SharpSpring CRM Features
An overview of SharpSpring’s CRM features to get to know the system or to benchmark against your own CRM.
As a SharpSpring partner, we help organisations in the pharmaceutical and related sectors build awareness and generate and nurture new leads via the SharpSpring automation platform.
SharpSpring’s system makes intelligent marketing and sales follow-up possible via its software that integrates seamlessly with websites, CRM, social media and email. SharpSpring’s CRM (customer relationship manager) features will be the focus of this article. For an overview of the system’s full marketing features, see here.
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10 SHARPSPRING CRM FEATURES
SharpSpring has a range of features throughout its system - this article will run through SharpSpring’s key CRM features.
1. CONTACT DATABASE
SharpSpring’s contact database is like most basic but user-friendly CRM systems. Each contact record provides an overview of the details gathered - such as email address, company and job title - which exists next to a contact like it would within most CRM systems. Other details include campaign-level information and attribution, such as Lead Owner, Lead Category, Lead Source as well as a contacts Tags, all of which you would expect to see within automation systems. I find the "Recently Active” feature useful as it provides an overview of the recently active contacts in chronological order, showing those who have engaged with your website or emails first. What makes this CRM so useful, however, is that it brings all contact activity and data - geographic/demographic and behavioural - into one contact record out-the-box. Okay, we’re done with the basics…
2. SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILING
B2B professionals that use CRM systems - often marketing, new business and sales managers within commercial teams - are likely to want to increase their touchpoints with their leads and contacts. Social media is often the place for this as contacts are easily identifiable, where their preferences and interests are also often on display. When accessing the contact's record in SharpSpring, you can see their social interactions if they have social media icons in their profile. Social media information is automatically generated by a third party associated with SharpSpring, which is great news for us as we don’t have to do anything to gather this information. The downfall is that if a contact record does not have social media icons on their profile, then the third party service was unable to locate that person’s profile. And you can’t add social profiles yourself as social interactions with your content wouldn’t show up on the contact’s engagement history. So not all leads have social icons on their profiles but regardless this is a good feature to have.
3. LEAD SCORING
Lead scoring is the CRM metric that connects the CRM and automation system. In SharpSpring, contacts are designated a score based on engagement, page tracking, fit and completeness of information and interactions with your content, which is found on each contact that can also be used for further lists and campaigns. Scores can be personalised for each individual system. Unlike other CRM marketing platforms, SharpSpring can detect how leads naturally change over time - the Decay tool will decrease lead scores when prospects are inactive for long periods. The Lead Scoring tool also automatically identifies hot prospects in the CRM platform and is a key metric to determine whether the contact is recognised as a “lead” so that additional actions - such as notifying sales teams - can be taken. Highly useful as a signal for marketing teams to begin sales cycles with contacts.
4. LIFE OF THE LEAD
Also found on each contact record, is the Life of the Lead feature which I find highly useful: View individual buyer’s journeys, and find unique pain points and opportunities for each lead. Life of the Lead combines tracking, automation and email to display a timeline of significant events for each contact. At a glance you can understand exactly where leads come from and where they want to go… but should you also have Mail Sync in place, you can see all of the emails you have sent that contact previously (either via the SharpSpring system or via your Gmail or Outlook client). This is particularly useful for sales as they can see all of that lead’s touchpoints with your organisation at a glance, to help determine what sales should do next. Knowing what web pages a contact has visited is powerful information during a call/meeting with that contact.
5. SMART MAIL/MAIL SYNC
Email marketing is a key aspect of our marketing and sales strategies in B2B pharma – so, essentially, and as SharpSpring will put it, you need a customer relationship management system which can keep up! Smart Mail is a one-off email tool that enables you to send emails directly to leads in SharpSpring. This sales-focused tool makes it easier for your team to send templated (yet, still personal) emails - that can also be personalised and edited before the send - directly through the CRM. With Smart Mail, it takes three clicks and about ten seconds to send from the lead record, and those emails can also be scheduled. Smart Mail makes communication quick, easy and unique to each contact and is far more powerful than Outlook when it comes to sales and campaign-based emails for accountability. You just need your email account connected, and then once SharpSpring is connected to your mail client, via SharpSpring’s Mail Sync, every email sent to that lead (outside of SharpSpring) will also show up on the Life of the Lead.
