When was the last time you checked your inbox? Probably, a few hours or just a few minutes ago. According to a recent report by the Radicati Group, business users send and receive on average 121 emails a day. This number may sound scary, mainly if you are a freelancer or work on a small start-up. Nonetheless, this proves that even with recent platforms like Teams or Slack, work e-mails are still a thing in the workplace.

E-mail overload and how we manage it can be a real problem, not only for big companies but also for single workers, who will have to manage all the demands on their own. Why?:

• Having loads of daily messages may lead to a lack of organization, or wrong or no prioritization at all. How do you know which sender has a more urgent request? Would you prioritize your team leader or a customer?
• Email overload can take you out of focus on what you were doing. 
• Precious time is spent on reading/replying to messages (and not only during working hours!) An estimated 28% of the workweek is spent managing e-mail, according to a study by McKinsey. This could be used on important or more vital tasks instead.
• Last but not least, this overflow of emails can lead to distress and frustration. The sense of being non-productive when realizing the time you spent on e-mails, or on the contrary feeling irresponsible for taking much time to reply, could be a really stressful experience.

All this mess may lead to an even bigger problem: your customer service will be affected by this too.

Your email communication flow will directly impact your customers

Yes, the organization of a team’s email can have a significant impact on customer success. Poorly organized internal emails can lead to: 

• delays in response times, 
• miscommunication, 
• e-mail tracking issues
• and a lack of accountability among team members.

As we said before, workers in big companies receive a high number of emails. But in small working environments, even when the number of emails could be much less, just a few people are in charge of several tasks. Thus, it is very common to forget about a specific client issue or -on the contrary – to have two members giving different replies to the same customer.

This can result in poor customer service, increased customer frustration, and ultimately, a negative impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty.

3 alternatives to reduce the mess arising from e-mail management

Use automation to improve the e-mail flow

There are numerous instances or “types” of automation that can be extremely useful to organize your team’s email management.

• Create tags or labels: through automation, you can assign tags to create rules that automatically move a message to a specific inbox. You could create different folders for customer inquiries, internal communications, and urgent matters. For example, you are the digital marketing lead, and you get reports from your team members updating you about clients’ statistics. You only check these reports once a week, so you could assign a tag for these specific reports to have them all together in a specific inbox. This way, you won’t get any of those reports lost in your inbox.
• Use automated filters: set up automated filters to automatically sort and route emails to the appropriate folders and team members.
• Automated email responses: you can set up automated responses to common customer questions. This can help to quickly answer customer queries without the need for manual intervention.
• Automatic ticket routing: automated ticket routing can help to ensure that customer queries are directed to the appropriate team member, which can reduce response time and improve the overall customer experience.
• Automatic follow-ups: automating follow-up emails or messages can help to ensure that customer queries are not forgotten.
• Workflow automation: automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry or customer segmentation, can help to streamline the process of managing customer interactions. This can help your customer service team to focus on more important tasks.

This can free up time for your team to focus on more complex or urgent issues and improve the overall customer experience by providing fast and efficient service.

Create a shared inbox

Having a shared inbox can help improve the organization of emails at work by allowing multiple team members to access and manage incoming messages. This can lead to:

• More efficient distribution of tasks and responsibilities, as well as increased collaboration and communication among team members. 
• Additionally, a shared inbox can also provide a central location for storing and accessing important information, such as customer inquiries or project updates. This can help to ensure that all team members are aware of essential information and can take the appropriate action in a timely manner.
• Setting up shared email accounts for specific teams or departments can help to improve collaboration and accountability among team members.

Add an e-mail integration

Email integration is a powerful way to help you organize your messy inbox and, thus, reduce customer response time in a digital marketing environment. Here are a few ways that email integration can help:

• Email tracking: email integration allows you to track and monitor all the team’s interactions, such as when an email is opened or a link is clicked. This can help you to understand if a colleague didn’t reply because he didn’t read your message yet, or maybe s/he simply forgot to reply. This way, you can follow up on a message only when find it appropriately.
• Implementing an email integration can also help with the organization of emails at the workplace by connecting your email service with other tools and systems. This can help to automate certain tasks and make it easier to manage and organize large volumes of emails. For example, an integration with a project management tool can allow emails related to a specific project to be automatically assigned to the appropriate team members, reducing the need for manual distribution.
• Quick access to customer data: with email integration, your customer data is easily accessible, allowing you to quickly access customer information when responding to emails.
• Prioritization: email integration can allow you to prioritize queries, so you can respond to urgent or high-priority issues first.

