Category: Zoho

Millions of teachers around the world are answering the biggest question of their lives — how to continue teaching amidst the COVID lockdown.

India is home to one of the largest school system in the world with 28% of Indian students falling in the age group of <14 years. That’s a staggering 364 million children in school. Even with a lofty pupil-to-teacher ratio of 32:1 India is host to roughly 11 million teachers.

Today, all these teachers have to continue teaching but there is one big problem. Schools are shut. They do not have a blackboard at home. They can neither go out and buy a board nor order one online right now. Not all teachers are keen to learn at new technologies in a short span and they may not have high-end laptops at home. But they do have smartphones and chalk pieces! Is that enough? We tried to figure with Zoho Classes — a new mobile app to help schools & colleges continue the academic session, by teaching students online.

The following story is a personal experience of working closely with a school and its teachers; and how it changed me and my team.

DAY 1 — TRYING OUT ZOHO CLASSES APP

Teachers of Vidya Mandir Estancia—a CBSE school in Chennai–were introduced to Zoho Classes, a mobile app that helps them send assignments to their students. In a 2-day training course organized by Zoho, they had sent 400+ updates ranging from kindergarten kids assignment to 12th Psychology tests. It got the teachers excited, as it helped them attach contextual images and videos to their tests and assignments—something the regular class room experience did not offer.  Submitted assignments are automatically converted into a PDF that the teachers can download, view, and evaluate.

DAY 2 — LIVE STREAMING: ACADEMIC YEAR 2021 KICK START

On April 2, the principal had officially kick started the academic year 2021 via a live streaming session. Maheshwari Natarajan is a towering personality who has been running the school as the principal for several years. Retiring this May, after 30 years of teaching, she might not get the chance to address her beloved children in person again. For her, Zoho Classes live streaming was a godsend. Steering the school amidst such a monumental moment and enabling the entire staff for online teaching within days, would be the most perfect way to sign off her career in her own style. For cricket fans in India, it’s like hitting a triple century in your last match.

DAY 3 — CREATING VIDEO COURSES

The next day the principal designate (current Vice Principal) Sankari Mam, took the mantle and encouraged the teachers to prepare video courses. She took the lead with a 30-min physics teaching and uploaded the it as a course. The teachers started creating video courses and in just one day they produced more than 50+ video courses using whatever they could manage at home. Some created makeshift black boards with chart papers, some used paper and pen, some got help from their kids. They put their hearts out and tried every single thing they could do. Most importantly it was a Sunday and the courses were getting uploaded way beyond mid-night. The last one came in at around 2.30 am on Monday morning.

Day 27 — BEFORE CLOSING FOR HOLIDAYS

Today, Vidya Mandir Estancia has successfully on boarded 30 classes, 81 teachers, 850+ students and teachers have sent more than 1600 updates to students, distributed 150+ courses and received more than 700 assignments – digitally. The response from parents and PTA association have been very positive as kids enjoyed seeing their favourite teachers on mobile app. The efforts of these teachers are commendable. The 12th standard psychology teacher was far away in Shillong, but her courses reached the students on time. One of the teachers uploaded a video that had animations on par with any online course, courtesy her son. Complex subjects such as accountancy were handled with whiteboards and markers. Hi-definition, professionally shot course video from Kavitha mam of 8th standard took the quality to next level, courtesy iPhone 11.  But the best of all tools came from Baskar Sir – a wooden wardrobe! When Baskar Sir was asked to create a video he called up the Vice Principal and explained the situation at home. The only writable tool at home was a large, brown wardrobe. Once he got the go ahead, he never looked back. He created the course on Halo Alkanes and uploaded it on the app. Kudos, Bhaskar Sir.

THESE TEACHERS  ARE MY INSPIRATION TO WALK THE COVID DARKNESS 

COVID brought in a lot of uncertainties, fear and mental trauma. We all need a ray of light to lead us through this darkness. I think I found my light from these teachers. These bi-focal lens wearing, retirement aged teachers are my heros. Irrespective of whatever be your profession, this story should inspire you to stop looking at the negatives and just do you duty sincerely. It changed me and the entire Zoho Classes team. We clapped for health workers. Likewise, I  think we should also thank our selfless teachers at this moment. Sharing a video we made to mark our respect to all teachers. 🙏🏼. Please feel free to share the video in your social media groups.

https://<div class=”evideosnip”><span class=”youtube”><iframe title=”YouTube video player” class=”youtube-player” type=”text/html” width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/8G8AvIVb0A0?wmode=transparent&fs=1&hl=en&modestbranding=1&iv_load_policy=3&showsearch=0&rel=0&theme=dark” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></span></div>

Sales is a tough job. Sales reps face a myriad of challenges every day talking to prospects and trying to close deals. You have to deal with delays, disappointments, and all the other ups and downs that come with the job. These challenges have been compounded further with the widespread quarantine measures going on around the world currently.

