Critical Marketing Tool is Social CRM

Social Customer Relations Management (CRM) has become a front burner  topic, because business executives in various disciplines now realize that social CRM is likely to be a very important marketing tool for quite a while. Pundits of various stripes agree that it will undoubtedly be the next must-have solution for sales and marketing.  Details regarding the means by which  CRM will establish that position are somewhat sketchy.

For purposes of a recent study of more than 1,000 companies, analysts defined social CRM as “engaging, monitoring, and analyzing relationships with prospects and customers via social networks, the Web, and other digital methods”. Analyses of the collected data derived from those companies revealed that social CRM currently has more watchers than actual users. In fact, only 11 percent of the companies surveyed have implemented a formal program to maximize the benefits that can be derived from social CRM. Representatives of the company conducting the survey asked the firms that have implemented social CRM programs to discuss what sales and marketing challenges they were using them to address.

Topping the list of challenges is scouring social CRM to acquire leads and prospects. Some respondents noted that Web crawling and big data applications can often shorten the time required to sort the data available to identify specific prospects that could be interested in a company’s products.

Building communities was another often-cited use of social CRM. On the plus side, if you build a community (or take an active part in one someone else built), you have a great way to engage like-minded people. But, marketers were also warned that community building is not for the faint of heart, because it requires much time and effort.

Attracting attention in this marketing milieu is ever more difficult. Perhaps, for a little while, marketing teams are viewing social CRM as another arrow in their quiver for creating and expanding brand recognition. As people tweet and like and post away, harvesting insights can be an innovative way of understanding what is percolating in the minds of potential buyers. Some forward looking companies are using this knowledge to design and create better products, optimize pricing strategies, fine-tune their product positioning, determine effective competitive differentiation approaches, and more.

Finally, if a company does some or all of the above, it should (a) have a better understanding of its market(s), (b) develop more effective messages to bolster Web traffic and (c) garner intelligence about issues that might damage customer relationships.

See: http://tinyurl.com/d6wkbpc

Leaders of Manufacturing, Wholesale Distribution and Online Retail Rely on SAP Gold Partner, Cornerstone Consulting,  for Cutting-edge CRM, Inventory Control-Tracking, Warehouse Management, Financial Accounting, and MRP Systems

Why do numerous growing small and mid-sized businesses rely on Cornerstone’s expertise for integrated and automated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, technical support and social marketing strategies? Simply stated, we can help your manufacturing, wholesale distribution and/or online retail business absolutely flourish. We’re definitely Not the “new kids on the information technology (IT) block”. For more than thirty years, Cornerstone’s brilliant team of marketing strategists, consultants, CPAs,  and (U.S.-based and English speaking) programmers have been successfully providing high-performance business software, as well as unparalleled technical support, to small and midsized manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and online retail enterprises.

Cornerstone Consulting’s areas of expertise include, but are not limited to:

  • SAP Business One
  • E-commerce / M-commerce
  • Mobility
  • Business Intelligence
  • Business Analytics
  • Internet
  • Databases
  • Cloud Computing
  • Custom Programming
  • Software as a Service (SaaS)
  • Website Design , Development and Hosting
  • Marketing Strategies

For SAP small business software information and/or marketing advice, please contact Cornerstone Consulting at 813-321-1300.

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