Save time, save money, and grow your business with more effective CRM CRM For Dummies is the small business leader's guide to managing customer interactions. Customer relationship management is a critical part of any business, and it encompasses everything from business strategy and HR to sales, marketing, events, and more. Solutions exist for businesses of any size, but how do you know which one is right for you? What features do you need? Do you have the people and processes in place to get the most out of whichever one you choose? This book is designed to help business leaders better understand effective CRM and identify the right solution for their business—but it's about much more than software; effective CRM requires appropriate team structures, intradepartmental collaboration, and process efficiency. Packed with tactics and strategies that will save your company thousands of dollars and man-hours, these chapters answer the most pressing questions that will make the biggest impact on your sales. Building relationships with current and future customers is the critical point of business. This book helps you bring sales, marketing, and operations together to work toward that common goal, and shows you the tools and techniques that make your efforts more effective. Define your market segments, buyer personas, and voice Build an effective internal structure, and choose the right CRM solution Optimize leads and conduct effective email marketing Streamline processes, automate where possible, and employ analytics Your customers are the lifeblood of your company; you need to reach them, engage them, and retain them—without wasting precious time or money. CRM For Dummies gets you up to speed on the latest, most effective CRM tools and techniques to help your business succeed.

Discover great ways to engage your customers through the social web Social CRM is an evolving tool to help you engage your customers, interact with them, and develop deeper relationships. This handy guide teaches you how to make the most of it, whether your business is a small shop or a large corporation. In a friendly, easy-to-understand style, it explains how you can create new marketing communications and develop smart, applicable content that produces results from your online community. You'll learn to use data to drive results, create social Key Performance Indicators for different business units, and a great deal more. Today's consumer uses technology to select relationships with companies; this book teaches business owners how to use social CRM to create relationships that customers want to maintain Explains how to integrate social media into your CRM mix Shows how to use data and information gathered through social sites Helps you develop social KPIs and create content that gets results from your online community Social CRM For Dummies helps businesses large and small use social media to develop and maintain productive customer relationships.

Social CRM is already enabling innovative companies to engage customers through powerfully effective two-way dialogues, and to build customer-centric strategies that drive real value. In this book the field's leading expert offers a proven, four-step methodology for making Social CRM work in any organization: B2B, B2C, or B2B2C. Writing for both decision-makers and implementers, Barton Goldenberg shows how to integrate people, process and technology to optimize relationships with every customer, achieve seamless collaboration across customer-facing functions, and make the most of today's leading social platforms. Goldenberg shows how to: Systematically harvest information from Social Media conversations and communities: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and beyond Integrate this information into expanded customer profiles Use these profiles to personalize your customer service, marketing messages, and sales offers far more effectively Goldenberg assesses the changing impact of social media on customer relationships, identifies smarter ways to profitably integrate it throughout your business, guides you through Social CRM planning and implementation, and examines key challenges and opportunities in leveraging Social CRM after you've deployed it. You'll find practical advice on issues ranging from strategy to software selection, vendor negotiation to team development and day-to-day operations. Goldenberg concludes by previewing the future of Social CRM - and the fast-changing customer tomorrow's systems must serve.

Social media has received considerable attention, and many potential benefits, as well as concerns, are now being discussed. This book explores how social media can successfully support business processes in marketing, sales and service in the context of customer relationship management (CRM). It presents the fundamentals of Social CRM and shows how small and large companies alike have implemented it. In turn, the book presents analytic and operational software tools that offer features for enhancing and streamlining interactions with customers. The book concludes with an overview of essential design areas that businesses need to bear in mind when introducing social media into their CRM strategies. In this regard, it also points out key success factors, limitations, and data protection aspects.