Work together remotely and close deals more effectively with Zoho CRM and all the collaborative tools it can bring to your sales team.

The myth of the lone wolf

We’ve all heard the phrase “lone wolf” at some point in our lives. It’s a term used to describe a solitary, highly driven, and self-sufficient person who doesn’t interact much with anyone unless absolutely needed.

There are sales reps, sales managers, and even business owners who operate with this mentality; a mentality fostered and strengthened by a longstanding sales culture and an individual-oriented compensation system. A system where the best performer takes home the biggest commission check.

This has led salespeople to keep information to themselves, exclude others from conversations, detach themselves from useful networks, and more in the interest of getting ahead.

The lone wolf mentality is not conducive to today’s environment. Even with all the modern tools and customer data at their disposal, only 53% of sales reps reach their goals. A CSO survey further expands on this, prescribing a solution to this issue in “effectively collecting and sharing best practices across your sales and service departments.”

Embrace the pack mentality. Do better together.

Gone are the days of one-on-one and face-to-face selling. Modern selling is complex and team oriented with often numerous variables, stakeholders, and deliverables involved.

When you collaborate with different members of your team, you can get insights from different perspectives. This helps you identify problems or holes in your strategy that you otherwise wouldn’t have noticed on your own.

Collaboration between sales reps helps share feedback and healthy criticism that allows everyone to learn and grow. A communicative environment also allows your sales reps to share their best practices, notes, and ideas with their teams, leading to a more productive and efficient sales force. Go above and beyond meeting targets so you can focus on building strong relationships with your customers.

Don’t let distance be a factor in closing deals effectively

As the world embraces the idea of remote work, sales reps will be spending more and more of their time in their CRM as they interact with prospects and work on closing deals.

A CRM with collaborative features can be a great asset that allows sales reps to work together more effectively in this new WFH-centric business environment. A collaborative CRM can allow sales reps to share key information effectively, access important sales collateral when needed, keep everyone updated on the status of changes in a big deal, and more.

A central document repository for all your sales collateral

On every sales team, there’s typically some documents that are requested by your prospects more frequently than the others. They might be stored locally, or on some cloud storage service. However, as the number of these documents continues to grow, it becomes increasingly harder to keep track of each.

Zoho CRM offers a centralized storage space for all your sales collateral. Your sales team can contribute to and maintain these documents, allowing anyone easy access as and when they need it.

A feed for your ideas

It’s a good idea to be open with your team about the different deals you’re handling and challenges you’re facing. Your peers can offer you valuable tips and insights to help you overcome these challenges and close that one difficult deal.

The Feeds feature in Zoho CRM allows different users to come together and interact. Discuss deals, collaborate on ideas, and broadcast announcements. Have a great sales pitch that you think would be helpful? Share it with the team. You can request or share important sales collateral or update your team on a big deal in a single, centralized space.

Leverage chat for real-time collaborations

As mentioned before, the modern sales environment needs faster collaboration among teams and easy availability of important data. Zoho CRM can integrate with renowned collaboration tools like Zoho Cliq, Slack, and Microsoft Teams to help sales teams work together easily and improve productivity.

Create groups so your sales teams can interact with one another or members of different teams in real time. Share important analytics data from CRM directly with another user or group in chat to keep them updated on the status of new business, or just to celebrate your victories. You can even use workflows to send notifications for important events to users in chat or groups. Pull important information from CRM records using appropriate commands with ease.

Recommended reading: Using CRM telephony to make connections

Virtual customer visits for remote working sales teams

With the advent of video conferencing tools, it has become easier for sales teams to engage with prospects on the other side of the world. Virtual meetings are slowly becoming the norm among sales teams, but it’s become a necessity today more than ever. Interacting with your prospects through video calls has many advantages. The time you would have spent travelling can now be used on preparing a compelling presentation. 

Zoho CRM integrates with popular tools like Zoom, Teamviewer, GoToMeeting, Zoho Meeting, and more. It allows your sales teams to set up virtual conferences from inside CRM, invite attendees, conduct meetings, and associate relevant recordings with the event for future reference.

Sales teams can interact with prospects and customers through video conferencing for gathering requirements effectively, showcasing a product demo and more.

Collaborating with your fellow sales reps can help you refine your sales pitches, understand what works and doesn’t work with certain prospects, and help deal with the unique ups and downs of your common profession.  Try Zoho CRM, and leverage teamwork to close more deals.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments on how to sell better when working remotely.

Note: This blog is the third in a series of articles focusing on how our CRM can help you perfect your sales strategy to suit these turbulent times. You can read all the previous articles that have been published as part of the remote sales series here.