Implementing a CRM could improve 80% of your team’s productivity

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can be an effective tool to get your team’s e-mail organized and to reduce the customer response time in a digital marketing environment. To be more specific, 45% of companies that adopted CRM software reported an increase in sales revenue, and 47% of them stated that CRM contributed to an improvement in customer retention rates. 

So, basically, a CRM can unify and simplify those 3 alternatives we mentioned above, and more:

1. Centralized data: a CRM can store all customer data in one central location, making it easy for the marketing team to access information about customers and their interactions with the company. This can help to speed up the resolution of customer issues.
2. You could have a centralized dashboard to check your different shared inboxes
3. Automated email responses: by integrating email with a CRM, you can set up automated responses to common customer questions. This can help to quickly answer customer queries without the need for manual intervention.
4. Integration with a customer relationship management system can also allow customer inquiries and other important information to be automatically recorded and tracked. 
5. Workflow management: a CRM can help to streamline the process of managing customer interactions by allowing the marketing team to assign and track tasks and set up automated reminders.
6. Multi-channel support: a CRM can integrate with various digital channels such as social media, email, and chat, allowing the marketing team to manage customer interactions across multiple platforms. Learn more about the multi-campaign management feature.
7. Automation: A CRM can automate many routine customer interactions, such as sending follow-up emails or responding to frequently asked questions. This can free up time for the marketing team to focus on more complex or urgent issues.

Have you tried Octoki?

Octoki is a complete CRM specially designed for people who work in Digital Marketing. This Software has an e-mail helper feature that allows the users to create automation in order to improve the communication flow, not only with customers but also between the team members.

Conclusion

Reducing the distress and disorganization caused by e-mail communication at the workplace is vital for marketing departments. It can improve customer success by allowing for more efficient and effective problem-solving and decision-making. With faster communication and collaboration, teams can quickly address customer issues and concerns, resulting in increased satisfaction and loyalty. 

Additionally, reducing response time between work teams can also help to prevent small problems from escalating into larger ones, which can result in negative impacts on customer relationships. 

As it is necessary to meet customer expectations in today’s fast-paced digital world, a CRM can be the perfect solution for marketers.

The post The organization of a team’s email can severely impact customer success appeared first on Octoki.

What is a task manager?

A task manager is a software application that helps users to manage their tasks and schedule. It allows users to create, edit, and organize tasks, set reminders, and track progress. The goal of a task manager is to assist users in staying organized and on top of their tasks and responsibilities.

Remember those organizers from the 1900s? Well, a task manager is just like that, but online, and digital, and fancier, and shared with more people! *wooooooo*

Why is it useful?

Task managers are useful for marketing agencies, departments, and freelancers because they help them to keep track of all their tasks and projects in one place. This can make it easier for them to stay organized and on top of their work, which can lead to increased productivity and efficiency.

Additionally, task managers often have features such as the ability to assign tasks to specific team members, set due dates, and track progress, which can be particularly useful in the marketing community who are working on multiple projects with different deadlines and team members.

Having a task manager also allows marketing agencies, departments, and freelancers to better collaborate and communicate with their team members and clients, making sure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.

Benefits of using a task manager in a marketing environment

We already talked about some of the benefits, but we’ll list them anyway:

1. Increased productivity: Task managers allow marketing teams to easily keep track of their tasks and projects in one place, making it easier for them to stay organized and on top of their work.
2. Better collaboration: Task managers often have features that allow team members to assign tasks to specific team members, set due dates, and track progress, which can improve collaboration and communication between team members.
3. Improved client communication: With a task manager, it is easy for marketing teams to share progress updates with clients, ensuring everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.
4. Better project management: Task managers allow teams to create and manage projects, set deadlines, and track progress, which can improve the overall project management process.
5. Better team performance: Task managers are useful to monitor the performance of the team and to identify the areas where improvements are needed.
6. Cost savings: With a task manager, teams can streamline processes and automate repetitive tasks, which can save time and money.

Tip of the day: Automation!

