A client of ours in Dubai Media City recently closed off their end of a quarter in March. In the final three weeks of the month, they didn't have the numbers to hit the target, and the value of their sales opportunities wasn't going to get them over the line either. This company is a media sales business and has been using Salesforce for the past six months. All the leads that are generated from their website and social profiles are filtered into Salesforce as Leads.
Pulling sales reports from Salesforce CRM to focus on the closing deals
So how did these guys meet the target? They ran reports in the CRM system for old leads that either didn't complete a purchase but also didn't categorically say 'no' to the offer. You know those sales opportunities that just drift? Well, these old leads were trawled through, and an email offer was put in place and sent out in the first week of March. Out of 100 emails, they managed to convert three new sales before the end of the month to hit their sales quota. If you happened to be in the Media One Hotel bar last Monday night you might have seen these guys celebrate..
The lesson here is that information is power. With a system like Salesforce in place, any business has the capability to store clean data that can be used as part of an ongoing lead nurturing programme. If media sales company in this example had kept their old leads in spreadsheets, it's highly unlikely that they would have been able to generate the email campaign fast enough, or accurately enough to land the deals that brought them over their sales target for the quarter.
Some tips for keeping your sales data in good shape
- Keep all your leads and sales opportunities in one location where all the sales and marketing staff have access (Salesforce CRM)
- Never ever delete records. Use profiling settings to set a lead as qualified or unqualified instead
- Keep in touch with old leads through regular emails or social media, you never know when they will need to come back
- Use data validation rules in your CRM. Insist that there is a certain format to how data is entered into the CRM system and that certain fields can't be left blank (mobile, email etc.)
- Create more contact points with the prospects by inviting them to connect on LinkedIn, follow you on Twitter or to Like on Facebook. Salesforce Dubai clients are extensive users of the CRM integrated 'Social Profiles' feature.