Introduction to SharpSpring
SharpSpring, now also known as Constant Contact Lead Gen CRM, is a comprehensive and dynamic marketing automation platform designed to streamline and enhance the sales and marketing efforts of businesses. This all-in-one growth platform integrates a suite of tools for managing marketing, sales, and customer relationships, making it an invaluable asset for businesses of all sizes.
Key Features and Functionality
Marketing Automation
SharpSpring boasts robust marketing automation capabilities that streamline complex marketing tasks. This includes automated email campaigns, lead nurturing, and sales follow-ups, all of which can be set up and managed through an intuitive interface.
CRM
SharpSpring comes with a built-in CRM that integrates seamlessly with sales and marketing efforts. Unlike many other marketing automation platforms, SharpSpring’s CRM is easy to use, allows for unlimited users and contacts, and can integrate with other CRMs like Salesforce.
Email Marketing
The platform offers advanced email marketing features, including a drag-and-drop email designer, dynamic email content, and a library of responsive templates. It also provides detailed analytics and after-the-click behavioral-based email tracking, giving businesses a complete view of email engagement.
Contact and Opportunity Management
SharpSpring’s contact management feature allows businesses to collect and consolidate consumer data from various sources. The opportunity management feature enables users to add leads to the sales funnel, track their progress, and automate the customer journey through the sales process. The “Life of the Lead” feature provides a timeline of significant events for each contact, helping sales teams understand the buyer’s journey and identify pain points and opportunities.
Forms and Landing Pages
The platform includes a dynamic form builder with a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG framework, making it easy to create responsive web forms that integrate directly with the CRM. Additionally, SharpSpring offers a point-and-click editor for creating custom landing pages with dynamic content that personalizes the visitor experience based on their characteristics and past behaviors.
Social Media Integration
SharpSpring allows businesses to manage social media campaigns directly from the CRM, including sending and managing posts across various social media platforms. It also collects and links customer data from social media interactions in real-time.
ROI Tracking and Analytics
SharpSpring features robust ROI tracking capabilities, enabling businesses to measure the effectiveness of individual campaigns or marketing channels. It tracks leads from landing pages, UTM codes, or referring websites and attributes sales numbers to the associated campaigns, providing complete ROI monitoring.
Visitor ID and Lead Scoring
The Visitor ID feature identifies anonymous web visitors based on their IP addresses and integrates with Zoom Info to provide contact information. The lead scoring system assigns scores to contacts based on their engagement, page tracking, and interactions with content, and it includes a decay tool to adjust scores for inactive prospects.
Automation and Workflow
SharpSpring’s automation features are highly intuitive, allowing users to create visual workflows that track and automate activities such as opportunity tracking and assessment. This automation simplifies the process of identifying, monitoring, and converting leads into loyal customers.
Dynamic Content and Personalization
The platform enables businesses to create dynamic website content and personalized emails based on visitor characteristics and behaviors. This personalization enhances lead nurturing and improves the overall customer experience.
Sales Dashboards and Reporting
SharpSpring provides central views for pipeline management, activity tracking, and follow-ups through its sales dashboards. The CRM reporting feature allows for detailed queries and insights into sales performance and customer interactions.
Ease of Use and Setup
While the initial setup of SharpSpring can be somewhat cumbersome, the platform offers a guided tour and demo version to help new users get started. Once set up, the interface is user-friendly, with many tasks being quick to perform due to the availability of templates and an intuitive workflow setup process.
Conclusion
In summary, SharpSpring is a powerful marketing automation and CRM platform that offers a wide range of features designed to drive more leads, convert them into sales, and enhance overall business efficiency. Its integration of sales and marketing efforts, robust automation, and detailed analytics make it a valuable tool for businesses aiming to streamline their operations and improve ROI.