Marketing automation is fundamental for digital marketing because it allows companies to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as sending email campaigns, creating social media posts, and analyzing data. This frees up time for marketing teams to focus on more high-level and strategic tasks.

Additionally, marketing automation allows companies to personalize their marketing efforts and target specific segments of their audience more effectively. This can be done by analyzing data on customer behavior and preferences, and then using that information to create more relevant and personalized marketing campaigns.

Marketing automation also helps companies to track and measure their marketing efforts more effectively, which allows them to make data-driven decisions on how to optimize their campaigns.

Furthermore, marketing automation software can make it easier for teams to work together and collaborate, as tasks can be assigned and tracked in one central location. This can lead to more efficient workflows and better coordination between team members.

Overall, marketing automation is fundamental for digital marketing because it helps companies to automate repetitive tasks, personalize their marketing efforts, track and measure campaigns, and improve teamwork and collaboration.

Task management

We’ve talked about what, why and who is a task manager, now let’s talk about task management. Task management in digital marketing refers to the process of organizing, prioritizing, and scheduling tasks related to a digital marketing campaign or strategy. This can include tasks such as creating and scheduling social media posts, designing and sending email campaigns, analyzing website traffic, and monitoring and responding to customer feedback.

There are several roles in a digital marketing environment that are responsible for task management. This is merely an example, and you should adapt roles depending on the number of employees you have:

1. Digital marketing manager: This role is responsible for overseeing the overall digital marketing strategy and ensuring that all tasks related to digital marketing are completed on time and on budget.
2. Marketing coordinator: This role is responsible for coordinating and scheduling tasks related to digital marketing, such as creating and scheduling social media posts, and tracking and reporting on campaign results.
3. Content creator: This role is responsible for creating and producing digital content, such as blog posts, videos, and infographics.
4. Email marketer: This role is responsible for designing and sending email campaigns, and analyzing the results of those campaigns.
5. Social media manager: This role is responsible for managing and growing a company’s social media presence, as well as creating and scheduling social media posts.
6. Web analyst: This role is responsible for analyzing website traffic and user behavior, and using that data to improve the company’s digital marketing efforts.

Or in a smaller context you get something like this: Boss → Manager → Team Leader → Working Bee → Intern

They all are assigned to a task, have different inputs and are all up-to-date with what is being done. 

A final word

Octoki CRM’s task manager feature is an incredibly powerful tool that can greatly improve your work. With its intuitive interface, you can easily organize and prioritize your tasks, set reminders, and track your progress. The ability to assign tasks to team members and collaborate in real-time makes it an invaluable tool for managing projects and ensuring that deadlines are met.

The integration of task management with your customer management means that you can also link specific tasks to your customer interactions and track the progress of your team’s work for each customer, this can give you a better understanding of customer needs, and help you to provide better service.

Octoki CRM’s task manager feature is a game-changer for anyone looking to boost their productivity and streamline their work. It’s easy to use, yet packed with features that will help you stay organized and on top of your tasks, giving you more time to focus on growing your business. And you read everything right, FEATURE, meaning Octoki has much, much more to give!

The post Feature me this: Task Manager – yay or nay? appeared first on Octoki.

What is a Pipeline, and why do you need it?

A pipeline is a series of steps or stages that a potential customer goes through before becoming a paying customer.

By identifying the stages of the pipeline, analyzing data and identifying trends, and implementing best practices, a business can increase its profitability. With the right pipeline and the right strategies in place, a business can improve its bottom line and achieve long-term success.

The main stages of a pipeline

These stages can vary depending on the industry, but a typical pipeline includes stages such as lead generation, qualification, proposal, negotiation, and closing.

1. In the lead generation stage, a business can improve profitability by implementing effective lead generation strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and social media marketing.
2. Qualification stage: here, a business can improve profitability by implementing best practices such as lead scoring, which is the process of assigning a score to each lead based on their level of engagement and likelihood of becoming a customer. This allows a business to focus its resources on the most promising leads, which can lead to more sales and higher profitability.
3. In the proposal stage, a business can raise profit margins by creating effective proposals that clearly communicate the value of the product or service and address any objections that the customer may have.
4. In the negotiation stage, a business can boost earnings by using effective negotiation strategies such as compromising and finding win-win solutions. This can be done by understanding the customer’s needs and concerns, and by being flexible and open to new ideas.
5. Finally, in the closing stage, a business can improve profitability by implementing best practices such as following up with customers and providing excellent customer service. This can be done by using customer relationship management (CRM) software.