Zoho Social understands how crucial the ongoing fight against the coronavirus pandemic is. In light of this, we have decided to offer six months of access to our suite of premium tools for free to NGOs, not-for-profit organizations, government institutions, and public sector bodies, as part of a new initiative called the ‘Go the distance with Zoho Social’.

With the world currently battling the COVID-19 crisis, social media has come into focus again. Local government institutions are using social media to create awareness, reach out to people for help, provide updates on the situation, and to prevent the spread of fake information.

On the other hand, several non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations are finding it hard to secure funding, help distribute resources locally or even create any outreach without making social media their primary channel. Public sector organizations are also using social media channels extensively to communicate with people, letting them ask questions, and providing support through the platform.

So, with all of this in mind, our team at Zoho Social has decided to boost these efforts by offering six months of free access to Zoho Social’s premium tools as part of our campaign geared to respond to COVID-19 pandemic. Our plan is specifically tailored to the needs of these agencies which are leveraging social media to further the fight against the current crisis. With this in mind, we have increased our monitoring capabilities within the platform and will be providing round-the-clock support to these users, besides frequently sending curated tips and strategies.

If you are using social media to facilitate the fight against the pandemic, then getting onboard Zoho Social is all that’s needed to avail this benefit. If you’re already a Zoho Social user, write to us with your registered email ID and we will move you to a special COVID-19 plan at no cost.

As a business that is built on customer satisfaction and goodwill, we realize that there is no better time for us to step up than in a time of global crisis. We hope our tiny effort helps in the bigger fight.

5 reasons why you should integrate RingCentral Video  and Zoho CRM

Business meetings are an essential part of every industry. Your client will be keen to know the details of the proposal, what’s in it for them, and how well can they trust you. While the impact of in-person meetings can never be matched with online meetings, online meetings certainly have their own perks, to list a few:

• Eliminate travel time and costs

• Weather is no longer a deciding factor

• Save the expense of reserving a venue, since you can accommodate any number of attendees from wherever you work

• Record sessions to fill in those who couldn’t join

• Post-meeting work made simpler, thanks to advanced online collaboration tools

Here’s your guide to hosting successful virtual meetings using RingCentral Video and Zoho CRM.

Planning and Preparation

The first step is to find the right date and time to ensure maximum participation. Send emails or get on-call confirmations before scheduling the meeting. While you are at it, find out as much as you can about your client’s needs and requirements. This will be easy, since Zoho CRM will fetch you a 360-degree view of your client details including all the conversations you have had with them in the past.

Scheduling and Sending Invites 

As basic as it seems, the tone of the meeting could be set right from the point of sending meeting invites. Other than the vital details such as date and time, you can make a great first impression by adding a general overview of what you’ll be discussing on the call. You might also want to include things that you are looking for from the client during the session, like questions or feedback, allowing them to come prepared as well. It’s normally good practice to keep the invitees list transparent so everyone knows what to expect.

Once your RingCentral Video is integrated with Zoho CRM, you can send invites with a detailed agenda to multiple participants in a single click. Instead of having to schedule a meeting in Zoho CRM, and then repeating the task in RingCentral Video’s interface, you can do both at once. Similarly, if a meeting is rescheduled, you won’t have to edit the meeting in both Zoho CRM and RingCentral Video’s interface. Say goodbye to tedious toggling between applications, and boost sales productivity.

Reminders  

Send reminders or alerts essentially a day before the meeting and then again 15 mins before the event to ensure each attendee is aware and well prepared, so last-minute chaos can be avoided. While the reminders will be sent to your client, include yourself as well, allowing you sufficient time to test your audio, video, and internet connectivity. You don’t want to break the flow and disrupt the chain of thoughts once you are in the meeting.

Integrating RingCentral Video with Zoho CRM helps you start meetings in one click, right from Zoho CRM. Smart reminders not only remind you of the meeting, but also let you launch meetings right away with a start option within a reminder.

During the Session  

Follow conference call etiquette, and use advanced options such as mute, screensharing, and chat messaging within RingCentral Video for a better meeting experience. Make sure to avoid excessive background noise and use the mute option when you aren’t talking. Use the screen-sharing options for better clarity and maintaining context. Enjoy built-in chat feature if you don’t want to interrupt by making notes and pointers that can be discussed later. Encourage active listening by keeping the meeting a two-way conversation. At the end of the meeting, review any questions or subjects that were important to the client. Thank the client for their time and let them know they are free to contact you with any follow-up questions or concerns they may have.

