What is a contact management strategy? How can it help contractors?
It’s not enough to simply store your client information on a CRM. In order to get the most out of that data, you need a contact management strategy. A contact management strategy is a plan to communicate with your contacts in an informed way to help you meet marketing goals like transforming prospective clients into customers and improve customer experience.
Your contact management strategy should include:
• Understanding your contacts
• Maintaining your database
• Establishing calls to action
Understanding your contracting contacts
The foundation of a contact management strategy is defining who your contacts are and the best way to communicate with them, in a way that fits your business. This is why it's extremely important to find a customizable CRM that works for you so it can be changed to reflect your business practices and definitions. Followup CRM offers endless customization options for specialty contractors since we are a CRM for contractors, by contractors. Once you understand how you will enter contact information into a CRM you have set a good foundation for your contact management strategy.
Maintaining your specialty contractor database
Data is a living thing, and it goes through phases. This is often referred to as the data life cycle. There is a point where client data is no longer relevant or out of date which according to some sources could be as much as 30% out of date information after a single calendar year. Setting a plan to avoid inert data on your CRM is an important piece of a contact management strategy that will refine the information you have stored and remove the information you no longer need.
Establishing calls to action for contracting clients
After defining your contact data entry method and keeping your database updated you have the cherry on top: using what you've gathered on your CRM (every communication ever shared with a client) to inform how you can nudge prospective and current customers into taking an action to learn more and purchase a service. If you find through your contact management that many high quality contacts are responsive to an email campaign you can further invest in that marketing tool to reach more customers.
Storing your contacts' information is less like storing holiday decorations, in a forgotten dusty box in the basement, and more like planting a garden. It's important to keep it within your line of sight, so you can keep it healthy and it can continue to grow.