How to control your pipeline stages using a CRM?

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can be an effective tool for controlling the stages of a pipeline since it helps businesses manage customer interactions, track leads, and monitor sales activities. By using a CRM system, businesses can gain a better understanding of the pipeline stages and take control of the process of moving leads through the pipelines.

Set up your CRM to track every stage

Tracking stages can be used to follow the progress of leads through the pipeline, and to identify where improvements can be made. By tracking leads in this way, businesses can gain a better understanding of how leads are progressing through the pipeline, and where they may be getting stuck.

Automate processes and notifications

Another way to control pipeline stages using a CRM is by setting up automated processes and notifications. For example, a business can set up automated emails to be sent to leads at specific stages of the pipeline, such as when a lead has been qualified or when a proposal has been sent. 

Additionally, a CRM system can send notifications to specific teams in specific situations. For example, it can notify the sales team when a lead reaches a certain stage. Or it can rather advise the marketing team when a client account is running out of money. 

Define roles and charge what you deserve!

Lastly, once your lead becomes a client, set different roles on your team, such as Account Manager, Designer, SEO, or any other special permission for your client’s account. Allocate specific tasks for every role and set a time tracker on your CRM.

By logging time spent on specific tasks, businesses can gain a better understanding of how much time is being spent on different activities and make more informed decisions about how to allocate resources. This feature can be useful for freelancers that need to track billable hours. Thus, knowing exactly how much you may charge to a specific client.

Using the best CRM system, you can efficiently oversee every step of your pipeline, thus improving profitability. By allocating tasks automatically, and keeping your team informed of what needs to be prioritized, you can keep track of all your prospects and never miss a follow-up by receiving reminders.

The post How to improve profitability using the right pipeline appeared first on Octoki.

Where did my productivity go?

Let’s talk about productivity. When you’re using multiple CRMs, you’re essentially spreading your team’s focus and resources thin. Instead of being able to fully immerse themselves in a single system and become experts in its use, your team is forced to switch between multiple systems and try to remember how to use each one.

This can be frustrating and time-consuming, and it can take away the time they could be spending on more important tasks.

Data Silos

On top of that, using multiple CRMs can lead to data silos. Each CRM system is its own entity, and it can be difficult to get them to communicate and share data with each other. This means that you could potentially have important customer data trapped in one CRM, while other key information is stuck in another. This can lead to confusion and inefficiencies when trying to get a complete picture of a customer or trying to access essential data.

But it’s not just about productivity and data delivery. Using multiple CRMs can also be a financial drain on your business. Each CRM system comes with its own subscription or licensing fees, and the costs can quickly add up if you’re using multiple systems. Plus, you’ll need to devote time and resources to maintaining and updating each system, which can also be costly.

What should you do?

So, what’s the solution? It’s simple: stick to one CRM system. By focusing all of your efforts on a single system, you can ensure that your team is fully trained and proficient in its use. This will lead to increased productivity and efficiency, as well as better data delivery. Plus, you’ll save money on subscription and licensing fees, as well as maintenance and updates.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “But what if I can’t find a CRM system that has all the features I need?” 

First of all, it’s important to realize that no CRM system is going to have every single feature you might want. However, most CRM systems offer a wide range of features that can meet the needs of most businesses. And if you really can’t find a CRM system that has everything you need, there are always options that like integrating with third-party apps or customizing the system to fit your specific needs.

In conclusion

Let’s list what we just talked about:

• Using multiple CRM systems can spread a team’s focus and resources thin, leading to decreased productivity
• Multiple CRMs can lead to data silos and difficulty accessing important customer data
• Using multiple CRMs can be a financial drain on a business, with subscription and licensing fees and maintenance and updates
• Focusing on a single CRM system can lead to increased productivity and better data delivery, as well as cost savings
• It is possible to customize a CRM system or integrate with third-party apps to meet specific needs if a single CRM cannot fulfill all requirements

Using more than two CRM systems can be risky in terms of productivity and data delivery. It can lead to confusion and inefficiencies, and it can also be a financial drain on your business. By focusing on a single CRM system, you can ensure that your team is fully trained and proficient in its use, leading to increased productivity and better data delivery. Plus, you’ll save money on subscription and licensing fees and maintenance and updates. So, next time you’re tempted to add another CRM system to your arsenal, think twice – your team (and your wallet) will thank you.

