Even with your most diligent work, your team’s CRM may get messy. With things like sales updates and marketing imports, it’s easy for data to pile up, go stale, or fall through the cracks. Before you know it, you’re working out of a cluttered system that’s slowing everyone down.
Brent Tripp from The Center for Sales Strategy says many sales teams feel embarrassed by the state of their CRM. They know those duplicate contacts and outdated records aren’t helping them, but they just haven’t had time to clean things up. Here’s the thing, though: Your CRM doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to continuously clean and maintain it so it actually supports your sales and marketing goals.
In this issue of PromoPro Daily, we share Tripp’s top tips for getting your CRM back into tip-top shape.
Audit your CRM with clear goals in mind. Before diving into cleanup mode, he suggests contemplating your business goals, what data is essential to meet those goals and what information is unnecessary or outdated. You should also consider what data lives outside the CRM on sticky notes or in spreadsheets and you do things that way. It comes down to aligning your CRM with your business objectives, Tripp says.
Begin cleaning. The first step is identifying essential data fields. Every contact should have first name, last name, email address, lifecycle stage and contact owner. From there, Tripp says you should build out only what supports segmentation and reporting.
Use dropdowns, not open fields. This ensures consistency and can help simplify segmentation and reporting. Tripp recommends associating contacts with companies. This is because floating contacts — those unlinked to companies — make it impossible to track accurate engagement and opportunity stages.
Set expectations and document everything. A one-time cleanup won’t last without user behavior standards, Tripp says. Try crafting CRM usage guidelines. It’s kind of like crafting a brand style guide, but for data. These guidelines should document things like required fields for all new records, standard naming conventions and automated processes. Make the guidelines visible and refer back to them often.
Delegate CRM ownership. Cleaning your CRM shouldn’t fall on one person, Tripp says. Assign responsibility by contact owner and lifecycle stage and make it part of each user’s role to maintain their section of the CRM.
Remember that your CRM isn’t static. It’s like a living, breathing part of your business, and it needs regular attention to stay healthy. It may not be the most exciting part of your job, but it’s important to build systems and set clear ownership for cleaning and maintaining your CRM.
Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: Brent Tripp is the digital marketing coordinator for The Center for Sales Strategy.
