then Freshsales may be a good fit. 

Freshsales CRM offers the following features: 

• AI-powered chatbots 
• Predictive contact scoring
• Activity timeline representing your pipeline 
• Multi-channel communication across phone, email, chat, and SMS

Freshsales CRM’s pricing ranges from a free plan to $83 per user, per month. Some features (add-ons package with onboarding documents and invoices, additional bot sessions) will cost extra. 

4. Keap CRM

Keap CRM focuses on sales and marketing automations that can enhance productivity. Keap CRM offers a service tailored to entrepreneurs in a variety of industries. This is most apparent through their one-on-one coaching and guidance features. However, these coaching features could cost your business at least $500. 

Keap CRM can give your business access to: 

• Multiple sales pipelines
• Lead-capturing tools such as social media and lead forms 
• SMS marketing
• Invoice and billing features for ecommerce

Keap CRM isn’t available as a standalone solution, and instead is bundled with Keap’s other products. Prices range from $129/month to $199/month. 

5. Hubspot Sales CRM

Hubspot CRM helps with business growth and keeping all of your departments connected. With Hubspot Sales CRM, you’re able to access a wide range of tools designed for your entire team. However, if you are a small business, Hubspot’s advanced tools may not be necessary. 

Some of Hubspot Sales CRM’s features include: 

• Real-time dashboard to track sales activity 
• Automation workflows within CRM
• Meeting scheduling tool
• Mobile app for your CRM 

With HubSpot Sales Software, you are able to choose from a range of pricing options, from $0/month up to $1,200/month. 

6. Affinity

Affinity CRM was designed with relationship intelligence at the center of its platform. This sets them apart from other tools that prioritize efficiency or reducing the sales cycle.

Affinity CRM gives your team access to: 

• Custom dashboards for pipeline analysis and reporting
• Deal age tracking 
• Automated contact profiles and profile enrichment 
• Streamlined data entry & insights 

Affinity CRM does not have its pricing information readily available. Other sources report the price starting at $150/user per year.

7. Folk

Folk CRM’s main focus is their easy-to-customize interface. They offer a simplified contact management solution you can tailor to your needs.

Folk CRM features include the following:

• Deduplication of contacts 
• Bulk outreach to contacts 
• Integrations into a wide range of business tools
• Contact syncing across tools

Folk CRM is priced between a free plan for up to 100 contacts to $39/user per month. 

8. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM focuses on sales force automation. They provide a wide range of features, from predictive analytics to data automation. 

Some of Zoho CRM’s top features include: 

• Multi-channel communication integrations
• Email integrations 
• Sales automation workflows in your CRM
• Real-time reporting and analysis 

Zoho CRM is priced from $14/user per month to $52/user per month. Their complementary product for micro-businesses, startups and solopreneurs offers reduced pricing. 

Choose CRM Software for Your Small Business

Depending on your goals and resources, different CRM systems may be better suited for your small business processes. 

If you are looking for a CRM solution that is a part of a larger business tool then Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) Sales Platform may be the right choice for you. Brevo’s affordable, all-in-one platform can support all your marketing and sales efforts.

The post 8 Best CRM Software Examples for Small Business appeared first on Brevo (ex Sendinblue).