How do you manage your customer connections and information? If you’re still using the old-fashioned method like Excel spreadsheets, Google Docs, or even email. These platforms work fine, however, they offer limited features in terms of scalability, automation and customer insight.
If you want to grow your business, you must invest in a CRM. A CRM software is the one central place where you’re going to store all of the information around your leads and customers. It also lets you track sales opportunities, send marketing emails, make calls, and do dozens of other functions all in one central location.
Now there are countless CRM tools you could use but my recommendation really depends on your business. To help you make the right choice, we’ve listed the top four CRM software we consider to be the best for small businesses, so you can compare and choose which one is right for you.
What Makes a Great CRM Software?
When looking for a CRM platform for your business, the first thing you need to know is the key qualities you should consider when choosing a CRM. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Cost
Cost is a major consideration, especially for small businesses. There are platforms that start from $15 per month or where you only need to pay for the email contacts and SMS messages your business needs.
Ease of Use
Another important factor to consider is the ease of use. You’re going to be using your CRM software every single day. It will be incorporated into your daily operations, so you’ll want something that you and your team can hit the ground running with. Whether it’s your sales team, marketing team or support team, the software should be approachable for everyone using it. Plus, it shouldn’t require a specialist to set up and manage your account.
Level of Automation
A good CRM tool should make it easier for you to build automation workflows, so you can collect more leads and convert more customers. Some software even has features for measuring campaign performance through analytics, tracking sales and following up on leads.
Ontraport
Pricing: Plan starts at $79 per month with a 14-day free trial.
Ontraport is an all-in-one business and marketing automation platform. It’s one of the best CRM systems in the world for small business owners. It enables users to manage all sales, marketing and business processes in one place.
Ontraport also has done-for-you campaigns for lead capture, lead nurture, conversion, follow-up and more. All you need to do is answer a few questions and Ontraport’s Setup Wizards will create your campaign in minutes.
If you’re selling online courses, memberships and subscriptions, managing payment plans can be a hassle due to different factors such as cards that expire and people signing up or cancelling payments. With Ontraport’s built-in payments platform, it makes getting up and running with online sales faster than ever. Click here to check out this awesome tool.
ActiveCampaign
Pricing: Plan starts at $15 per month. New customers are eligible to receive 25% off 3 months.
When you want to create an incredible customer experience, ActiveCampaign is a great option for you. Whether you’re an eCommerce, digital business or B2B company, ActiveCampaign can help you make meaningful connections with your customers.
With ActiveCampaign, you can automate your welcome series and email follow-up campaigns, easily find your most engaged contacts and integrate with applications your team uses. Its drag-and-drop email designer feature makes it easier for users to set up beautiful campaigns in minutes. For more details about this software, you can click here.
Copper
Pricing: Plan starts at $29 per user, per month with a 14-day free trial.
If your business involves high-touch, high-value selling to a relatively small number of targets (say less than 200 per year), you may be better off with a CRM that is built to help manage personal relationships. So if you have chosen not to go with a solution built for scale, like Ontraport or Active Campaign, we can recommend a solution called Copper.
Copper is designed for G Suite so entrepreneurs, startups, and small-but-mighty teams can grow their businesses right from Gmail. Through seamless integration with Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Hangouts, Copper empowers you to effortlessly track leads, work deals, add tasks, and collaborate — all from your inbox. You won’t even notice you’re using a CRM. For more details about this handy tool, click here.
Klaviyo
Pricing: Only pay for the email contacts and SMS messages your business needs.
Klaviyo is one of the top-rated CRM systems for any eCommerce business. Klaviyo’s eCommerce CRM gathers all of the information about your customers and subscribers in a single view. Whether a customer subscribed, purchased, or both—Klaviyo shows you a historic timeline of their activities and personal information. Then you can use all this information to deliver a more personalised customer experience.
With Klaviyo, you can also send bulk SMS campaigns and targeted SMS messages with powerful automation. You can send welcome messages, SMS reminders and thank you messages.
When paired with a solid email marketing campaign, an SMS marketing campaign can generate more sales for your business. Klaviyo allows you to set up and schedule personalised marketing campaigns such as abandoned cart campaigns, welcome series and a post-purchase upsell campaign.
In addition, Klaviyo’s email marketing is often used alongside platforms like Shopify to help users build a holistic marketing ecosystem. If you want to check out this tool and its many features, simply click here.
Now that you’ve discovered some of the best CRM tools in the market, we hope that you can find the perfect tool for your business. Most of these tools offer a free trial so you can test and see which one works for you.
More Tools for Business Success
Are you looking for more tools to save time and improve your productivity? Check out some of the top tech tools that we love using in our business. All you need to do is click here.
