Oct
29

By CommenceCRM

How to Use CRM to Follow Up with Your Investment Leads

Wooden cubes with letters on the table in the office. Text LEADS. Financial concept.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software puts clients at the center of every business. With CRM, your business can perform a number of critical functions: leverage the cloud, collect and analyze data in real-time, modify your sales process, and allow entire departments to collaborate across devices or channels. CRMs ensure you keep in touch with prospects, leads, and existing clients. In fact, CRM can even assist you in closing deals with investors.

So how do you use CRM software to follow up with potential investors? CRM technology can redefine your follow up system, keep detailed notes on leads, schedule better follow up times, segment and sort leads, and create content for higher sales conversion.

CRM for Investor Management

In a fast-paced market where the competition for capital investments and client retention is fierce, every touchpoint with a potential investor is critical in building credibility, trust, and rapport. Firms that can provide better client service and outreach can protect their funds even during economic downturns. Proactive managers now have additional responsibilities in cultivating investor relationships, enhancing marketing reputation, and building investor trust through transparent practices.

One way to gain a competitive edge in this industry is to employ communication tools and marketing tactics. Financial professionals can be more empowered through technology that improves their understanding of what investors and buyers are looking for.

Forward-thinking fund managers implement CRM applications to manage prospects and clients more effectively. CRM can deliver on-demand access to the critical data investors want to see. CRM enables fund managers to communicate the right messages to their target audience at the right time, thanks to the rich client profiles at their fingertips.

What Is CRM?

A CRM solution manages all company relationships with customers and potential customers. Its goal is simply to improve business relationships by staying connected to customers and streamlining tedious processes.

CRM systems begin by collecting contact information about your customer across multiple sources and channels automatically. A CRM tool will organize this information and give you a complete record of your customer. More advanced CRM platforms can connect to other business apps, create analytical reports, monitor a sales team’s progress, track leads, and create reminders.

CRM vendors now offer specific solutions that support hedge funds which include features such as:

  • Mass email capabilities
  • Sales process and pipeline management
  • Sales forecasting and analysis
  • Extranet or investor portal
  • App integration

CRM VS CMS: Which Is Better For Winning Leads

Customer relationship management (CRM) programs are frequently confused with contact management systems (CMS). These two tools are similar to each other because they can both serve as your contact database for leads.

A CMS is an elaborate digital phonebook that lets you save and find names, numbers, and email addresses quickly. A true CMS system can add other specific fields such as job titles, company addresses, URLs, and other notes. It would have enhanced searching and grouping features, plus added layers for security and permission. Common CMS functions are:

  • Contact search functionality
  • Customizable tags, groups, and fields
  • Phone and email integration
  • Connective functionality to external accounts or social networks

The Difference Between CRM and CMS

A good contact manager or CMS is easy to use and can serve the basic needs of professionals who meet new people regularly. Instead of compiling contacts from business cards, handwritten notes, or LinkedIn connections, a CMS can tie all of those together.

CMS software organizes contact details for businesses that don’t need to track all of the contacts through their sales funnel and post-purchase. A CMS is a basic tool that creates accessible and reliable information about customers for marketing operations, service delivery, or sales cycle productivity.

On the other hand, CRM is a comprehensive solution for managing customer interactions. It’s best for companies whose communications are constantly progressing. CRM systems put an emphasis on relationships with customers, allowing sales teams and marketers to keep track and follow up on client interactions.

If your company wants to make sales, CRM is the one-stop-shop you need. Compared to CRM, CMS systems are limited. CRM provides you with a fuller picture of your leads and allows you to send emails, generate reports, manage your sales process, and other functions. CMS can store information about your clients, but CRM will guide you on how to act on that information and make better decisions.

How CRM Can Help Follow Up With Investment Leads

It’s difficult to find and nurture quality leads. Studies tell us that 80% of sales require five follow up calls after an initial meeting, but 44% of sales reps give up after one follow up. Even the best sales teams would have trouble on lead follow-ups. If your sales team is having a hard time closing sales because they can’t follow up with potential investors, it may be time for your business to use a CRM. Here are five ways to maximize CRM functionalities to follow up with ease:

1) Create your own follow up process.

Once you have established contact with your prospective investors, you can immediately add them to your CRM database. The issue with many leads is timing. If your potential investor isn’t interested in talking to you yet, don’t forego any future opportunities with them by discarding their contact information. Organize a follow up process on your CRM where you can be reminded to reach out to a lead through email or phone call every once in a while.

