Via the Inside CRM Blog, I found this list of of the Top 10 marketing-related frustrations. The list came from a survey conducted by Infusionsoft in the 2008 U.S. Small Business Marketing Frustration Survey. Here is the list:
- Too difficult to follow up with cold, warm and lukewarm leads consistently and efficiently
- Can’t properly track and manage prospects and customers
- Need to integrate online and offline marketing efforts
- Poor email deliverability
- Too much manual grunt work in the sales and marketing process, no automation
- Can’t track sales activity
- Lack of centralization, too many different programs and systems
- Too costly to maintain servers and IT staff
- Too difficult to manually manage multichannel campaigns
- One-dimensional marketing
I've seen a number of articles and posts commenting on how CRM software can solve these frustrations. In my experience, it's not the lack of software that causes frustration for small business owners, rather the frustration stems from the over-abundance of software and features available. Combine this "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to CRM software with the general lack of a systemized approach to marketing prior to selecting software, and it's easy to see why CRM projects can give small business owners fits.
When there is not a process in place to automate, installing a CRM product becomes overwhelming because not only do you need to learn how to use the new tool, you also need to create your marketing process(es). This tends to lead to a backwards deployment model where first we pick a cool feature of the software and then we try to figure out how to use it to market our business. Regular readers here will recognize this as the familiar problem theme of selecting tactics without first having a strategy.
Here are a few other comments I have about this list as it pertains to small businesses that I work with, particularly service based businesses.
Looking at the list above, items 1,2, and 6 , which all have to do with tracking and following up, are not problems that stem from lack of software. They can easily be handled with a Big Chief Tablet, a #2 pencil, and a consistently executed process. Software can make these jobs easier, but you need to have a process before you can automate it.
Items 3, 8, 9, and 10 sound a little bit to me like items that a software company would put on a list for people to rank. Or, they may be the frustrations of those companies at the larger end of the small business market spectrum.
#4, e-mail delivery, particularly bulk e-mail, is one area where I think small business owners should look to outside help rather than trying to do it themselves. We take sending e-mails for granted, but maintaining your lists, properly handling unsubscribe requests, and working to make sure your messages get delivered (and you are not flagged as a spammer) take more effort than you may think. Companies like iContact (and many others) have many people dedicated to making sure your messages are delivered.
#5, too much grunt work - again, I'm all for automating sales and marketing processes to remove grunt work (my 12 year career as a software developer was born out of my desire to eliminate grunt work from the auditing process), I just think it's important to have a process before you try to throw software at the problem.
#7, centralization - In my experience, when small business owners say they have too many programs and systems, what they mean is they have too many (software) tools. In my opinion, things like ACT! or Outlook with Business Contact Manager, or SalesForce.com are not systems - they are tools that you can use to automate, report on, and manage your marketing system.
I don't want to sound like I'm anti-software, far from it. I have just found that a great source of frustration comes from purchasing marketing automation tools before there is a marketing plan or processes to automate. As I mentioned in this previous post, I think the right approach is have a process first, and then pick the right tools to help you automate that processes.
