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CRM Cliffnotes

Written by Zach Gilbert

Published: 05/07/2020

Quick! What is your aunt’s phone number? What about your best friend’s back in California?

Bet you don’t know it by heart, do you? After all, why would you: your smartphone keeps all of or contacts’ information right in the palm of your hand, freeing up your brain to remember more important things (such as the fact that you’d promised your sweetie you’d binge watch Lucifer together on Netflix tonight). 

So not only do you not know their phone numbers, chances are great you also don’t know your aunt’s or your friend’s mailing address either.

Technology is to us today what secretaries were to our grandparents. Enter the CRM.

For better or for worse, we now rely on technology to remember the important “little things” in our lives: phone numbers, to-do lists, directions. And for publishers? Our subscribers and advertisers

Wait. Subscribers? Advertisers? They’re not “little things”!

No, they certainly aren’t. In fact, the main answer to the question “Why do I need a CRM?” pretty much is: so that you can keep your publishing company’s prospects’, subscribers’ and advertisers’ preferences, goals, interactions with you, their location in your sales funnel, etc. as close to you as possible, with the ability to access all of that critical information in the mere click of a keyboard key.

The most important letter in CRM: Relationship

In a nutshell, your CRM acts as a relationship builder. It’s filled with all of your contacts, whether they are an advertiser, contractor, vendor, or subscriber, who in your company has last interacted with them, how they did so (email, phone call, text, etc.) Bottom line: a CRM provides you with the “big picture” regarding how you interact with your contacts.

A CRM overview (what we like to call “CRM Cliffnotes”)

What is a CRM for publishers? MagHub!

Place all contact information into one database. Doing so allows anyone in your company (or to whomever you designate) to view customer data, making your entire company more efficient. Sales will work with prospects. HR works with employees/contractors. Finance and accounting accesses invoices and payments. And so on.

Segments those contacts into different groups so that you can serve them properly. Has someone moved from prospect to lead? Then you need to segment them with all of your other leads so that you can market to them appropriately (top of funnel, bottom of funnel, etc.)

Quantifies the different opportunities with each contact (who has the better chance of becoming a subscriber or advertiser). A robust CRM organizes your leads so that your marketing and sales team members provide them with the right information. It “scores” the leads via an automated process that helps you prioritize marketing and sales activity based on any particular lead’s actions.

Automates much of your marketing and sales efforts. No more tedious, repetitious tasks (sending out middle-of-funnel email messages manually, for example). Your marketers and salespeople instead can spend their time on more strategic tasks (creating marketing campaigns or talking with prospects who express interest).

Provides analytics regarding those efforts, helping you forecast sales and subscriptions. Another answer to “What does a CRM do?” It can make educated sales forecasts. It also keeps “old” data so that you’ll be able to create sales standards while you uncover trends and patterns. You’ll be able to see in real time how well current campaigns fare (and compare them to ones in the past).

The be-all and end-all in publishing CRMs

MagHub is a CRM created especially for publishers. It’s a CRM as well an enterprise resource planner (ERP) for publishers whether they are print-only, completely online or both. MagHub will help you run your business from sales, subscription, distribution, production, hiring, and more.

Take a deeper dive into MagHub and contact us to learn more.

Premier Guitar Case Study

Over the years, Premier Guitar has been an active user of MagHub, tuning their system with custom development projects to make the system their own. Learn about one of them today.

Never Stranded With MagHub

There loads of perks when using MagHub. Read our entertaining and quick whitepaper today to learn just a few of them!

Learn More About MagHub

Want to see MagHub in action? Or perhaps you just want more information. Whatever you you’re looking for, we’re here to help you. Click the button to request more information about MagHub, the only ERP for Media Publishers.

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