2) Store detailed notes on leads.

Not all your potential investors will be familiar with how financial certifications or processes work. This means you need to impress potential clients by recalling important details about them to make each interaction memorable. Paying attention to past conversations with these leads can help you find more opportunities the next time you follow up.

Instead of struggling to remember what happened with each client, keep your information on a CRM for easy review. With personalized service and an up-to-date data stream, your sales reps would have an easier time building trust with investors.

3) Schedule the best follow up times.

Break the habit of squeezing in a follow up with a lead while you’re in between appointments. Use a CRM to plan and schedule meetings at a more appropriate time, then make it a point to reserve a few minutes in the day to do a follow up call. Some investors have their own time preferences which you can record in your customer relationship calendar. They would probably appreciate your thoughtfulness and attention to these details. You can even use a customer relationship management to schedule notifications that alert you on important dates in your follow up system.

4) Waste less time on dead leads.

The time you spend on each follow up is valuable, but not every prospect is the right fit for you. To save yourself more time, data stored in a CRM platform can assist you in creating a robust profile of your ideal candidates. Analytic functions can show you insights on what makes leads more likely to become sales or how to retain clients and investors.

CRM lead qualification will also make it easier to identify and exclude wrong prospects and dead leads quickly. Your sales process will benefit from the reduced number of leads clogging up unprofitable stages in your pipeline. Overall, lead alignment will save your sales representatives crucial resources and reduce frustrating experiences that cause burnout.

Helpful CRM Features To Look Out For

CRM systems are built to assist companies in automating their customer-facing processes, improve internal communication, and boost success in sales. When looking for a suitable CRM platform for your organization to use, keep the following features in mind:

  • Document management system: A well-utilized and integrated CRM software should offer secure storage for sensitive customer information. You can manage and backup data from different sources, share valuable documents with one another, and keep close track of who accessed data.
  • Sales leads and opportunity management: If you’re a business focusing on investments, your sales teams are probably using an opportunity pipeline to organize your sales. A good CRM platform can automate, organize, and display opportunities inside a sales pipeline so your sales team can focus on your most promising opportunities and achieve your sales goals.
  • Scalability: Maybe you’re expecting to grow your business but cannot say for sure how fast you will expand. Your CRM system should be customizable and flexible enough to scale with your firm so you don’t have to worry about outgrowing your relationship management tool.
  • Analytics: A superior CRM platform should allow users to easily capture, analyze, and retrieve relevant client information. Decision-making analytics can help your business make sense of customer data to deliver better service or smarter advice. Insights from your CRM can inform your strategies and build strong client loyalty.

Best Practices For Investor Lead Management

Some leads are ready to invest right away, but most still need time to research and gather information before they decide. Regardless of their intentions, there should be a follow up with every lead after your initial contact with them. Here are some tips to help you reach out to potential clients and nudge them down your sales pipeline:

  • Don’t give up on unresponsive investors: Some qualified leads submit their data on multiple sites but never return calls or emails. While we’ll never know why they don’t respond, it still pays to contact every lead. You’ll never know which prospects are more likely to be responsive, so do your best to stay in touch with them and cultivate a relationship.
  • Continue to follow up: Don’t think your leads will be annoyed by your persistence. They probably won’t even notice how many times you tried to follow up. Develop a follow up system that would schedule the next time you should try contacting your lead again.
  • Ask for help from the investor’s assistant: It should go without saying that you should treat your prospects’ assistants with a lot of respect. However, you can also be a little more friendly and ask for help when you need it. Assistants can nudge the investor or even slot you in for a quick meeting if you’re having trouble.
  • Create urgency: Investors are likely to make you their top priority if your situation is urgent. For example, they would get back to you immediately if you say you’re trying to get in touch because the deal is closing tomorrow. Just make sure the urgency you create is real to maintain your credibility.
  • Look at multiple communication channels: Don’t limit yourself to phone calls or emails when there are multiple platforms you can connect with investors on. You may be able to follow up with them faster if you use LinkedIn, Facebook, or other social media sites.

Manage Your Leads With Commence

If you’re looking for a CRM software that can help you manage your leads and close sales, Commence Cloud CRM is the best solution for you. Capture leads from various sources then qualify them using Commence’s lead rating and scoring system. Manage your follow up system and modify your sales process to increase your revenue. Use the award-winning Commence software today.

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