How to generate more leads with Salesforce

Trying to grow a business looks different than it did years ago. Technology continues to evolve, and along with it, how to gather leads, work sources, and in turn, convert leads to customers. Salesforce is what in the business and technology industry is referred to as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. This software resides in the cloud and offers many features to help develop relationships with vendors, partners, clients, and, most importantly, new and existing customers. How thought can a CRM software such as Salesforce help you generate more leads for your business? Here is a concise list of exactly how this powerful tool can go to work for your business.

Forms – Get that Data

You know the information needed for your specific business. Apparent data like Business Name, contact, and the like is necessary, but what is the information your particular business can use to target. Placing customers into specific buy categories is critical to understand and meet a variety of customer needs in marketing and selling to them. Using this information, Salesforce’s integrated form design and publication can help garner this information.

If you have ever filled out a contact me or sign for access type for that is what this is. Gathering information for a business to initially qualify you into specific selling criteria categories. Create different forms on your site for a variety of entrance points for customers. For instance support needs, might have a form, specific products, or even various services. A one form fits all approach is not the best utilization of the power behind Salesforce and will not give the breadth of data best for mining great leads for your business.

Campaigns – Targeted Use of Data

Now comes the gold of the data gathered, campaigns. No, not all marketing campaign via email, online webinar, or even sales pitch at a tradeshow is the same. Forms tell you precisely what customers are looking for and help you target campaigns to their needs. It is highly recommended for all types on your site, you track and create a campaign to garner the most information possible. And yes, you should have multiple forms.

Not all customers, services, or methods of finding your website are the same, and every nuance of data is more information for you to use to win customers. Now, that doesn’t equate to huge conversions on each campaign, so you will play with keyword selections, conversion rates for the campaigns, and even follow up workflows.

These, though, are the heart of marketing your business in the digital age, and as we move further from face to face selling data is the new currency of business that we must learn to leverage for growth.

Flexibility in Customization

Salesforces’ real strength lies in the customizations it allows. This platform has so many partnerships, acquisitions that have been integrated, and options for your development team to undertake. Not every brick and mortar store ever looked exactly the same, the product offering differed, and the owner’s vision was unique to them.

The digital business age is no different, and if you can dream it, there is probably customization out there or a developer that can make it a reality. This gives you so many new approaches to gaining customers and retaining them through new tools and apps that can help them and benefit you through gathering even more data and managing it in your Salesforce CRM to continue to cater to your key customers.

All this data coming in from various sources sounds like a great lead generation process for your business. There is a catch, though. Information is only as useful as the processes you put in place to manage it. For instance, all the forms could produce duplicate records. When sending campaigns doing so many times can actually deter customers from your business if they feel they are being spammed. Also, someone misspelling a name or address could cause duplications.

When customers leave certain places of business, ensuring you keep up on their contact information to ensure it remains a beneficial tool. Data does not gather itself in forms and just miraculously clean, organize and de-dup itself. This is a critical care factor for your business, to keep this lead generation, business running CRM in tip-top shape for the best results from social media and other campaigns throughout your business cycle.

Now you might ask how analysis can generate new leads. One campaign does not fit all customers in your CRM. Different tag lines, keywords, and even graphics can have an impact on if someone is willing to open that email or engage with a social media post. That means you need to continually be analyzing what is working and what isn’t when it comes to conversion rates. A conversion rate is that percentage of campaign sends (emails, for example) that result in a customer engaging in a method you desire, such as a sales call, presentation, or stopping by a booth at a show.

Some campaigns, no matter how well planned out, and with useful data, won’t convert. Try something different. Gaining more leads from Salesforce is made possible through using all the fantastic data it provides to analyze your next move for better conversion rates and, by extension, more growth for your organization.

Stop Spam to Protect Information

Ensuring that those filling out your form are good solid leads means you need to have a spam protection method in place. Captcha is one option and also what is referred to as a honeypot technique. Honeypot techniques hide a field on a form so that only bots when filling it out find it and give information. When this form is filled in, the data is segregated automatically as not valid.

Captcha requires some secondary captcha box or puzzle at the end of the form to ensure it is a valid source filling it out. Spam is critical to ensuring you get the best and most beneficial leads from your efforts going into your Salesforce CRM. This ensures that your efforts are best used for good points and not those that would have you spinning your wheels unnecessarily.

The New Business Card

Think of your Salesforce CRM as the new business card index for your future growth. Integrate apps that can easily capture that information when out at shows, client sites, and the like. There are a number of them that can scan and parse data into your Salesforce CRM just through you snapping a picture of a traditional business card, or scanning it. Also, remember your website is many times the new business card for your customers.

Finding you via social media, after visiting a trade show, and the like you have that single opportunity to get them to fill out a form, end up in the campaign and start tracking their metrics for conversion to a customer in your organization. This new business card should tell your story, be customized and geared toward the customer you are seeking and know precisely how best to use all the Salesforce CRM power behind it to convert that customer looking at your site.

Salesforce even allows for capturing social media interactions. Posting blogs, quick tweets, or the like is a great way to spread a social media footprint. With Salesforce, you can capture those that interact with such digital marketing efforts and store them in the CRM also. This added layer of information can help direct your next campaign or even more substantial social media adverts for your business and help generate leads. Giving posts unique URL(s) into your site, and forms to fill out can even more fully tell how well conversions are happening for the effort.

Leads are the lifeblood of all businesses looking to sustain and grow, and Salesforce is continuously growing, changing, and assimilating new technology to leverage information to convert. These conversions need to be carefully thought out and executed as this program is not out of the box simple, one size fits all. Putting a robust CRM and information gathering analytical plan in place is now the new normal for businesses. Be sure you know the market, customers, and needs of your business or hire a professional that is SEO, Keyword, and data strong to manage this new horizon in growing your business.

You know your business best, and harbor the vision for what is needed to grow it. Salesforce, as your CRM allows you to customize your approach, collect useful data, and analyze data for more targeted marketing. Keep track of all the information garnered for a customer from various sources such as trade shows, meetings, calls, and the like. Manage the data, which is like gold for your business to ensure spamming, duplicates, and other such nuisances that can harm your efforts are minimized through various tools. Best of all, do this with a cloud-based system that is available from all over the world in laptops, phones, and other means to keep your business members connected and all growing the same direction.