CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is all about a system (the technology) and process you can use to gain better understanding of your customers and prospective customers and serve them better - just like Amazon.com does.
There’s several CRM solutions on the market and several ways to implement CRM.
Formstack, an awesome company for all things related to forms (and so much more), wrote a blog post about how to have CRM that was not as expensive as Hubspot, but just as (or even more) effective.
So this brings me to the 3 ways to implement effective and value priced CRM in your business.
ONE: Infusionsoft, my employer, is the leading CRM solution dedicated and focused on small businesses. From $200 - $400 a month, it’s all in one, online solution, is the gold standard for CRM (yeah - I’m biased, just a wee bit 
)
TWO: Formstack’s blog post is a treasure trove of integrated solutions (from The Small Business Web) helping you save money and use best of breed solutions to have CRM in your business.
THREE: Maybe a full CRM system is not for you, use the principles of Lifecycle Marketing (8 steps) in your business today. These 8 steps include:
- Identify your target customer
- Attract traffic
- Capture contact information
- Nurture your prospects
- Convert to sales
- Deliver and delight (customer service)
- Upsell
- Ask for referrals
Formstack provided us with some additional options to implement lean and effective marketing. They include:
1. Build out the process before buying. Be aware of the general workflow at your small business before researching software solutions. Identify which channels you want to use for customer engagement and find apps to meet those needs. (Ex: lead generation - contact form + CRM)
2. Find software that scales. It’s important to identify software that is robust enough to grow with your company. Bare bones software might be cheaper, but it won’t be as helpful in the long run.
3. Find software that integrates. Automated marketing is unobtainable without software that integrates with each other. When small businesses manually enter data into their web apps, there is an unnecessary drop in productivity. Save time and increase efficiency with integration.
4. Build on your apps as you build out your marketing team. Always continue to research integrated software solutions as your marketing needs grow. The value of scalable software is that it can easily be integrated with new apps or further developed to meet new marketing processes
So there you have three CRM solutions, pick the one that’s right for YOUR business.
CRM is an INVESTMENT In your business - which means you SPEND money TODAY to get MORE money back in the future.
