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Ce contexte encourageant s’accompagne néanmoins d’importants défis à relever pour les éditeurs français de logiciels, tant dans le domaine technique que d’un point de vue RH ou commercial.

C’est particulièrement vrai pour les start-ups et PME du secteur, dont la réalité diffère sensiblement de celle des grands acteurs historiques.

1. Tirer parti de la croissance actuelle face aux leaders du secteur

L’édition de logiciels connaît une croissance significative et confirmée ces dernières années, de l’ordre de 10% par an et jusqu’à 16,5 % en 2017, sous l’effet conjugué de tendances qui tirent le marché : cloud computing, mobilité, gestion de l’expérience client, Big Data et sécurité du SI en tête.²

Cette bonne nouvelle pour l’ensemble des acteurs du secteur ne doit cependant pas masquer une autre réalité, qui est l’extrême concentration de ce marché : 7% des éditeurs représentent à eux seuls 70% du CA global généré.

Dès lors, tirer le meilleur parti de ces nouvelles parts de marché à prendre est un enjeu majeur pour les start-ups et PME du secteur.

2. Se développer à l’international

Autre tendance clé du secteur : les Français passent à l’attaque et s’internationalisent ! Avec une différence considérable en fonction de la taille de l’entreprise, cependant : si les grands éditeurs comme Dassault Systèmes et Ubisoft sont résolument tournés vers l’international – avec respectivement 91 % et 92 % de leur chiffre d’affaires à l’étranger -, il n’en va pas de même pour les start-ups et PME du secteur dont 75 à 83 % du CA reste encore réalisé en France.

Cependant, plus du tiers des éditeurs de l’hexagone est déjà implanté aux États-Unis et la part croissante de chiffre d’affaires global du secteur réalisé hors de France s’explique aussi par l’émergence de start-ups tournées dès leur création vers l’international.

Les perspectives de développement considérables offertes par l’internationalisation incitent donc les PME du secteur à envisager un déploiement au-delà de nos frontières.

3. Recruter et fidéliser les meilleurs développeurs

La croissance du secteur s’accompagne de la création de nombreux emplois, notamment sur le volet R&D. La maîtrise du savoir-faire et la dimension stratégique de l’innovation sont primordiales pour les éditeurs, et les entreprises se confrontent aujourd’hui à une véritable « pénurie » de talents sur ces postes clés, qu’elles choisissent majoritairement de conserver en France.

Il s’agit donc non seulement de repérer et d’attirer les meilleurs développeurs, mais également de les fidéliser, en leur proposant des perspectives motivantes à court, moyens et long terme, notamment par le biais de la rémunération, de l’intéressement et de l’entrée au capital.

D’où la nécessité encore plus grande de développer un projet d’entreprise offrant des perspectives de développement attrayantes et sécurisantes !

4. Financer les investissements R&D

Si elle fait partie de l’ADN des éditeurs de logiciels, l’innovation reste une gageure économique pour les entreprises les plus jeunes et/ou dont le CA annuel ne dépasse pas 10 millions d’euros : elle nécessite d’investir massivement dans la R&D, non seulement lors de la phase de pré-commercialisation, mais aussi durant toute la phase d’exploitation commerciale des solutions.

Or, le financement de l’innovation reste encore majoritairement internalisé (auto financement ou endettement), ce qui impacte directement la rentabilité des éditeurs de logiciels. L’engouement des marchés pour le secteur reste en effet timide en France, malgré l’existence d’outils dédiés (FCPI, PEA PME…), et les programmes de recherche Européens semblent complexes et inaccessibles pour les PME. Les crédits d’impôts (CIR et CII) et l’accès simplifié aux marchés publics demeurent donc les mesures publiques plébiscitées par les éditeurs.

Une problématique financière que les dirigeants du secteur doivent intégrer dans leur vision stratégique en favorisant les contrats assurant un apport important de trésorerie.

5. Affiner leur modèle économique et commercial

Le secteur est également traversé depuis plusieurs années par une tendance de fond : la disparition progressive du modèle des logiciels On-Premise au profit des solutions SaaS.

87% des éditeurs de logiciels proposent désormais tout ou une partie de leur offre en mode Saas.

Depuis 2010, la part du CA global des éditeurs de logiciels issue de l’activité SaaS n’a cessé d’augmenter, atteignant 32 % en 2016. Aujourd’hui, les éditeurs de logiciels français font le choix de se concentrer sur cette activité, quelle que soit leur taille, mais c’est particulièrement vrai pour les start-ups.³

Une transformation technologique importante (adaptation et développement de services pour le web, hébergement sécurisé des solutions et des données…) qui pose aussi question sur le plan commercial : le passage du modèle sous licence perpétuelle à une logique d’abonnement à durée déterminée modifie en profondeur les modes de vente.