6. HISTORY (LEAD MEMBERSHIPS)
Similar to Life of the Lead, the Memberships feature in the CRM allows you to quickly review all the ways you’re in contact with an individual lead. Use the Memberships tab to scan all of the campaigns, lists, opportunities, workflows, and emails with which a contact record is associated with. Where Life of the Lead provides a timeline, Memberships provides details on a campaign-level. Should I want to see how many Newsletters have been delivered to a contact, the devices used or even an engagement score for all of the emails on this tab, this is where I go. The traditional marketer might comment that this information should sit within an email marketing system, not a CRM, but if they are not combined you won’t have the full picture on that contact.
7. NOTES, REMINDERS AND NOTIFICATIONS
Social notes, reminder sand notifications make collaboration between marketing and sales teams easier. Via the SharpSpring CRM, you can speed up internal communication with avatars, “Mark as Read” tags and a clear conversation timeline. Planning and executing marketing plans and strategies this way means that the chances of closing and converting leads becomes higher. You can also quickly create a Reminder from any page in the CRM platform and attach Reminders to opportunities and contacts so that you never forget to follow up. Combine Reminders, Social Notes with Email notifications than can prompt you on such tasks, as well as other lead-related activity, then your CRM becomes a marketing system that can intelligently help you make more sales and foster better relationships.
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8. PIPELINES
Like any CRM, SharpSpring offers a range of pipeline features. SharpSpring’s bird’s eye view comprises a drag-and-drop interface to move opportunities across deal stages. Get an instant overview of each prospect’s progress through the sales cycle - something that will likely become the focal point of your new business development and commercial sales meetings. Pipeline features allow you to manage your sales funnel and make decisions with all the relevant information easily in view, where accessing each opportunity is connected to a contact in the CRM and will include all emails and information connected to the contact/account. Custom deal stages can also be created to track the progress of an opportunity from the beginning to the end of the sales cycle where number, order, name and description of each deal stage can be customised to adapt to your unique business model.
9. CRM REPORTING
CRM Reports provides information to measure your current sales (and marketing) success. View your progress and accurately forecast future performance in the CRM platform. Reports can be customised to focus on specific areas for improvement with interactive reports for Pipeline, Conversion, Activity, Projection and more. The system also allows a range of other reporting features, connected to the CRM feature, that looks to pull all of the data which you hold together into one single view of a contact, as well as for a marketing campaign. I find that the reporting is quite user-friendly, where the dashboards can be used (without the need for any design editing for presentations) when and where needed to present the reports.
10. THIRD-PARTY CRM INTEGRATIONS
SharpSpring allows for a range of integrations via Zapier. It does have a small number of out-the-box integration solutions, such as for Salesforce, Google Ads, Perfect Audience and GoToWebinar, but you will have to set up any integration yourself (or through us/SharpSpring. Luckily, Zapier makes the syncing a little easier. Sync leads, activities, opportunities, custom fields, lead scores and so more across your sales and marketing stack. Using the API and Zapier to connect to systems such as Zoho, Pipedrive, Nimble and most major marketing CRM platforms so that data can be pushed through from the CRM, and visa versa from another CRM into the SharpSpring system. We have clients that have SharpSpring configured to their own individual needs - we can explore this with you should you like to understand your third-party integration options.
SEE MORE OF SHARPSPRING’S FEATURES VIA A DEMO
For more on SharpSpring’s CRM features, visit the SharpSpring website, or get in touch with us for a demo of the system and its wider features. Schedule a demo with me (SharpSpring certified) here.