Advice on choosing a CRM system for a small magazine publisher
I need to investigate the options for establishing a CRM system for a small magazine publisher.
Ultimately its primary function would be storing the information of, and subsequently communicating better with, subscribers, as well as advertisers, forum users, content providers, event purchers etc.
Could anyone give me some useful, tangible advice on where to start - or even better some examples of systems other magazines/publishers use?
I have read the articles on starting up on this site but I don't really want to bite the bullet and contact any providers yet as
1. they have no budget allocated for this at present and I would need to explore the off the shelf options first I guess (if not just to go through the process of eliminating them)
2. I need to work out my parameters/objectives more clearly before being 'sold' a solution when I am not yet sure what the 'solution' is!
Any help would be gratefully received.... Thanks!
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CRM System
Hi Louise
I am not in publishing so can't help you directly with a solution and not in sales either. You may have already done this, but having recently taken position of a CRM system that was 2 years in the development and now not fit for real purpose there are some simple points that might be of use.
Brain storm all the things you want to be able to do - don't think in terms of systems but actual activities e.g. see customer history, track customer spend, produce automated reports. The list needs to be really long (if you have other colleagues, then get them to do the same task but independently from you) and no matter how low level you think something is, just put it down on the page. Leave these pages for a day or 2 and keep adding to them as you think of more and more things. Think about the customer experiences you have when you go to the coffee shop or dinner or the movies and how some of these things might relate to your business. You see we no longer compare customer service/experience within an industry but across industries, so it is useful sometimes to think about what you bank is doing (the good and the bad) and how that might apply to your business.
With communication these days there is a lot of emphasis on the social networking sites, email, mobile phones, so think about all the possible communication channels you might use because your solution has to fit to them.
Go back to your original brainstorms - separate the list into priorities - high medium low are the usual and my simple way of doing this is to have pound signs - 3pound signs for high, 2 for medium and 1 for low. The idea here is to identify which of your needs is likely to have the biggest financial contribution to your business. BUT do not discard the lows, because many of these features, which maybe nice to have can actually make a big difference to the person using the solution. I then use this list to cross reference to possible solutions AND I also use it as a possible means of identifying things that I might not have thought of.
One critical thing that I see is most businesses really don't understand the upheaval of implementation and the training and change that this often takes.
Secondly, post implementation costs - operating the system, licenses, maintenance, upgrades, enhancements - all of these things can add up to much more than the original investment (because this is where many companies make their revenue).
Thirdly - be realistic yourself about whether you need a full orchestra playing, a brass band or a simple duet- many people do get sucked into going for the full orchestra when actually they need the simple 4 piece string quartet.
Not sure this is what you are looking for - but for me, this helps me when I have salesmen and IT trying to blind me with technnology. Good luck regards B