For any business the return on investment for each marketing program is important, for small business it can be the most mission critical decision a marketing professional can make. In today’s economy, every marketing spend is a serious one, so examining the return on investment for a small business marketing package is important before choosing the package. ? The good news is that changes in technology have changed the equation for small business marketers from one of shrink wrap packaged database software or sales account contact management packages, to a variety of inexpensive, no contract online marketing packages that can keep costs very low while resulting sales from the marketing package grow.Affording a web-based or +cloud+ computing package for marketing was until recently something that only a larger business could get a return on their investment with. Now subscription based marketing packages can be found for very low monthly rates that will provide not only all of the sales account management features expected of the desktop database products, but email marketing, social CRM tools for twitter and more. Some of these packages even provide a free 30 day trial period in which the small business can perform an unlimited amount of email marketing and lead gathering without any cost.The key way in which a web-based small business marketing package can increase sales is by gathering leads from a landing page and moving those leads directly into a sales contact database for sales to contact. Many online packages provide an online form that the small business can direct customers to, or incorporate into the design of their website. Once new leads are in the system, the marketing package provides the sales force with a way to stay in constant contact with leads through email, while increasing the knowledge they have in the system about each opportunity or activity.Having a sales force track customer opportunities in a more organized way than a simple contact database and can provide information on neglected accounts. Small business marketing packages will provide templates to create professional email designs for bulk email or to be used as form letters by the sales force. Shopping around can reveal that some full service online marketing packages provide all of the features of a customer relationship management system at the same price that other email marketing packages charge to send bulk emails.The biggest advantage of a web-based small business marketing package is mobility. Desktop database, contact management and spreadsheet programs mean that customer information is in one location. If that location is on a laptop or your phone that’s great, but it has to be kept in sync and situations will come up where someone else needs the data when it’s on the road with a sales person. Cloud based software for marketing provides the power to tap into that customer information from any computer with web access, smart phone or tablet. This means that opportunities can be worked to their full extent anywhere anytime and more sales will close.A small business marketing package can go this to web-site a long way to increase sales.//www.youtube.com/embed/A6-G-qqu6HI” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>?