Cette évolution induit des process commerciaux au sein desquels le marketing prend une nouvelle place, déterminante.

Dans ce contexte, il est incontournable pour vous, dirigeant de PME du secteur, de :

- Mettre en place une organisation commerciale performante
- Piloter efficacement vos équipes commerciales, en France comme à l’international
- Identifier et prospecter efficacement vos comptes clés
- Intégrer pleinement la dimension marketing dans vos process de vente

Autant de défis qui viennent s’ajouter à vos nombreuses préoccupations stratégiques (évolutions technologiques, financement de l’innovation, recrutements, vision et développement de l’entreprise …) et qui vous semblent parfois éloignés de vos savoir-faire principaux et de votre « zone de confort ».

Raison de plus pour ne pas les négliger et pour vous faire épauler sur ces sujets, qui sont déterminants pour le succès actuel et futur de votre entreprise !

Nous sommes là pour vous y aider : c’est la vocation de KESTIO Live et l’objectif de la série d’ articles à venir, à paraître chaque semaine sur ce blog !

To find out more about the use of specialized tools, discover this webinar on optimizing the return on your commercial assets:

The company, which has been in existence for over 20 years, distributes products from other manufacturers in related ranges, and targets medical analysis laboratories and hospitals, with a sales and customer relations team of around ten people. The company is headquartered in Puteaux, with an operational unit in the Var region.

Sylvie Saurine, Director of Operations, oversees sales administration, purchasing and inventory, technical support, regulations and calls for tender. She testifies to Kestio s contribution to the use of the market-leading CRM solution Salesforce: "We installed Salesforce in 2015, but had difficulties setting it up. In the absence of advice and support really geared to our needs, and following a number of disappointments with our service providers, we turned to Kestio to get the most out of the tool."

Kestio : How did the mission start?

Sylvie Saurine: We began our collaboration with Kestio with two days of face-to-face training for our sales teams.

The aim was to put them back into the general context of the company and propose a common knowledge repository on business processes, CRM use, objectives and common interest.

Then we started regular online coaching with the Kestio teams to train Salesforce CRM project managers: sales, marketing and operations managers. This format enabled us to take into account each person's specific needs very effectively.

For example, the creation of certain fields or the importing of ERP data with additional Dataloader-type tools, and parameter upgrades. We've discovered new functionalities and uses, and optimized them very quickly. We're on a schedule of 1 to 2 sessions a month, which we take in turn as the need arises.

Kestio : Is this enough for your needs?

Sylvie Saurine: For the moment, yes.

The truth is, we appreciate the relationship of trust and the fact that we can go at our own pace, not being pressured to consume services and days. For example, there have been times when we've done a three-person session without the bill tripling as a result! It's a long-term relationship, to help us grow.

The aim of the consultants is to make us self-sufficient, and that's a real pleasure. They're also very available: one day we had an urgent import-related question, and the solution was found within a day.

Kestio : What about the video-conferencing support solution?

Sylvie Saurine: From a technical point of view, the video session works very well.

We receive a connection link that we simply activate. We can exchange information and even share documents. For us, who are spread out between the Var and the Paris region, this saves us a lot of time and is a real performance booster.

Kestio : Do the results follow?

Sylvie Saurine: We still have a lot of work to do, but we're already seeing better use of the Salesforce tool by the whole team.

In fact, regular follow-up with Kestio ensures that the CRM subject stays at the top of the pile and doesn't get diluted in the day-to-day. As a result: we're moving forward, and it's a real boost !

Thank you very much for your testimonial!

To find out more about our CRM solutions and how we can help you, click here:

Even professions that don't traditionally prospect, such as lawyers and notaries, are gradually looking for ways to attract new customers!

However, there are ways of optimizing your actions and attracting customers without (too) much effort!

To know, to like, to trust!

Being known, being appreciated and having a capital of trust- these are the three indicators that need to be in the green to conclude a sales conversation positively. So, if you want to minimize your prospecting efforts, you'll be looking first and foremost to initiate a sales approach with a target who already trusts you, who already knows you or to whom you've been recommended.

To achieve this, you need to rely on your networks, both online and offline. If your aim is to find new customers in a relatively short space of time, you might as well start with those who already like you!

8 ways to attract customers effortlessly

1. Take inventory! Take a list of all the people you are or may have been in contact with, classify them by relationship history, and identify those who could become customers. Don't forget that you may have relations in your network, even close ones (friends, sporting or cultural context...) who may never have asked themselves what you can offer them professionally, simply because this was not the context in which you met. And yet...

2. Adopt an attraction approach: this involves meeting your contact to get to know them better, make contact, warm up the relationship and share information. Be interesting before you're interested!

3. Look for connectors, those with a culture of networking. Because getting in touch with them also gives you access to their network. They're easy enough to identify: just look at how they came to you. These connectors are relationship-builders, and they love it: they work like hubs!