After the  Meeting  

Track post-meeting analytics by using attendance data and other important metrics to speed sales follow-ups. Send follow-ups including answers to questions you were unable to provide during the call. Add the next course of action and steps discussed in the meeting. This is to make sure everyone is on the same page moving forward. While you’re at it, also send a reminder of things you need from the client’s end.

With RingCentral Video’s integration with Zoho CRM, salespeople can also look up recordings of past meetings for reference or email the recordings to a non-attendee right from Zoho CRM. If a salesperson missed a meeting or wants to look up a past meeting for reference, they can find the recording of the meeting attached to the relevant record in Zoho CRM. Even if a customer misses a meeting, a salesperson can ensure that they stay updated by sending them an email from Zoho CRM with a link to the meeting recording.

To summarize, take a little extra time and be prepared to impress the client for a trusted long-lasting relationship. Win your client with the right tools and an optimized action plan.

Try RingCentral Video for Zoho CRM

Work smarter by adding new capabilities to Zoho CRM with business solutions from Zoho Marketplace. 

Note: This story is part of an upcoming series focused on sharing experiences and advice from our customers. Stay tuned for more from #ZohoInfluence.

“The work-from-home transition has gone incredibly well. Shockingly well, in fact,” Rick Tudor, director of operations for Zoho One customer C.A.R.S. Protection Plus began. As a warranty provider, C.A.R.S. Protection Plus has a vast network of dealers and vendors they regularly work with so while full remote work was new to the company itself, they thankfully had lots of experience working closely with people across the country. C.A.R.S. decided to move to fully remote work pretty early on, not wanting to take any chances with the COVID-19 crisis. And thankfully between that early decision and previous work with remote partners, they’ve got some great advice to share about how businesses can successfully transition to remote work without business interruption, not to mention what they think everyone can learn from this experience.

They’ve found that by paying close attention to employee needs and perspectives, making sure the right tech is in place to support those needs, and continuing to think about ways they can add value for their customers is the recipe for success in uncertain times. And while business in a remote economy is a huge change of pace and some things may have to be put on hold, C.A.R.S. emphasizes how much businesses can do to keep up and make the most of their time—everything from improving existing technology to enhancing analytics for a full picture, to doing small things to help others and set your business up for success down the road. 

For C.A.R.S., a big factor in this transition has been making sure employees’ needs are being met across the board—this includes access to the right data, information, technology, and even hardware to make sure their home environment is as conducive to productivity as their work environment. It’s important to remember that this transition isn’t just scary for you, your staff may be struggling, too. “Make sure you’re supporting all their needs as they transition to home,” Rick elaborates, “Zoho Assist has been incredibly useful in supporting 45 remote users who had never worked from home, and many of which had never used a laptop before.” It’s important to make sure you cater to employees who’ve never experienced this type of environment and enable their success.

“One of the biggest pitfalls of remote work is that people tend to start feeling like they’re not on a team,” Rick explained, “the best way to combat that is to ramp up communication, even to the point where you may feel like you’re over-including folks.” Generally, C.A.R.S. stresses the importance of really paying attention to employee needs, and that’s something they advise all businesses to really think about. When remote work is completely new for your business, it’s natural to be nervous about productivity dips or worry that work isn’t getting done, but the best thing you as a leader can do in that situation is to make sure you’re listening to your staff and thinking about things from their perspective.

“Cliq allows us to stay in constant contact with our staff, and we generally touch base daily at a supervisor-to-employee level,” Rick explained, “it allows remote workers to feel included, not on an island, and informed of what’s going on company-wide.” C.A.R.S. also conducts a stand-up call each morning via Zoho Meeting, which they’ve found to be critical for keeping everyone in the loop and reproducing some workplace normality. And beyond all that, everyone’s in need of a bit more social interaction these days.

In addition to coping with changes on the people side of the business, C.A.R.S. knows it’s important to consider what we all can learn from this experience, and things we can all work on that we may not have been able to otherwise. “If you have time, task your agents to do clean-up work in your systems, make sure important fields are filled out consistently,” Rick said, “and take advantage of this opportunity to engage with customers: schedule training, deliver remote sales presentations, and do what you can to be helpful to your customer base.” 

Another thing Rick recommends is expanding reporting and analytics business-wide and making sure managers have the tools they need to ensure their teams are remaining efficient. “One of the key things for us in evaluating current employee performance is keeping in mind which employees should be given the option to work remotely in the future, after this is all over,” he explained, “generally let this crisis show you areas for growth in your business. A work-from-home environment gives you longevity for remotely managing employees—you could even consider hiring remotely in the future, which gives you a much deeper pool of folks to recruit from in the future.”