The post How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Using Multiple CRMs appeared first on Octoki.

What is Onboarding?

Onboarding is the integration of the client in a service/product stage.

Onboarding processes change from company to company or from service to service. However, we found common elements such as:

• Tutorials
• Online Documentation
• Dynamic emails, texts, or meetings
• Contextual learning through an app or website

By improving your customer onboarding process, you can increase revenue and help retain more customers.

To achieve this, you need:

• Understand your customer’s needs
• Finding the fastest way to solve problems
• Use of the resources at your disposal and continuous information about changes
• Create unique experiences
• Use of questionnaires to improve services

The 3 biggest challenges in onboarding clients

Passwords, passwords, passwords

With so many customers, is it really necessary to share passwords? What if something happens? After all, we are putting our hands in our customers’ pocket money!

There are methods of giving users permission to advertise platforms on social media or search engines. However, not every customer understands how to add a user, what permissions to give, or what a Business Manager is – sometimes it seems that sharing the username and password is the easiest method.

We are well aware that passwords are not shared, and although we are hiring a service to improve our business, there is always the possibility of ill intent, not all professionals are… professionals! If only there was a solution…

Time Wasting

Attempts to set up a meeting, missed calls, client internet not working, forgetfulness – we’ve seen it all, and we believe you have too!

Onboarding is essential, but it can also be a huge waste of time, both for us and for the client.

Data Dispersion

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, there are so many platforms that it’s chaotic in how we manage to organize ourselves.

Imagine the scenario: connecting to 3 different platforms, of a new client, in which you have to put it online in 3 days – we know it’s complicated, that’s why we recommend…

An easy and secure onboarding

Onboarding is no longer a headache. Octoki is a CRM for marketers, whether they are freelancers, team members, or take part in a department, Octoki fits like a glove.

Do you know when you enter a platform and there are 2 or 3 registration/login options, with our Google account, Facebook, or creating a registration? — Octoki works the same way.

After logging in, there is the possibility for the customer to choose which platform he is registering for in the system. Then Octoki grabs the customer’s hand and guides him through the login steps. The customer selects a business, and an ad account, and has access to his business dashboard.

And thou? Well, you as Octoki’s Admin can do whatever you want because the client has already given you authorization! In 3 to 5 minutes, the headache of having to get together, explaining steps for the thousandth time, and the risk of sharing passwords or wasting too much time on onboarding is over.

The post How to ensure a secure customer onboarding process appeared first on Octoki.

In our day-to-day lives as marketers, we usually spend too much time working, and still, we don’t manage to meet some of our deadlines. Those 7 or 8 hours in front of the computer are not enough, and we don’t know why. So you ask yourself: where do we lose time on our workday?

However, in Digital Marketing, there are some tasks that we can’t avoid and that make us lose immense time:

• Reporting: this is the main activity that we, Digital Marketing professionals, SEOs, and Community Managers have. If you are a freelancer, you probably send reports to your clients. If you are part of an agency team, you have to create reports for everything. There are as many reports to deliver as there are social platforms: TikTok, Google Analytics, Meta, etc.
• Email management: according to the McKinsey Global Institute analysis, a worker spends an estimated 28% of the workweek managing email. And unfortunately, most of the e-mails received are either junk, or not relevant. On the other hand, checking for new messages takes our focus away from the task at hand, and this lowers our work productivity.
• Customer Onboarding: this is simply tedious. Many of our customers need personalized assistance for onboarding. This requires not only patience, but also time. Valuable time.

• Calls and meetings: whether with customers or even between colleagues in the marketing team, calls sometimes take longer than they should – which is normal, as they are not always “straight to the point”. According to statistics from Tameday, 15% of a company’s time is spent on meetings and similar activities.

Unfortunately, these tasks are as necessary as they are unproductive and represent 65% of our time (RRHH Digital). We cannot avoid them, but we can optimize them. The solution for time optimization is to take effective CRM into your hands.

