The Benefits of CMS to CRM Integration

Every business website provides an opportunity for conversion. A site visitor calling your office, signing up for a mailing list, or writing your team for a quote on a project — those actions are all conversions, and you want those to grow your business. A content management system (CMS) is an application that allows you to update a website more simply, without needing to know the details of web design or code. A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a tool (often SaaS) that allows you to store information of your valuable leads, manage lead nurture activities, and track interactions and touchpoints among prospective and current customers. Contact information for customers who find you via your website can be stored in your CRM, and that’s where CMS to CRM integration comes into play.

How it Works

To automatically store information about prospective customers into your CRM, you’ll need a website that attracts people who are looking for companies like yours. There are several factors that go into a strong website; including a usable design, lean code, and content on the site that is informative for customers and optimized for search engines. Your website will also need a contact form to collect information about your prospective customers. A basic contact form asks for the person’s name, phone number, email address, and a message to provide details about their request. Contact forms can be longer and more complex, but a shorter contact form with just the essential fields will provide you with what you need to follow up with the prospect, without overloading him or her with a long form. When a prospective customer completes the contact form, the standard convention is for that form to email someone at the company with the information that that prospect provided. Even better if that information is stored in the CMS for people managing the website to see as a backup in case the primary contact is unavailable. An even more robust approach is to store the information about the prospective customer from the website in a CRM, such as Salesforce. The website can be set up to securely transfer the prospective customer information from the website to the CRM automatically after he or she completes a contact form on the site.

What to Do with It

Having a website to attract leads and having leads are two parts of the process of building relationships and growing a business. Following up with prospects who have contacted you is a crucial third part of the process. Once the website transfers the prospect information to the CRM, the CRM can be set up to notify you that the lead has come in. At that point, you can do some preliminary research about the lead, and follow up with him or her to determine if the lead is qualified, and you’re a good match. Automating the process of turning a site visitor into a lead is a straightforward development process that has the long-term benefit of removing obstacles, making it easier for you to focus on developing relationships.

Tags: Web Design • WordPress