C.A.R.S. suggests everyone take advantage of this time to build out their analytics. “One of the ways we have expanded is predictive analytics to tell us when a dealer might be getting ready to leave our ecosystem—we use this to manage the frequency with which our territory managers visit their accounts, thereby making those dealers less likely to leave,” Rick said. Previously, they often weren’t aware there was a problem until the dealer had already moved on to another provider. “In order to do this, we leverage Zoho Analytics‘ ability to function as a data warehouse, combining information from external systems with Zoho CRM. We then created a dashboard we push to CRM, which is tied to a local SQL database of sales data from our ERP solution,” he explained. Now any dealer who falls out of their typical submission cadence not only shows up on their dashboard, but an alert is sent to the account owner and their supervisor, letting them know this is an “at risk” account and follow up is required. They have a similar dashboard and system to establish when their territory managers should visit accounts.

This is also a great time to think about ways you want to improve your processes, like adding in automation to reduce manual workload. “We’ve started leveraging Zoho Forms and CRM to outsource the shipping of our Dealer and Territory Manager supply requests,” Rick started, “now we allow our team to submit a Zoho Form for the supplies they need and have it routed to an external shipper who then verifies the address and validates eligibility of certain requests through CRM before they drop ship the request.” C.A.R.S. has also started using Zoho CRM to allow an external call center to set appointments for them. “We’ve provided one of our Zoho One licenses to a call center who uses custom reports we created to target certain areas and set appointments for our external team,” he explained.

Lastly, Rick emphasized how much everyone should be thinking of what positive changes they can make to their business as a result of what they’ve learned during this time, even the smaller things. “You should consider what you can save on in-house resources, like thinking about if you could have a smaller office and more staff work remotely, or re-purposing office space for training or something that may help customers in another way,” Rick said, “And on a smaller scale, think about ways you can use less paper by leveraging document management platforms like Workdrive. It’s important to think about resources you can save to better your business and the world around it.”

Note: This story is part of an upcoming series focused on sharing experiences and advice from our customers. Stay tuned for more from #ZohoInfluence.

“There really isn’t a part of our business that has been unaffected by COVID-19,” began Vi Warner, independent artist and owner of the small business Violet Press, a Zoho One customer. She was hit quickly by the economic impact of COVID-19. Vi is a letterpress artist who left her career as a lawyer to turn her passion into her livelihood. She works on a vintage machine and, alongside her brother Jake, creates custom invitations and stationary for weddings and greeting cards to sell wholesale and at her shop. Before the pandemic started, Vi had just recently moved her small shop to an area with more foot traffic. Once the quarantine orders set in, however, she had to switch gears. Vi had to close down her brick and mortar store and many of her custom work clients postponed their contracts.

“I’m not sure when we will reopen and things feel very shaky right now. We haven’t gotten any government assistance and we’re not alone there—93% of small businesses didn’t receive PPP or EIDL loans/grants and that first wave of money has now run out,” Vi elaborated. Like so many small businesses, the COVID-19 crisis is causing significant hardship for Violet Press. Since this downturn started, Vi has started taking on part time legal work. This shift, however, is not due to any sort of failure of the business or Vi’s creativity, this new set of challenges are simply new things to adapt to, knowing that Vi’s passion will be there when she’s able to dedicate her full time to it again.  

“Our wedding invitation side has sustained losses due to cancellations and postponements. Our retail side is closed to keep customers and ourselves healthy. Our wholesale side has faced similar cancellations and delays as other small businesses that carry our greeting cards have closed and fear they may never reopen,” Vi explained.

While it’s been hard because many of her wedding contracts have been postponed, Vi is planning to start taking this opportunity to put more focus on the online face of her business. Though weddings are being postponed, people have not stopped planning them, nor have people stopped falling in love and getting engaged. People who are engaged now are simply giving themselves more time to plan and perfect their weddings, they’ll just be happening much later on. Though Vi has had to face new challenges due to this pandemic, she hopes this time provides ways for her to keep creating in a way that she may not have been able to with her regular work schedule.

In the meantime, as a member of Zoho’s ESAP program, Zoho can at least make sure that she has one less thing to worry about. “As we currently have very few ways to bring in income, breaks from vendors are super helpful. Having Zoho extend a few free months to us not only helps our expenses, but boosts morale and helps us feel supported.”

And if you find yourself or folks you know in need of greeting cards or custom wedding stationary invites amongst all of this, please take a look at Vi’s work on her website here. If we may say so ourselves, it’s beautiful.

This is a guest post by JotForm.

In simplest terms, a lead source is where a lead comes from. This source can differ from the actual method someone uses to contact your business.

For example, say a prospect saw one of your Facebook posts. Then, they read a few blog posts on your website, and then filled out your contact form to schedule a demo. The initial lead source would be Facebook.

A lead source is a crucial piece of information you can use to gauge the value of your marketing campaigns. If you don’t track this information, you’re missing out on data that can point you toward better prospecting opportunities and help you reduce marketing costs.

