As people favor self-sufficiency, CRM solutions become increasingly important. Instead of reaching out to companies when they want to learn about products and services, consumers now jump online and perform plenty of research themselves. Marketing Profs shared findings from the CEB Marketing Research Council that said B2B buyers are usually 57 percent through their sales journey before they contact a supplier. This means each potential customer’s mind is more than half made up before company representatives get a chance to present them with information.

The new self-sufficient landscape encourages sales departments to become more organized and employ inbound marketing techniques. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online offers a variety of sales and marketing features to give businesses of any size the ability to locate, nurture and convert leads to opportunities.

Opportunity generation
A proactive sales agent still has to go looking for opportunities. Once a business locates a potential target customer group, it must do everything in its power to make a good first impression. Marketing Donut suggested creating intricate profiles for potential target customers. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online allows users to create company profiles and update the info as more information is discovered.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online used with eMarketing tools like ClickDimensions, can also help organizations locate sources for opportunities. The software can be used to monitor online audience engagements with business websites and other Internet content. Dynamics CRM and  Microsoft Social Engagement can also be utilized to search public postings for brand mentions or consumer questions on Facebook, LinkedIn and other popular platforms.

Audience segmentation
The data recorded by Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online allows sales agents to make more personalized appeals. When a company wants to initiate engagement with a lead, Dynamics CRM Online users can create personalized sales messaging with their preferred computing device.

Sales agents can pull up popular templates and fill in information unique to each lead, so they can take advantage of standardized brand messaging and individualized appeals. The CRM solution can also record reaction to initial approaches to see what proved effective and which steps should be taken next.

The automated marketing capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online provides a platform for consistent interactions with segmented audiences. Sales and marketing teams can program campaigns to target consumers based on price range, industry or phase in the buying journey. Automated procedures remove backoffice duties from sales agents so they can focus on more important conversion tasks.

Lead nurturing
Once contact is made with a lead, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online users can update the profile to indicate data collected from the engagement. If the lead showed no interest, a consistent record of failed approaches shows future sales agents what to avoid. If the potential consumer requests more information or schedules a sit-down, the sales agent can change the status of the lead and convert it to an opportunity.

Many sales journeys go from leads to opportunities to orders, but every company is different. The CRM Book described how Dynamics CRM allows businesses to create unique stages in the sales cycles. Each user knows the exact details the organization finds important and what goals the business has for individual leads.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online not only provides a platform for lead communication, but automatic alerts inform sales agents when it’s time to make contact again. Employees don’t have to wait for opportunities, leads or customers to speak up, the business can provide the answers self-sufficient audiences look for.