4. Multiply your contacts. Every time you meet someone, ask for a recommendation, 1 or 2 names that your contact can contact! If you have 10 lunches, you could end up with twenty names!

5. Get back on track with a high-impact approach, i.e. think about what you can give in exchange, and look for reciprocity. Being too self-centered is counter-productive and will undermine the bond of trust.

6. Set yourself a few benchmarks, not in terms of results, but in terms of means. For example, time spent per week, number of contacts, lunches...

7. Prepare the ingredients for success! Know how to pitch your products or services, prepare a brochure, a website or at least a business card. Be prepared!

8. Adopt a logic of follow-up: even if it doesn't work from a commercial point of view, maintain the relationship of trust.

Online: volume with less effort

With digital technology, the relationship between effort and efficiency is changing dimension: social networks, and in particular LinkedIn (see our article "4 tips for increasing sales through social selling").), make it possible to reproduce your actions ad infinitum and at no additional cost. In the real world, you can do 200, 220 lunches a year at best. With digital, there's no limit.

With the help of a well-turned post offering interesting content, you can reach your entire level 1 or even level 2, for a rapid impact on 500 to 2,000 people. ! Of course, this won't be as engaging as a lunch, but repetition will help you increase your "to know", "to like" and finally "to trust" indicators.

As you can see, attracting customers effortlessly may not be possible, but if you do it the right way, you can do it cost-effectively!

The advent of new technologies has enabled business to evolve in many areas, not least in communication and prospecting. To optimize your business, it's essential to integrate these new prospecting methods into your strategy. Find out how with this webinar:

In other words: I can easily represent my company and my offer to myself, and so can my prospects! It's possible, but it's not certain: so I'd better make sure I'm visible and not just believe it.

There are 6 key points to follow.

1- Plan, anticipate, foresee

Making myself visible to my customers requires strategic thinking, so I can imagine what will be most effective, allocate resources and organize. You don't just have to put up with it, you have to steer every action.

To answer the questions asked during this phase, I need to know my prospects well, and in particular where they are, how they get their information, and what kind of information they need.

2- Acting online and offline

To make myself effectively visible to my prospects, I choose online and offline actions. As far as digital is concerned, I'll need to identify the sites visited, the main types of search, the variables according to age, social networks, the existence of blogs and influencers (particularly in BtoC markets)...

In the physical world, I identify events such as trade shows, conferences, traditional media, professional networks, etc.

The rest is a combination of the options available and the most suitable for being visible. In reality, there are no absolute right or wrong choices: what counts is aligning your actions with your strategy and your marketing and sales plan: taking part in a trade show or round table, hosting a conference, being active and interacting on sites visited by prospects, producing articles...

3- Adapt my speech

The perception of what I say varies according to the medium. For example, I won't communicate the same thing or in the same way if I'm hosting a conference or posting content on Instagram.

So I have to adapt my message. But be careful: adapting doesn't mean changing, i.e. the editorial and identity markers must remain present. Adapting my message also means positioning the volume cursor in the right place, in other words, ensuring that the message is sufficiently audible (quantity and quality of messages).

4- Consistent actions to increase their weight

Let's imagine a trade show in November, with a stand and a presentation on a subject of interest to target prospects. To increase impact and visibility, I plan an action before the show on available media to prepare the ground. But I also work during and after the event to develop brand awareness.

In this way, I benefit from the online/offline leverage effect: a web surfer may want to come and see the stand at the show for a real exchange, or a prospect who has attended the conference may want to make contact afterwards via the website.

5- Don't forget the classic supports

The digitalization of the economy tends to make us forget about traditional media. However, they remain highly effective if they are integrated into an overall strategy: local or trade press, posters, flyers... are media that need to be used tactically.

In the case of the trade show mentioned in the previous point, I could, for example, arrange for articles on the subject before and after the event, or an advertising insert in a trade publication...

6- Temporality

Develop my visibility and a regular, strategic and tactical action that, theoretically, never stops.

Firstly, because there are always new prospects to whom I need to make myself known, and secondly, so as not to leave the field wide open to competitors.

Ce qui va me permettre d’être véritablement visible par les prospects, c’est donc la rémanence, la persistance, c’est la répétition. Pour Fabien Comtet, CEO chez Kestio, « la maison n’est jamais rangée définitivement, autrement dit : il faut prévoir d’être toujours actif pour être efficace ».

In the end, deployment over time ensures that your brand is remembered, and that you're one of the service providers who can't be ignored. So, if a prospect attends such and such a trade show, reads such and such a magazine and visits such and such a website, I have to be on all three media, regularly, because the point is not only to be visible, but to be visible for the long term.