Here are five reasons you should track your lead sources, and some tips about how you can use this information to optimize sales and marketing efforts.

#1 To determine how they initially heard about you   

Identifying the lead source can get complex when the potential customer encounters multiple touchpoints before contacting your company or a sales representative. In these situations, it’s best to track both the initial touchpoint as well as the last-click interaction (i.e. what led to the sale).

For instance, say that the customer first engaged with your company through a Facebook marketing campaign. From there, they went to a local event sponsored by your company and filled out a contact form. After being sent an email as a follow up from the contact form, they went to your website and used the live chat function to ask additional questions.

In this scenario, Facebook, the local marketing event, and live chat were all part of the process. However, Facebook was the initial touchpoint and live-chat was what led to the sale. If you aren’t tracking lead sources, you may only see that last stage in the process, so you wouldn’t know about the impact the Facebook post had. Also, this helps you determine conversion rates, click-through rates, and other marketing metrics.

#2 To discover which marketing campaigns are most effective   

Most companies are running multiple campaigns at any given time. It can be difficult to track the effectiveness of one campaign as a lead source against many others.

For example, say you ran two different Facebook ad campaigns, Campaign A and Campaign B. Campaign A ran over the course of the entire 1st quarter and generated 15,000 impressions, resulting in 25 quality leads. Campaign B lasted for a week and only generated 1,000 impressions, but also resulted in 25 quality leads. Campaign B was likely more successful, but the two campaigns resulted in the same number of leads.

#3 To determine the average time it takes to close a lead   

Once you track a lead source, you should also pay attention to how many leads end up turning into sales, the average time it takes to close a sale, and the percentage that are disqualified for one reason or another.

#4 To find the value of each lead source  

Not all leads are created equal. Different lead sources will have various odds of success for your company. Knowing the value of each lead source will allow you to place the right amount of effort and marketing funds into each.

For example, you may find that leads from speaking events typically turn into higher-value customers than those that you get from Facebook ads. Knowing this, you could prioritize speaking events and use more of your marketing resources at these events instead of Facebook ad campaigns.

#5 To analyze your sales and marketing efforts   

Sales tracking should go beyond knowing the lead source to provide you with valuable and actionable insights.

Consider pairing the following metrics with your lead source information to see how leads interact and the value of each:

• Sales per lead source

• Sales during a specific time frame

• Sales per sales representative

• Sales per customer

• Sales per customer demographic

• Sales for new vs. recurring customers

• Average time to close the sale

These metrics will help you further optimize your marketing efforts. For instance, knowing the average time to close the sale will help you determine how long it will take for your lead to become a paying customer. Knowing this, you can set attainable goals for your salespeople.

If you know that the average lead takes six months to convert, you won’t expect the sale to close in two months. You can even help make plans for appropriate follow up times during the sales funnel.

Understand where your leads are coming from using Zoho CRM

As your business grows, it can become increasingly difficult to track your leads by hand. An old-fashioned spreadsheet just doesn’t cut it when you’re dealing with hundreds of data points. This is where good sales CRM software comes in.

With a sales CRM like Zoho CRM, you can automate the lead tracking process by setting specific categories for your data, such as different lead sources. You can also automatically sync lead details from sign-up forms in JotForm directly to Zoho CRM.

Try JotForm for Zoho CRM

Work smarter by adding new capabilities to Zoho CRM with business solutions from Zoho Marketplace.

If the practical simplicity of Chrome OS is what made you choose a Chromebook, chances are you’d prefer something along the same lines for your presentation needs. With Zoho Show for Chromebook, we’re proud to offer a better, simpler presentation experience for users worldwide. 

Create informative presentations with ease 

If you are planning to present a complex topic to a large audience, it might be tedious to fit in all the information on the slides and still make it engaging for viewers. On top of that, it can be a frustrating experience if the presentation tool UI is complicated.

With Show’s clutter-free interface, you can create visually engaging slideshows with ease. The tool is packed with a number of useful features and resources. You can add custom charts to showcase your data in an easy-to-grasp format and choose free images from Unsplash to catch the attention of the audience. You can also throw in a GIF to lighten the mood with our Giphy integration. If you wish to give the audience variety, Show makes it easy to add a video as well.  

Collaborate and Deliver your ideas

If you are working in a team for your school or college project, effective collaboration is key and it’s important to ensure that there is no communication gap between team members. Forget about different versions and emailing files to each other: Show lets you work with all your teammates at once. Make comments, review changes on slides and work together without any hassle.  