"The social customer is your NEW customer. And if you don’t recognize it, they will be someone else’s new customer. Adam Metz presents a clear, concise game plan for attracting them, connecting with them, and keeping them. Don’t just buy this book: invest in the content. Actually, invest time to implement the content." —JEFFREY GITOMER, author of The Little Red Book of Selling and Social BOOM! "This book connects two key dots in the customer equation: knowing why your customers uniquely do business with you and taking actions that cause them to repeat that choice more frequently." — RICH BLAKEMAN, sales vice president, Miller Heiman, from the Afterword "I’ve seen the future of marketing and it delivers in less than 300 pages. Adam Metz’s The Social Customer makes a compelling case for revolutionizing your thinking about how you connect and build a relationship with your customer in a fashion that shrinks your marketing team and amplifi es the love the world feels for you and your product. Not easy stuff, and, done the wrong way, it’s dangerous." — CHIP CONLEY, founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and author of PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow About the Book IF you look at the people who follow your company via social media simply as "social media users," you’re missing a much bigger picture. They are, above all, your customers—and as such, they have a multitude of needs. But without the right social media strategy, they might not remain your customers for long. Adam Metz is prized by clients and online fans for his understanding of what makes both companies and their customers click—and how social media can get them in sync and drive revenue. In The Social Customer, he teaches you all you’ll need to know to transform your business—not just on the Web but across the board. Even if Facebook and Twitter were to disappear tomorrow, these are the fundamentals that will always apply—whatever the technology and whatever the social media. You’ll learn: How to transform your brand into a coveted "Social Object" Where your brand currently stands with your social customers—and how to mobilize your customers to get the word out The "The Ten Commandments of Social Customer Relationship Management" How to harness the power of collaboration How to delight your customers and win loyalty through individualized Treatment What terms like "Social Marketing" and "Social Sales Insights" really mean—and why they can be vital to business success Metz also includes anecdotes, case studies, and outside-the-box inspiration from branding innovators—ranging from upstart punk bands to absolute giants like Burger King and SAP—all designed to keep you thinking critically, creatively, and with the kind of flexibility that will keep your social customers engaged as your company grows.

Grow your account list with an effective account-based marketing strategy Buyers have changed the B2B marketing game. Account-Based Marketing For Dummies is here to give you the tools to transform your current approach to find, reach, and engage with your potential customers on their terms to meet their ever-changing demands. Packed with expert tips and step-by-step instructions, this book shows you how to analyze current data to identify the accounts with the biggest ROI opportunities and execute effective, account-specific techniques that get results. This practical guide takes the intimidation out of account-based marketing in today's highly digitized world. You'll be armed with the knowledge you need to increase your reach in real time, giving you greater exposure to other decision-makers and influencers within an account. You'll discover how, through a combination of marketing technology and online advertising, your messages can be displayed where and when your customers already engage online. Align your sales and marketing teams for greater success in your ABM efforts Analyze data to identify key accounts Target your messages for real-time interaction Integrate your campaign with marketing automation software If you're a member of a sales or marketing team already using a CRM tool who's looking to increase your reach, Account-Based Marketing For Dummies has you covered! "Account-Based Marketing For Dummies clears away the confusion surrounding this much-hyped topic. It offers simple, direct explanations of what account-based marketing is, why it's important, and how to do it. Any business marketing professional will benefit from a look at this book." —David Raab, Founder at Raab Associates "If you're reading this book and just getting started with ABM, welcome to the future of what b-to-b marketing can be: insight-led, technology-enabled and, above all, customer focused. Our clients are delighted with the business impact they deliver using account-based marketing, and you will be, too." —Megan Heuer, Vice President and Group Director, SiriusDecisions "Like a Hollywood agent, marketing's job is to get sales the 'audition,' not the part. Account-based marketing is the key to maximizing the number of the 'right' auditions for your sales team, and Account-Based Marketing For Dummies explains how." —Joe Chernov, VP of Marketing at InsightSquared "Ever-advancing marketing technology is enabling a new generation of sales and marketing strategies to thrive, changing the playing field for companies of all sizes. This modern wave of account-based marketing has tremendous potential to improve your business, and Sangram Vajre is an insightful and enthusiastic guide to show you how." —Scott Brinker, Author of Hacking Marketing "Account-based marketing is shifting how businesses use customer insights to capture more upmarket revenue. This book teaches a new wave of data-driven marketers how to embrace an enlightened quality-vs-quantity approach and execute a scalable ABM strategy that delivers real results." —Sean Zinsmeister, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Infer "The book may be titled '...for dummies', but ABM is proving to be a smart approach for B2B marketers charged with generating sales pipeline and acquiring and delighting customers. Use this book to help you get started and advance your account-based marketing strategies and tactics that will thrill your sales colleagues, executive team and customers alike." —Scott Vaughan, CMO, Integrate

The advent of Web 2.0 has led to a rebalancing of power between the customer and the company through the consumer's voice about the brand and referral behavior via electronic word of mouth. Customer opinions within the virtual brand communities can have a vast impact on a company’s sales and image. It is crucial for companies to promote and use customer contributions in order to enhance their brand image, retain customers, and develop their marketing strategy. Social Customer Relationship Management (Social-CRM) in the Era of Web 4.0 provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest results of empirical research on the strategic role of marketing 2.0, digital customer experience, and social customer relationship management on social networks. Covering a range of topics such as disruptive marketing, artificial intelligence, and customer behavior, this reference work is ideal for marketers, IT practitioners, CRM specialists, industry professionals, researchers, scholars, practitioners, academicians, instructors, and students.