To develop your company's communication tools, think Webinar! Webinars are a great way to showcase your company's activities. However, there are a few rules to follow: in this webinar, you'll learn how to organize a webinar that will generate more participants and leads.

Some questions...

Is it the customer who brings in the most revenue, or the one with the most potential?

Is this the profile you address most often, or a segment of customers that you would like to develop strategically?

Is this the customer who brings you a lot of business or the one with the maximum margin?

Is it the most loyal customer, or the one who negotiates your prices the least?

Is it the client who has the best reputation or the one who prescribes to you the most?

Behind these options, there is actually the question of strategy and tactics, and their projection into the future . The definition of the ideal customer does not exist in a definitive way, it corresponds to a precise objective at a given moment .

In other words, describing the ideal customer requires a multi-level and dynamic analysis over time.

The ideal customer, a strategic point of view

Depending on the current strategy and the objective pursued, the value of each customer will vary according to their potential to meet this objective . We recently supported an SME that was looking to strengthen its position in its market and was in a conquest logic, which outlined a specific ideal customer, different from that corresponding to a loyalty strategy for example. Does the company want to develop its offer on a new market? Develop a new offer? On a new segment? ... As we can see, before talking about an ideal customer, you have to specify your strategy.

In order to best define its strategic positioning , it is first necessary to take into account the company's strengths in each of the potential market segments: its know-how , its brand image , its product range , the quality of its commercial relationship, its ability to control prices , deadlines, the adequacy of the sales force , etc. In a second step, it is necessary to cross-reference with attractiveness criteria for each of the identified segments (opportunities, constraints, potential turnover, profitability, intensity of competition , etc.) in order to finally be able to specify the tactical approach.

The ideal client, a tactical approach

Strategy is the overall plan , tactics are adaptation to the field . So once the target segment has been identified, and the prospect/customer portfolio established, a finer segmentation can be carried out to help you order the actions.

L’approche que nous appelons chez Kestio le « Sales Model » permet, au sein d’un segment stratégique, de préciser des segments « tactiques » en fonction de la « valeur » des comptes cibles.

The ideal customer, or more precisely customer value, is the result of a clever formula, based on variables specific to the company, its activity, its market, its current ambition , which allows for better prioritization of accounts, and therefore to define and manage the distribution of marketing and sales efforts in the best conditions.

From customers that salespeople must visit at least twice a month to customers who will simply be handled remotely, a scale is established according to customer value, to treat the entire market with the level of investment required to obtain an ROI.

Chez Kestio Live, nous avons donc tendance à parler non pas du client idéal, mais bien DES clients idéaux !

To go further and learn more about targeting and building a customer file, you can also watch our webinar:

: Source Invox
: Social Media Guidelines, Orange, http://www.orange.com/sirius/smg/FR_Guides_Medias_Sociaux.pdf

Les utilisateurs de cette solution définissent les thématiques et planifient les campagnes de questions auprès de leurs collaborateurs. Une manière simple et agile pour récolter des indicateurs de performances, aider à la décision en termes de management et de gestion.

Créée en juin 2016 la startup comprend 5 collaborateurs et voit son CA doubler chaque mois. Une levée de fonds est en cours.

Caroline Jurado, CEO et fondatrice, a connu Kestio Live lors d’une conférence sur les processus de vente complexes. Ciblant principalement les grandes organisations, elle a pris conscience qu’il lui fallait monter en compétences commerciales pour aller chercher d’autres clients que les early adopters.

Kestio : Quels éléments vous ont fait prendre conscience de l’apport potentiel de méthodes commerciales ?

Caroline Jurado : Linkky commercialise son offre principalement auprès de grands groupes, donc sur des comptes complexes qui réclament des processus élaborés. Je souhaitais que l’entreprise devienne performante d’un point de vue commercial. En fait je me suis rendue compte que les contrats que nous signions étaient de toutes manière gagnés d’avance et qu’en revanche nous buttions dès qu’il y avait une difficulté. J’avais besoin de comprendre nos prospects, leur démarche, leurs enjeux, comment ils fonctionnaient. En fait, l’activité commerciale ne se résume pas à du feeling et une aisance orale. Il y a beaucoup plus de techniques et de méthodes que ce qu’on imagine.

Kestio : Comment s’est mis en place la mission ?

Caroline Jurado : Nous avons démarré très fort, à raison d’une heure par semaine pendant 3 mois. La priorité a porté sur les comptes en cours qui traînaient et que je n’arrivais pas à conclure. Très vite, j’ai pu les rattraper ! Ce qui a bien fonctionné c’est vraiment la dimension opérationnelle. Nous avons immédiatement abordé des questions concrètes, des cas pratiques, très loin des théories vues en salles. Ensuite nous avons abordé la Méthode de l’Echiquier, qui est une approche très pragmatique, avec une méthode qui structure. Nous travaillons sur un scoring d’opportunités qui mixe les points clés par décisionnaires, les enjeux.