How to optimize time using a CRM

Despite being popular among sales teams, implementing a CRM in digital marketing has a myriad of benefits. Today, they are a necessary tool for optimizing our time.

When you get to take advantage of its functionalities, it will help you to be more productive. Here are 3 ways to save time with a CRM for digital marketing:

1. Automate all repetitive tasks
2. Set up specific actions and rules
3. Avoid meaningless meetings

1) Automate all repetitive tasks

Automation saves time and, fortunately, most CRMs allow us to automate some tasks:

Reporting: there are CRMs that generate reports automatically, according to the parameters that we specify. These can be error reports, or simply reports that highlight the progress of a specific campaign. This saves us a lot of time, as not only will we be aware of any problems, but we can also send interim reports to our clients.

Automated payment collection: you’re a digital marketer, but you still need to handle your own accounting. A CRM designed for marketers has the functionality to automatically collect payments and create invoices. Like Meta’s platform, for example, the CRM allows you to view month-to-month billing, letting you download invoices automatically. A CRM can help you avoid missing invoices or, better still, send them directly to customers on the date you set.

2) Set up specific actions and rules

Another way to save time on tasks is to instruct your CRM on what actions to take based on the parameters you specify:

Optimize email communication: create rules to allocate incoming messages to the most accurate person for that situation. Imagine that a client has just hired a social media service. You can associate it with the community manager who is running their account. 

Set up important notifications: many alerts take our focus away from what we are doing at the moment, and most of the time these notifications are not important. A complete CRM allows you to create specific rules so that you are alerted only to the things that matter to you:

• Know when a client’s campaign isn’t running
• Notice when a keyword is not working
• Be notified when a client is running out of budget

3) Avoid meaningless meetings

Unnecessary meetings are a silent evil, both among team members and with customers. But even worse are those meetings that are necessary, but unproductive. Using a CRM, you can save yourself from these 5-minute calls, which eventually consume an hour of your time:

Assign tasks and track time spent: many team leads love to have DAILY meetings to see the progress of the team. This is a huge waste of time. A CRM designed especially for marketers will give the advantage of assigning tasks, clarifying priorities and above all: tracking the progress of each member of the team.

Fast onboarding: forget about time-consuming customer meetings just for the sake of onboarding. Take advantage of CRMs like Octoki, which simplifies the process by reducing the time to a 5-minute onboarding. 

Summing up

You work a lot, but it does not mean you are getting your work done. Take advantage of the benefits of a CRM to make your freelance work easier or to get the best out of your team and stop wasting time on tasks.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to buy a CRM. There are cheaper alternatives to Pipedrive, or alternatives that are more complete than HubSpot and that were created specifically for those who work in Digital Marketing (and not just sales )

The post You are wasting a lot of time at work appeared first on Octoki.

Many companies have chosen to use CRMs to assist them in the control and better management of their customers and sales opportunities. CRMs help to organize information about potential customers, filter them and define sales processes. They are useful for growing your customer portfolio. But, did you know that CRMs are also great tools to manage multiple Social Media accounts?

CRM as a social media tool

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) continues to be a popular solution to help sales teams control and better manage their customers and sales opportunities. CRMs help to organize information about potential customers, filter them and define sales processes. They are useful to grow the client database.

But now CRMs are also evolving to become a key driver for marketing and social media management. Digital marketing departments have greatly benefited from the implementation of CRMs on different social platforms, as it allows them to manage and have a more complete picture of all ad accounts. Thus, improving the relationship between marketing agencies and their own clients.

And the main reason for implementing a CRM for social media is very simple: a marketing department manages multiple ad accounts across multiple platforms. Implementing a CRM that integrates popular platforms such as Google Ads, Meta, or TikTok will be the solution to improve the performance of all clients’ ad accounts.

Social Media Advertising Stats:

The following numbers show how much advertising accounts are growing every day:

• 27.9% of the time spent on social media is used for finding inspiration for things to do and buy (Source: Hootsuite, 2022)
• 26.5% of the time spent on social media is for finding products to purchase (Source: Hootsuite, 2022)
• Facebook is still the world’s most-used social platform (Source: Hootsuite, 2022)
• Instagram is the social channel with the second-highest ROI for marketers. (HubSpot, 2020)
• There are more than 80 million small businesses using Facebook’s free business tools. (Facebook, 2018) (Source: HubSpot)
• The potential audience that marketers can reach with ads (Source: Hootsuite, 2022): 

– 2.17 billion on Facebook

– 1.44 billion on Instagram

– 1.02 billion on TikTok

– 849.6 million on LinkedIn

These numbers reflect why more and more businesses are interested in advertising on social media. As a consequence, marketers, both in-house and freelancers, have seen a boost in their client portfolios.

