I don't want to make this sound like a scene out of Glengarry, but as a early stage how do you manage your high quality leads?
(I've got about 40,000 leads that I pulled together. There's a good blog post in this story if I get the time).
At the moment, I have a excel document with lots of fields and contact information, and I essentially work my way through it individually emailing each recipient.
Each converted lead is worth upwards of several hundred (to a few thousand $ per year)... so it totally makes sense to research each customer correctly and spend the time to approach them with a highly customised email about why our product is a great fit for them.
The problem I have is keeping track of where I am and who I have already emailed. Once you start getting one hundred names down the list, and then you start having an open discussion with a few dozen customers, it becomes a minefield to remember each conversation chain you are having.
Do you use CRMs for this and handle the emailing through the CRM, or do you use a sales pipeline management tool?
What are your thoughts (and possible experiences with existing CRMs)?
(I've got about 40,000 leads that I pulled together. There's a good blog post in this story if I get the time).
At the moment, I have a excel document with lots of fields and contact information, and I essentially work my way through it individually emailing each recipient.
Each converted lead is worth upwards of several hundred (to a few thousand $ per year)... so it totally makes sense to research each customer correctly and spend the time to approach them with a highly customised email about why our product is a great fit for them.
The problem I have is keeping track of where I am and who I have already emailed. Once you start getting one hundred names down the list, and then you start having an open discussion with a few dozen customers, it becomes a minefield to remember each conversation chain you are having.
Do you use CRMs for this and handle the emailing through the CRM, or do you use a sales pipeline management tool?
What are your thoughts (and possible experiences with existing CRMs)?