Ce principe permet de classer les prospects et de valider la qualité des qualifications avant de décider où et comment orienter nos actions.

Kestio : Comment s’est instaurée la relation avec la consultante ?

Caroline Jurado : Laurence ne fait pas à ma place ; elle m’aide à réfléchir, elle me donne les clés. La méthode est très bien rodée et adaptée aux petites structures comme Linkky. Au lieu de passer une journée en salle avec une surcharge d’informations, nous passons une heure par semaine sur mes interrogations du moment. Ce mode d’organisation permet de digérer les apprentissages et de les mettre en pratique. J’ai depuis recruté une commerciale et nous pouvons partir sur une base commune ; j’ai pu la former, lui expliquer la méthode, les difficultés etc.

Kestio : Les entretiens à distance sont donc efficaces ?

Caroline Jurado : Absolument. Je n’ai d’ailleurs pas rencontré Laurence physiquement. La visio apporte un gain de temps et des économies sans être préjudiciable à l’efficacité. De mon point de vue il n’y a aucune perte au niveau qualité.

Kestio : Et maintenant ?

Caroline Jurado : Nous arrivons à la fin des trois premiers mois. Comme nous avons progressé très rapidement sur la performance commerciale, je vais poursuive à raison de 2 séances par mois et alterner avec d’autres thématiques comme notre stratégie inbound.

Merci pour ce témoignage !

Intéressé(e) par notre plateforme KESTIO LIVE ?

D’autres axes de travail peuvent-ils améliorer votre performance commerciale ?

Get a free analysis of your company's marketing and sales performance by clicking on the following link:

Explanations

There are 4 steps to a successful process:

Attract
Convert
Sell
Build loyalty

Attract The discourse, i.e. the content that will be disseminated, must be adapted not to the sender's offer (i.e. a self-centered vision - "we make the most beautiful plastic molds") but to the current topics of prospects and customers (i.e. a vision turned towards external issues - "plastic molds are revolutionizing the market").

The challenge for the Inbound strategy is to find the right content for the right target at the right moment in its decision cycle.

Convert Convert: To do this, you need to use your publications to identify yourself as one of the solutions to the prospect's problem. It's a question of making the user want to go further in relation to the proposed result (and not the solution), and encouraging them to take action by means of a "call to action", for example (download a White Paper, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.).

The challenge for the Inbound strategy is to find the right setting for the conversion stage: the website must be able to collect information about the visitor to continue the interaction, nurture the prospect and make him want to go further.

Sell At this stage, you're finally allowed to talk about your offer and present your solution! You have to show that it meets your needs perfectly and better than the others, and in the way the customer wants them to be met.

The challenge for the Inbound strategy remains to provide leads that are sufficiently qualified and identified as "ready", and to ensure immediate sales support for conversion.

Building loyalty You can build on the work you've done so far by turning customers into referrers, maintaining relationships and identifying new needs.

The challenge for the Inbound strategy is to capitalize on acquired customers and create a kind of resonance chamber to multiply the distribution of your own content. That said, it's important to remember that the race for likes and shares is not an end in itself: the key is to be heard by your target audience !

Discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

all topics related to sales performance with our experts:

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, General Manager

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

A few keys to real efficiency:

To be visible as much as possible, and especially at the moment when the customer needs it, multiply the actions that bring in an audience: referencing, social networks, recommendations...
The idea is to be identified as an interesting and useful source of information , which helps you create a rewarding relationship and become attractive.

Question your content in relation to your targets. It's best to start with their issues, their problems, their ambitions. Your content should also be adapted to the stage they're at (becoming aware of a symptom, looking for a solution, selecting a product or service...). To reinforce your positioning, there's no reason why you can't relay related information : regulatory changes, a trade show, a technological innovation... Ask yourself the question of format, to be adapted according to the target and the stage. There are many formats available today, and technology makes them easy to implement: articles, case studies, videos, infographics, white papers, configurators, eBooks, templates, webinars, slideshares...

Treat content as a corporate asset, and follow the 5 steps to get it right:

Planning (the communications plan: for whom, what stage, what channel, what format)
Build (content)
Disseminate (choose channels, social networks, etc.)
Analyze (results, test content, titles, colors...)
Repeat (what works well, and reuse content in a variety of adapted formats)

Finally, structure the approach within the company: this is an important process for sales growth, a complex process that requires continuous improvement and cannot be carried out spontaneously and on an ad hoc basis. Internal and external resources must therefore be mobilized to ensure that the dynamic remains active and produces results.

Content production, turning your brand into a medium, i.e. a relevant resource capable of aggregating prospects and generate leadsclearly means changing the way things are done. It's about giving yourself the opportunity to do business with contacts who, on the face of it, want to do business with you. Clearly, to be truly effective, this approach needs to be able to mobilize a wide range of internal resources, including marketing, sales and communications.