So how do marketing agencies keep up with the demand? Implementing a CRM can help them keep track of and optimize multiple ad accounts.

Why does your agency need a CRM for Ads accounts?

We can think of a million reasons, but here are 4 advantages of implementing a CRM to manage multiple accounts:

1. Integration of the different departments in the agency: a client may have contracted a service that requires the work of our design team in conjunction with the community manager. A CRM will help communication between departments to run smoothly. This brings us to the next point.

2. Customer Relationship improvement: if the work of the different Departments is aligned, any queries or special requests from a client can be quickly resolved, as a CRM will allow each member of the team to see where the process is at a standstill. Perhaps a particular post didn’t go the way the customer expected. A CRM can help detect the error quickly.

3. Less time spent on reporting: if your marketing team wastes a lot of time creating reports, they can simplify reporting with a CRM for social media. Every social platform has its own analytics system (for example, Instagram, or TikTok have their own metrics system). A CRM will help you make reports of each customer account without wasting time on each of the platforms, optimizing the work time of the marketing team members.

4. Bring notifications together: each ad account has its own alerts and notifications. Customers with popular profiles receive notifications for everything. A CRM will help ensure that notifications that are important to the agency are not missed.

The best CRM for social media

We have already described the advantages of implementing a CRM for the managing of several social accounts, and we guess that -so far – you have liked the idea of implementing one CRM in your Marketing team. 

The fact is that, nowadays, there are numerous CRMs, and the most suitable one for your agency may not be the same as the one used by your competitors. So pay attention to the features that the best CRM for social media should have:

Integration with different social platforms

The best CRM must have the ability to integrate the main social networks and be adapted for each update. Nowadays, it is easy to find CRMs just for Instagram or Facebook, but many are falling behind with other newer networks such as TikTok. The best CRM should have the ability to manage multiple accounts on TikTok, Instagram, or Google Ads all at once.

Data analysis

A cracking CRM optimizes the data collection process for each ad account. And you should not just rely on a CRM that only exports data. To do that, you can simply go to the Facebook Ads Manager and export reports yourself instead. The idea of using a CRM is that it does its own analysis and warns you when one of your multiple campaigns is not running well. And this brings us to the next point.

Rules customization

A good CMR allows you to create rules for better management of multiple ad accounts. This way, you will be able to know if your client has not logged in the last week, if a keyword is not being profitable, or if a campaign is spending more money than the budget your client had allocated. The best CRM sends notifications to the member of your team responsible for each area. You create the parameters and the CRM will help you optimize your client’s ad accounts.

Fast and customized reporting

Using a good CRM will help you create customized reports for each ad account, allowing each of your clients to have access to straightforward information. Not all clients want to have the same piece of information, so this feature will help you avoid wasting time on weekly reports. Get detailed social media reports to show clients the growth you’ve achieved with campaigns.

Simplified dashboard

Having multiple advertising accounts on different platforms probably has you jumping from one screen to another. The best CRM for marketing has a single dashboard where you can display the highlights of each account. Because it’s a simplified dashboard, you optimize your time and the quality of your campaigns.

Summing up

Integrating social media ad accounts with a CRM is a great implementation for marketers, even for those freelancers who have more than one client. With a CRM like Octoki, you can get a better view of your client accounts to tailor your marketing strategy.

The post How to manage multiple accounts without losing your mind appeared first on Octoki.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an important tool for any small, medium, or large company. When used well, a CRM is a fundamental pillar that can ensure that your strategy is achieving its intended objectives.

However, a CRM is not something you purchase and have some sort of guarantee of automatic success. In that case, we would all be entrepreneurs. You have to know how to get the best out of your CRM, and understand what makes it move, work and tick in the best way. It’s easy to point fingers when things go sideways, but it’s certainly not the CRM’s fault!