Simplify presenting with Remote View

Have you ever accidentally switched to the next slide while giving a presentation or dropped your notecards and lost your place? You can now make use of the Remote View option to ensure that both you and your audience have the best possible experience. Show gives the presenter easy access to notes with this view, while your audience remains focused on the current slide only.  

Enhance classroom learning 

Educators are often on the forefront of using innovative tools to impart knowledge. Chromebooks are easy-to-use and according to Google, almost 30 million students and educators use Chromebooks to enhance their learning experience. With the increasing use of Chromebooks for educational purposes, it’s important that educators have the necessary tools to make learning enjoyable for the students. 

With Show’s abundant list of features, conveying complex information through slides has never been simpler. Creating engaging, visually interesting presentations that students will appreciate and never forget can be the difference between a memorable class and a class students just want to get over with.

By using Zoho Show for Chromebook, you can simplify your slide creation process and create engaging and innovative stories for your audience.

Emily McGuire is the owner and Chief Email Marketer at Flourish & Grit, an email marketing and automation studio based in the US. She helps businesses uncover hidden revenue in their email lists by using data to better understand what moves customers to convert.

Gaurav Sharma is the founder of Attrock, an Indian digital marketing agency that offers services like influencer marketing, content marketing, SEO, online PR, mobile app marketing, conversion, and sales funnel optimization.

 

Expert Diaries from Zoho Campaigns connects avid email marketers to the experts in this space, and help them learn some best practices and tips. Our aim is to connect email geeks and form a community that learns email marketing from one another. Check out our amazing line-up of Season 1.

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The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that followed has changed the way marketing is being done.

Traditional methods will not necessarily work, as the way marketing is done digitally has changed drastically.

Digital marketers around the world are tweaking their plans of action in terms of strategy, content and intent. These changes are likely to continue in the long run, even after the lockdown is over. This will bring about a change in many social norms, including the way we communicate and interact.

We have two email marketing experts from two different parts of the world – Emily McGuire and  Gaurav Sharma to help us understand how email marketing can be useful in times like these.

These two experts have shared their ideas and perspectives on email marketing during these unprecedented times.

When going digital is the only option

Emily: We’re lucky enough to live during a time when digital communication is widely adopted and easier to access. We are avoiding in-person interactions to avoid the spread of this virus. If you are ignoring digital media right now, you’re missing the opportunity to have conversations with your ideal customers and current customers.

This situation could lead to new opportunities. That means we can also get creative with our events by moving them online or finding other ways to create a community in a digital space. It means we can shift our focus to how we project our brand digitally if it hasn’t been a priority previously.

Gaurav: Given the situation we are in, digital media is the only way to stay connected with your audience. Brands need to invest more time, money and efforts on leveraging digital media channels to engage their audiences and encourage sales.

I recommend that brands and marketers take the time to streamline their marketing strategies for social media, SEO, email marketing, affiliate campaigns, and so on.

Why email marketing?

Gaurav: Email marketing is one reliable way for brands to stay connected with their audiences. You should spend time creating engaging drip email sequences and use advanced level marketing automation to keep your audience updated.

Emily: We are more digitally connected than ever as people turn to the internet for their news updates. That also means people will be spending a substantial amount of time in their inboxes.This also means you have a lot of opportunities to get in front of those people as they’re checking their emails multiple times throughout the day.

How to overhaul your marketing strategy 

Gaurav: It is definitely crucial for brands to communicate with their audiences (both paying customers and subscribers) either via social media or other digital channels. Some of the most popular mediums are emails, blog posts, and press releases published on a news site or on an authoritative website in your niche.

Afterall, communication is the key to building strong relationships. And brands need to understand this well in order to overcome the current situation and win more customers.

Emily: It is always important to communicate regularly, but it is equally important to ensure that communication makes sense for where people are at with your brand and within the context of the current cultural climate.

Also, if your primary audience is disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 (for example the healthcare industry), and you’re trying to launch a new product to them, you might want to consider postponing (unless that product helps with treating COVID-19). They are already overwhelmed with responding to what’s going on and preparing for what’s to come.

Sending out an email that feels totally out of sync with what’s happening in the world right now can turn off your prospects and customers.

Additionally, if you haven’t emailed your subscribers in a while, and you want to send out an update on how coronavirus is impacting the way you serve your clients or customers, then consider sending it to ONLY active customers and hot leads. These are the people who have the most vested interest in their relationship with your brand and how it is going to impact their level of service.

Sending a coronavirus email update to people who haven’t done business with you in years, can, again, seem tone-deaf.

What kind of content works?

Emily: Definitely send out an update on how COVID-19 is impacting how you serve your customers (to current customers). Always lead with empathy. Put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes.

Is there a way you can better serve them through digital communication?

Can they expect any delay or disruption in their service?

Are you offering new ways for them to engage with your brand virtually?

