As someone having great success providing SEO client services, I feel that I could share some valuable insight on this topic with you today.
I personally think picking CRMs for SEO, and most industries for that matter, is very difficult to do. I’ve tried Salesforce Lightning, ActiveCampaign, Pipedrive, and right now I’m using Close.io.
The Downside to CRMs & SEO
There is a downside to using CRMs with SEO.
In this example, let’s say some of your leads are really hot.
They come to you. They know what they want. They’ve seen your brand and they have some interest. And they just want a game plan.
They are even happy to pay a reasonable amount for your services.
With leads like this, everything happens very quickly and in the blink of an eye you’re off to the races, contracts signed, invoice sent, invoice paid and we’re ready to rock.
If these are the only kind of clients you get, you have no real reason to update your leads list. But it’s very unlikely that these are the only clients you’re getting as an SEO agency.
Hypothetical Situations Based on Real-World Experiences
Let’s face it. You’re also getting a lot of people that are trying to figure out what’s going on and they are really, really vetting their agencies against each other.
Potential clients like this are testing the waters. More often than not, they aren’t even sure if they want to start this right now, six months from now, or maybe even a year from now.
Another hypothetical is that they already have an SEO agency that they are using, but they’re only testing them out for three months. So it’s possible you’ll have a chance at getting their business in the future if you pass their tests right now.
Or, there are other situations where you send a proposal and everything seems great, then suddenly out of nowhere they go dark.
In another situation, you may have even agreed to terms with a particular company. But then you send them the contract and then they completely go dark. You try to contact them but the only thing you hear is crickets.
I’ve seen all of this happen at some point or another.
I’ve learned one thing throughout this entire process. If you don’t really have a dialed in way to manage and filter things, then keeping your lead list updated is never really going to happen.
How to Handle Situations When Potential Clients Go Dark
When a potential client goes into the “waiting for response” category and then they go dark, are you just supposed to forget about them? It’s a potential $3000 a month deal. You don’t want to let it go if you don’t have to.
You absolutely do not let this lead go!
You put them into a pile, or add them to a list and follow-up with them every few months. Keep pounding away until you get a response. And stay on top of things to find out what’s going on.
The best CRM that I’ve seen is called close.io.
What I like about Close.io
I really like the fact that this CRM has two statuses.
Many of the other CRMs that I’ve used just have one status. As an example, they only share the status of where the lead is within the campaign.
With SEO, everyone just ends up in the “proposal presented” stage.
You don’t know when the cut them loose. And in reality, you never want to cut them loose if you don’t have to.
What I mainly like about close.io is the two status stages that I previously mentioned.
It has a lead stage and it also has an opportunity stage.
What I like most is that you can keep an opportunity hot and leave them in proposal presented because that’s where they belong.
But, if they stop responding for some reason, you can set the lead to cold. And then you can set up filters like…
Example: show me every lead that’s gone cold for three months that’s in this particular opportunity stage.
Cold Lead Follow-Up Options
Once you’ve generated this list of cold leads, you can send out a bulk email to reengage them. This is an awesome way to stay on top of your leads list, keep it updated, follow up with your potential leads, and even close out a few sales.
You also have the option to text through the system; they have voiceover IP calling, and other things that are pretty useful when it comes to inside sales.
This is the same system that I’m using to run my own business. I really hope you found it helpful. It’s helped me achieve great success with my SEO clients.
Thanks for taking the time to read my answer. I’m always happy to help whenever I can.
Give close.io a try if you’re looking for a CRM system to manage your leads.
Good luck with everything!