CRM & Estimating for Agencies

As the name suggests, an agency CRM is a CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) software that is specifically designed for marketing agencies.

A CRM software essentially allows its user to manage all of their clients within a single app, allowing them to easily track each customer’s journey from when they start becoming aware of your brand until they made their purchase and manage the agency’s relationships with existing and prospective customers.

The CRM tool may also help an agency to find new customers, convince them to convert, and provide customer support to nurture relationships.

Some of the key features offered by an agency CRM tool are:

Store existing customers’ and prospects’ contact information
Record and track service issues
Monitor and manage marketing campaigns
Identify sales opportunities (leads)

And other features, all in one central location.

In short, an agency CRM provides a better way to manage the relationships and external interactions that drive success and growth.

Investing in the right CRM solution can benefit your digital marketing or creative agency in many different ways, including but not limited to:

– Increased revenue. A good agency CRM will help you streamline your sales process to make it as easy as possible for prospects to convert. In turn, this will increase conversions and sales.
– Improved retention: Retaining existing customers is just as, if not even more important, than acquiring new ones. Your agency CRM software will be critical in delivering more optimal customer support and providing better experience to maximize retention.
– Better customer service. One of the core objectives of any CRM solution is to improve relationships between a business and its customers. A good creative agency CRM solution should be an accessible central hub for important customer information that can be easily accessed by anyone in your company who needs it. This facilitates your employees to provide better customer experience across all fronts, which ultimately results in improved customer satisfaction.
– Improved efficiency and productivity. A good marketing agency CRM won’t only benefit your customers but also streamlines your day-to-day operations and automates menial tasks to free up your employees’ time. In the long run, all these will result in improved efficiency and productivity of your whole team.

The first thing you’ll need to do is to identify your needs.

No two businesses are exactly the same: what your agency needs in a CRM may be completely different from other companies.

With an agency being a complex business with a lot of peculiarities to consider, typically going with the one-size-fits-all approach isn’t going to be optimal.

Here are the key questions to ask that can help you pick the right agency CRM system based on your specific needs:

– How efficient/productive is your team at the moment? If you feel that efficiency is still lacking, then you’d want a CRM solution that offers the most extensive automation functionalities.
– Do I need to improve lead generation? You may want to get a CRM solution that offers more lead generation features.
– Do I need better access to contact information? Choose an agency CRM solution that offers a more extensive, ideally 360-degree contact view
– Do you have any difficulty converting leads? If so, seek an agency CRM with built-in lead scoring and robust sales reporting functionality.

Of course, this is a non-exhaustive list, and you should continuously try to identify your current business needs and update your requirements for an ideal CRM solution as you go.

The best digital marketing agency CRM solution is one that can also grow with you, like FunctionPoint, which is constantly updated to meet the growing customers’ demands.

Here are some unique benefits offered by FunctionPoint CRM for marketing and creative agencies:

– Robust time-tracking features like the ability to configure billability (utilization vs. realization) so employers accurately differentiate between billable and non-billable hours.
– Powerful and versatile expense tracking and cost-calculator features for a streamlined invoicing process.
– View staff workload in real-time. Improved accountability would ultimately result in improved productivity.
– Comprehensive time tracking features for managing remote workers, like the ability to accurately track billable and non-billable hours. Excellent for managing remote team members.

Different CRM solutions may offer vastly different sets of features, but here are some of the core features offered by most agency CRM software:

– Contact management
– Email marketing management and automation
– Analytics, visual dashboard, reporting
– Sales automation
– Marketing features
– Sales pipeline visualization
– Team collaboration features
– Resource management