Webinars have become an essential Inbound Marketing tool: thanks to their audience and content, they can generate a large number of leads. Find out how in this webinar:

Would you like to find out more?

Keep on following us as we expand our production on this theme and if you have any specific requests you can contact us directly.
Check out our article "Inbound Marketing: what if you became interesting rather than interested?"

But if CRM were as simple as its definition, why is the range of products on the market so extensive? Are all CRMs the same?

Of course not. Is the difference in functional coverage or software ergonomics? Perhaps... Beyond the benefits of integrating a CRM into your information system, it's important to understand the need to adapt the tool to your business sector.

Business processes differ from one company to the next, and it's not possible to shoehorn all companies into the same software... To be effective, a CRM must first and foremost correspond to your business. A CRM must be adapted to your current organization, but also to your future one.

Our partner, CRM solution provider SOLUTION PROVIDER KOBAN this week details the right questions to ask when choosing the right CRM for your business.

Why use a CRM?

CRM is first and foremost a tool, not a magic wand. If the effectiveness of such a tool has yet to be demonstrated, this has more to do with a failure to adopt it thanwith the choice of the right tool for the organization. According to the latest study by Nomination*, specific, internally-developed CRM comes third in the list of equipment used by SMEs. And yet, the level of user dissatisfaction is high... Proof that, however well adapted a CRM may be to an organization, it remains poorly perceived and consequently poorly used.

Most often the result of an initiative by general management, CRM equipment is part of a global corporate strategy. In this case, standard CRM functionalities are designed to improve sales management.

The objective is clear: to structure the business. But not all CRMs are created equal. From the simplest to the most comprehensive, functionalities range from business portfolio management to customer/prospect relationship management, covering all billing, sales and marketing processes. For all levels of user, from marketing department to sales force to manager, CRM boosts growth through greater efficiency in prospecting and acquiring new customers.

Insofar as CRM is primarily used to manage sales activitythe corresponding functionalities are standard: sales process, sales pipeline, collaborative diary, messaging, geolocation... all means to improve the daily efficiency of the sales force.

In practice, sales processes may differ from one business sector to another. For example, a real estate developer will not apply the same sales actions as an industrial company. This is because neither the clientele nor the products sold are identical, just as prospecting methods will also differ. A CRM brings together all the techniques used by the sales force to track and manage customers, and will use a variety of channels to interact with contacts. The notion of CRM has therefore gradually broadened, to meet the more current needs of existing customers, integrating multi-channel, data collection and analysis.

Choosing the right type of CRM

As we've seen, whether simple or complex, a CRM tool is above all about functionality. When it comes to choosing CRM equipment, it's easy to list the functionalities required by an organization. With such a wide range on offer, it's best to choose the type of CRM before choosing the CRM itself.

Changing usage patterns mean that customer relations must be managed in multi-channel mode. However, CRM functionalities extended to digital channels, by collecting and analyzing data for scoring or profiling purposes, are not offered in standard CRMs but in so-called analytical CRMs. Analytical CRM is used to uncover patterns of customer behavior, determine targets, potential for additional sales, customer lifetime value, and so on. Similarly, by definition, CRM is used to manage the customer relationship, not the prospect relationship. Prospect relationship management consists in defining a relational prospect management process inspired by customer relationship management practices, based on the PRM (prospect relationship management) model. The actions are different because of the obvious difference between customer and prospect status.

So many functionalities for so many different uses and types of CRM. It has to be said that the SAAS model has largely contributed to the democratization of CRM, making it technically and financially more accessible to companies in all sectors. The other side of the coin is this quest for the most complete tool possible at the lowest possible cost. But each business sector has its own specific functional requirements...

Why are some CRMs suited to certain sectors and not others?

Let's take two industries: hospitality and transportation. On the face of it, they're worlds apart, and if they were to equip themselves with a CRM, the choice would be different for each. But what are the differences between them? The customer base? The sales process? The product? Hotels involve booking, staff management, inventory management... Transport involves managing time, expenses, deliveries... Specific functionalities for each activity, but... in the end, doesn't this have more to do with a "language" specific to the sector than with CRM functionalities?

For the record, in the strict sense of the term, CRM is used to manage customer relations. In a more extended version, i.e. to add marketing functionalities, for example, we would then speak of a "Suite". If you want to add reservation management or a cash register, we'd call it "integration". Having a CRM adapted to 100% of your organization is either "specific" or "customized". When a CRM is only adapted to a single organizational model designed for a particular business sector, we speak of a "vertical". Can a standard CRM be adapted to several sectors or several organizations? Fortunately, yes. Because it's not so much customer relationship management that differs from one sector to another, but sales management.