Make sure to do this in a way that starts with the customer at the center. Wait to promote any services or products that might help your customers in a follow-up email.

Sending your email as a letter from the executive leadership of your brand can make your message feel more human.

If it’s particularly relevant for your business, for example, if you are hosting events in the next month or two, you might want to let your attendees know what happens if you have to cancel, and any other plans you might have to take your events online.

If you’re a service-based business, talk about measures you are taking to comply with guidelines from the CDC or your local health department.

And most of all, and I can’t stress this enough, send this content to the subscribers for whom this matters the most. That is, your current clients and any warm or hot leads.

Your inactive contacts do not need to know about how a service or product they aren’t using, is handling the COVID-19.

You can also consider adding a banner message at the top of your homepage that links to your updates on the COVID-19.

Gaurav: To run effective email marketing campaigns, brands should leverage multiple types of content. Some of the most popular types of content that can help boost your campaign ROI include:

• Relevant tutorials and tips
• Your brand’s story in relation to the current crisis
• Discount offers (with emotional copy to show empathy)
• Collaboration emails (working with another brand or influencer to co-create great content)
• Automated lead generation emails

It is important for you as a brand or marketer to decide what your campaign objectives are. Once you’ve finalized your goals, you can plan the type of content to use accordingly to hit the sweet spot of your audience.

Empathy is the key

Emily: All marketing requires empathy. If you don’t consider where your audience is coming from, or where they are in your customer lifecycle, then you risk sending messaging that’s way off base, which can damage your brand more than it helps.

When thinking about your content, make sure it is relevant to your subscribers RIGHT NOW. Meaning, again, if they are an active customer or are in a warm or hot phase of being a prospect, then yes, make sure they know how stopping the spread of COVID-19can affect the service they might receive.

And if you’re in doubt about whether or not to send an email about COVID-19, wait a few days. People are being inundated with these emails right now. You don’t want to add to already packed inboxes. Your message will irrelevant and lost.

Monitor how people are talking about the COVID-19with social media listening, and see if and how it relates to your brand. If something sticks out to you on how your business can help, then consider sending out a message.

Anxiety is high right now. We don’t want to overwhelm the already overwhelmed. Ask yourself if your email campaign is helping your customers genuinely. If it’s not, then consider waiting for the right moment and message to be relevant.

You don’t want to overreach here. You don’t want to send out an email that sounds disingenuous and self-serving as we all collectively come together to keep each other safe.

Gaurav: As responsible marketers, it is important for you to understand the sensitivity of the situation and act accordingly.

I believe that marketers should focus on creating educational posts to help their consumers stay safe. In fact, you can also make your consumers feel better by sending them free giveaways or special discount codes for their favorite products.

If you show empathy to consumers who are suffering because of this pandemic disease, there are higher chances that you’ll get returns in multiple folds. That’s because of the Principle Reciprocity by Dr. Robert Cialdini that states, “human beings are wired to return favors and pay back debts – to treat others as they’ve treated us.”

How the experts did it themselves

Emily: I have many clients across a wide range of industries.

One client is launching a new product that targets HR professionals. We are revisiting our messaging and timeline. HR professionals are most likely overwhelmed with trying to coordinate communications to their employees and handle the transition of office workers to remote teams.

This product launch campaign could easily get lost in the inbox due to the attention that COVID-19 needs right now. We are currently game planning on how to best address that.

I have another client who’s had to cancel some events, so we are segmenting and sending messages to the multiple types of attendees with tailored messaging to all of them.

And then one more client who is a small brick and mortar store who has a light and fun brand voice. Crafting email copy that reflects that voice and also understands the levity of this situation is delicate. But we came at it from a place of helping and concern for health and safety.

All email communication is acknowledging this unprecedented event while also still serving customers from a place of offering value. That might be content that gives access to resources to get through challenges people are facing. That might highlight products or services that can lighten the mood.

Whatever it is, we can’t ignore COVID-19. We have to work within it and around it in our offers and marketing.

We came up with a strategy to educate our subscribers and clients about what they need to do to overcome the COVID-19 situation.

We sent this email, which received a 26.7% open rate and a lot of positive (overwhelming) responses from our 11K subscribers. Also, we are giving heavy discounts to our customers to help their businesses grow during these difficult times.

In the end, it is all about understanding the needs of your customers.

In the mean time, stay home, stay safe and communicate.

 

 

Businesses, particularly SMBs, need help. Now more than ever, and our hearts go out to each one of you. In our continued effort to best support you during this challenging time and help you ensure business continuity, we want to let you know about some generous relief offerings from our Marketplace partner community.

To all our customers, thank you for the deep trust you put in us. We are here for you—now and in the future. In this spirit, we encourage you to explore these offers.

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