CRM for the Holidays
The fourth quarter of 2018 has begun. It’s time to keep up (or turn up!) the pressure to finish the year strong. Fourth quarter 2018 is also critical to 2019: What you do over the next three months sets you up for how you’ll start the New Year.
Fourth quarter also includes the holidays, which can be a major distraction or a major boon to your sales and marketing – to ensure the latter, now is the time to add details to your 4 th quarter plans:
Tips for Your Fourth Quarter
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How do the holidays affect your customers? If you are targeting businesses, are your key sales contacts likely to be gone during Thanksgiving, Hanukkah or Christmas? If you are targeting individuals, are they likely to be making purchases on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or the day after Christmas? Perhaps Halloween presents a marketing opportunity?
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Make sure you hone in on key dates – Thanksgiving is early this year, on November 22, so Black Friday is coming sooner than you think! Hanukkah is also early, starting on December 2, so if you are mailing holiday greetings, be sure they are in the mail by Monday, November 26 latest – which is also Cyber Monday.
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Many business-to-business companies should really use Friday, December 14 as a year-end sales-closing target. After that, you start to lose people to company parties, school holidays, and travel plans. Plan to meet your quarterly and year-end goals by December 14 and anything that comes in after that is gravy!
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If you have physical products, it’s time to check your inventory. Do you have particular items that really need to be moved before year end? If so, consider a flash sale or buy-one-get-one offer – but don’t wait too long or you’ll miss the holiday-buying window.
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Get your marketing plans in order. Segment your audience and send the right offers to the right people at the right time. Lay out all email campaigns on one calendar and note any overlaps. How can you adjust to avoid driving opt-outs instead of sales?
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Time for database clean up! Scrub your database – check all your bounces and “bad” phone numbers and correct slight but obvious errors (@gmai.com, misspelled last name or company name, or a one-digit-off area code). Remove inactive contacts that haven’t opened any of your email or responded to any calls lately (the time frame will vary depending on your typical purchase frequency). Data cleansing is a time-consuming but extremely important task – it’s worth hiring temporary help if you can’t dedicate staff resources.
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Plan for system updates and maintenance. Make sure your tech marketing staffs are in synch – if there are big Black Friday plans, you certainly don’t want major system maintenance happening over Thanksgiving weekend!
Take advantage of your CRM’s built-in capabilities for segmentation, identifying data accuracy, and planning marketing activities. Drive your salespeople to appropriate close dates and automate their contact list assignments. Track inventory and avoid over-selling – and under-selling – your products.
At AspenTech CRM, we’ve helped hundreds of companies meet their goals by automating customer relationship management tasks. Get in touch today (either call 866-880-4228 or click here) and let’s make sure you end the year on top!
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