Choosing the right CRM means above all choosing the right CRM for your sales processestaking into account the type of customers (or contacts) to be managed. Doing business in a BtoB context doesn't involve the same organization as in a BtoC context. In a BtoB context, customer relationship management software can be used to centralize and improve customer knowledge, and propose offers and products tailored to their expectations. Sales management and channels are different for private customers. Private customers tend to use digital, mobile and, more generally, Internet channels for their purchases. The purchasing path may be direct, indirect or both. Most CRM software is not adapted to BtoC, due to the difference in management between a marketing department and its prospect base (mainly loyalty), and a sales department that is more customer-oriented.

A scalable and customizable CRM, really?

You've got the right CRM "type" for your industry, now you need to find the right CRM for your organization. The mistake would be to go looking for the tool that fits 100%. Because that tool doesn't exist, or you'll have to have it custom-developed, which is expensive. The right tool is the one that you can customize and that will grow with your business.

Most customer relationship management software can be customized: fields, sales process, sales pipeline... so that it's perfectly adapted to your company's specific needs.

But personalization doesn't stop at simply being able to add or modify fields. Personalization must go further, offering relevant settings that take into account the company's overall "business" dimension. A virtually "made-to-measure" setting that "makes your data speak". Not every company or industry uses the same data. From one company to another, the need is different. If we take the example of the hotel industry versus the transport sector, both use different indicators: the occupancy rate for the hotel industry and the tonnage transported per kilometer for the transport sector... All these specific indicators do not require the same CRM settings.

Similarly, CRM customization implies the ability to integrate into a complete information system. Because a CRM enables you to manage customer relations with its own specific functionalities, by linking it to your production tool or your accounting software, you'll be able to cover all your business processes without any loss of data. For a CRM to be functional and effective, it needs to be constantly fed with fresh, high-quality data from your system or third-party applications, thus becoming a genuine decision-making tool.

When defining a CRM project, it's essential to assess the functional scope by means of specifications. to choose the right CRM, it's essential to look beyond this. An understanding of the company's business is essential if we are to be able to list all the needs to be met by a CRM solution. This step ensures that the software is perfectly adapted to the company's processes and organization.

A CRM is more than just a receptacle for data; it is above all a tool for analyzing your business and managing it more effectively. A CRM is a tool that must be able to adapt to a company's current needs and future developments. Choosing a scalable solution is therefore essential to support development in a new market or the redesign of a business process, for example. The stakes can be considerable on an organizational scale if the company's strategy is not taken into account at the outset of the project.

To find out more about CRM and to help you with your projects, find all our methods and tools here :

*Studycarried out in November 2017 by Nomination among 427 contacts from sales, marketing, CEO functions. Companies from all sectors whose company is based in France (27% microenterprises, 32% SMEs, 22% ETIs, 19% large corporations).

Find out more about KOBAN, the Management, CRM and Marketing solution, by clicking on the following button:

Why?

Quite simply because the digitalization of the economy has radically changed behavior. The Internet has profoundly altered the relationship between buyers and sellers, and the latter no longer put up with intrusive commercial pressure... even if they still demand information.

They can search for this information on their own, at their own pace and at a time that suits them. What counts today is being seen when these potential leads are in the research phase. Thanks to the Internet, marketing offers companies new tools and, above all, a new way of doing business that positions the company as interesting rather than interested.

This isInbound Marketing.

Why adopt an Inbound Marketing strategy?

First of all, from a salesperson's point of view, it's now counter-productive to go out looking for contacts or leads. It's a huge investment of time for a more than uncertain result, whatever the salesperson's skills and motivation, based mainly on volume, in other words the number of outgoing calls. It's an exhausting, time-consuming, low-value-added activity that wears salespeople out! But salespeople should be investing their time where it adds the most value: converting leads into customers. Better than a long speech, here are 10 key figures to help you rethink your vision of traditional marketing :

1. 68% of online shoppers enjoy spending time reading content published by a company that interests them(The CMA).
2. 80% of decision-makers in the industry prefer to obtain information about a company via a blog post rather than an advertisement.(Content Marketing Institute)
3. 83% of online buyers find their suppliers on Google.(MarketingSherpa)
4. In the USA, 84% of BtoB CEOs use social networks to find out about a company before making a purchasing decision and 56% of buyers consult the blog of the company selling the products they are interested in(Salesforlife).
5. 89% of BtoB buyers do research on the Internet before contacting a company, with an average of 7 to 9 queries on the Google search engine.(Google)
6. 66% of BtoB marketers believe that content production is effective when this content is then disseminated via a variety of channels: social networks, blogs, public events...(Kapost)
7. Leads generated via inbound marketing cost 61% less on average than qualified contacts generated by traditional techniques (outbound marketing).(HubSpot)
8. Leads that continue to be nurtured in the conversion funnel spend 47% more than leads that have not been nurtured.(The Annuitas Group)
9. Properly structured and executed inbound marketing techniques are 10 times more effective in terms of lead conversion than outbound marketing techniques(Gartner).
10. 34% of salespeople consider prospecting to be their most difficult task(Hubspot)

So why adopt an Inbound Marketing strategy? Because it's what customers want and it's the best ROI for you!