The bottom line here is to understand what a CRM is, what a CRM does, and how a CRM can be used to improve your business. That said, let’s do it!

What is a CRM?

A CRM is a tool that uses all resources more efficiently and improves the general operations of your business, managing the relationship with your customers with workflows providing analytical data.

How does it make it? A CRM receives and compiles as much data as possible from users who interact with your brand and/or product. An effective CRM can gather data from multiple channels, such as your website, email marketing campaigns, social networks, and search engines, making it easier to interpret and understand.

What does a CRM do?

There are several ways to use a CRM, but at the end of the day, it will always depend on what your company can or wants to achieve.

• Customer management
• Lead management
• Measure results
• Gather data from multiple sources
• Invoicing
• and more…

These are some of the services you can find in various CRMs. It is always up to the user to know how to get the best out of it and also to choose the CRM that best suits the business.

What a CRM can’t do?

Never forget that a CRM is a tool and only a tool.

It’s software that helps you achieve your goals, but it doesn’t create a strategy for you. It is up to the user to understand the market and classify the audience, and once these segments are created, the CRM will manage them accordingly.

Common mistakes when using a CRM

Ignore the Analytical aspect

A CRM can analyze the trends and behavior of your users. When there are peaks, either decreasing or increasing, you have to investigate what happened that day/week. If there is a product that is being viewed more, we have to be more aggressive in advertising. Your CRM will show all this, but it is up to the user to have a critical mind and be able to interpret the analysis.

Understanding the coordination of your marketing campaigns with website traffic is something that should be seen often, and a good dashboard will show you that instantly and in real-time.

The bottom line here is that if you’re not learning from your own data, your business growth will be limited.

Fast, one-stop integrations

Nowadays, it is imperative to have all the information in one place – If you understand the monster that is digital marketing, you realize that there are far too many platforms to advertise and interpret data. Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, and Google Ads, among others that exist and are yet to exist. There are too many and too much time is wasted traveling from one platform to another and correlating the data!

Your CRM is obliged to show you all this as soon as you log in. This feature alone is already saving you a lot of time!

It’s everyone’s responsibility

The responsibility of a CRM is not on the IT guys or any other department.

At its core, it is a business solution that uses technology to deliver benefits to the entire organization. Everyone is a stakeholder in the success of CRM because everyone benefits, not just those responsible for its implementation.

On the other hand, each group must have information about how the system is configured to ensure that it reflects their day-to-day reality. Collaboration by everyone in the CRM lifecycle is essential to reaping the fullest possible benefits.

10 Benefits of using a CRM

1. All information in just one place

CRMs allow your entire organization to keep all information about potential customers or customers (for any period of time) in a database, accessible to everyone. In this way, it provides quick access for all teams, as well as the ability to easily manage this information through a shared location.

2. Increase in customer retention rates

CRMs allow your teams to easily track all customers, standardizing information, processes, and communication for lasting customer satisfaction.

3. Automation and information collection

With a CRM, you’ll never waste time recording emails, or calls, or meetings again — all this information is automatically collected in the system and recorded.

4. Smart, data-driven decisions

Any business needs sales, organization and a good strategy. Through automatic reports, it is easier when you have the most important KPIs at hand.

5. Automate what’s boring

There are things that are better left to computers and their automatism. 24/7 data collection and automatic operations where you only need to define the first time.

6. Make more money

With a CRM helping with organization, strategy and communication, sales start to rise, and as they say: more sales; more money!

7. Reports

Gone are the days when time was wasted making individual reports for each client. With a click of a button, the customer has access to his report, where the KPIs can be easily changed to suit the business.

8. Ensure communication

Good communication is essential to maintain the brand image before potential customers.

9. Keeping the same software as your business grows

As your business grows, your CRM grows with you — over time there is more information, there are more customers, there is more data, there are more employees, and your CRM will deal with it all!

10. Internal and administrative management

Running a business is complicated. You have to allocate your time to fundamental things, and you can’t waste too much time managing teams.

When you use a CRM, you end up increasing the productivity of your company and your employees. You have information about your customers at your fingertips and in one place for everyone to consult.

Are you dating CRMs? Why not try Octoki? It has everything that has been said here and maybe more. Come on!

The post How to get the most from your CRM appeared first on Octoki.