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing consists in organizing a reverse flow, i.e. creating the conditions for generating inbound contacts, or leads. In response to the trends described in the first part of this article, the aim is to attract customers to your company. It ' s an approach that allows you to create contact in a less aggressive way and, above all, at the right time with the right person, making your sales strategy more effective.

In this approach, marketing has a deeper impact on the sales funnel. It no longer limits itself to raising awareness and arousing interest, but goes all the way to intention and even evaluation, in other words, lead generation. It invites the prospect to act, via "call to actions" on a website, for example.

Clearly, this marketing strategy opens up a wide field of action, which can also have an impact on the company's internal organization, in particular by bringing marketing and sales closer together.

This is a topic we'll be tackling on several occasions, with a forthcoming zoom on how to implement this strategy and the key points to be effective.

In the meantime, we invite you to follow on this blog or via our newsletterKESTIO Insights) the various articles we will be proposing on topics related to sales performance.

Webinars have become an essential Inbound Marketing tool: thanks to their audience and content, they can generate a large number of leads. Find out how in this webinar:

A godsend for a company!

The idea is to be present on social networks, disseminating relevant content that will arouse the interest of web users as they search for information. This approach, driven by the company, doesn't mix personal and professional content, as we saw in the first post on the subject, "4 tips for increasing sales with social selling".. It's set up and managed by marketing, with a view to generating inbound contacts. To exist on social networks, there are three levels of action corresponding to three levels of involvement:

- react to other people's publications (likes, comments, sharing...); consumes few resources, generates few results, maintains activity.

- choose curation, a practice that consists in selecting, editing and sharing the most relevant content on the Internet for a given query or subject; consumes a little more resources, brings visibility, but doesn't contribute to building an identity.

- produce your own content ; consumes a lot of resources, requires a strategy, but brings significant results.

It's this third point that deserves a little more attention. To succeed, there are a few rules to observe:

1 > Be interesting

To attract attention, to be perceived as a valuable resource providing useful content, it's better to talk about what interests the interlocutor than about yourself, i.e. to talk about subjects in which the company is an expert from the potential customer's point of view. In other words, prefer "How office furniture improves productivity" to "We sell desks at the best quality/price ratio".

2 > Know your target

To address your target properly, you need to know who they are. Ideally, marketing and sales departments should work together to describe these targets, addressing the following themes: their profiles, their career paths, their responsibilities, their objectives, their challenges, their stresses, their constraints, the projects they're working on, their decision-making processes, the types of customers they serve, and so on: Their profiles, their career paths, their responsibilities, their objectives, their challenges, their stresses, their constraints, the projects they're working on, their decision-making processes, their beliefs, their constraints, what's important to them... It's understood that we're describing a typical profile that doesn't exist per se, a bit like the "average French person" in INSEE statistics. However, by clarifying these points, we can better visualize the target, employees will have a shared representation, and we'll become more audible thanks to adapted content.

We can do this for every type of customer.

3 > List themes

It's time to work on the editorial line, to find the points of convergence (content and form) between the company's offering and the expectations of the targeted Internet users. At this stage, it's a good idea to organize a brainstorming session with your collaborators, producing a maximum number of content themes on post-it notes, with a very broad exploratory work, and then synthesizing them by asking everyone for the 10 most important. This shortlist becomes the backbone of the editorial line. This is an exercise to be repeated every 6 months, with a mix of news and cold topics. Based on the chosen themes, all that's left to do is come up with article topics and organize production.

4 > Writing content

For the editorial department, there are two possible solutions.

Or the workload can be shared between several editors, but not everyone is comfortable with the written word. In this case, you still need to appoint an editorial manager to validate the articles and ensure a certain degree of consistency.

Soit un rédacteur interne ou externe qui pourra se charger d’interviewer les experts pour produire ensuite le contenu. Cette solution a été retenue par Kestio. Il s’agit ensuite de varier les formats pour apporter de la diversité et intéresser encore plus largement sa cible avec des formats longs (articles…), des témoignages, des infographies…

This is how a company, start-up or SME can initiate high-quality communication with its potential targets and then trigger sales conversations.

Eventually, digital tools will make it possible to check the effectiveness of what is produced, to ensure that what is produced is well aligned with the problems faced by web users. We'll be able to measure impact and audience by looking, for example, at interactions such as shares and comments, and then fine-tune if necessary.