“It is also written on the fence, and there is firewood behind it,” is perhaps the best saying that can be used to describe advertising on the Internet. You read one thing, and then you find out that you read it wrong, misunderstood it, and there were two asterisks in the upper right corner. This is the very "naked" advertising, because of which the adblock thrives. And even advertisers get tired of the flow of advertising with innuendo and tricks. “I've had enough!”, - decided our marketer, who for 11 years has delved into PR and marketing in IT from the very bottom of the process. She collected all the CRM ads on her cookies and today she gets the open microphone - along with the right to tell what is what in CRM ads, how to read all these ads and not get caught in marketing networks. Or maybe look at your own ideas.
Disclaimer: the opinion of the employee may or may not coincide with the opinion of the company . Company names are blurred, all ads are real.
Hey Habr!
If only these networks were marketing! They are sometimes simply designed to get information about the client (lead) by driving him to the landing page. And then you can spud, catch on social networks, or simply not call back (as some of the heroes of our review did). Before diving into the abyss of advertising CRM-systems, let's define who gives this ad and who it is designed for.
Why are you seeing ads?
You search Google or Yandex for "crm", "buy crm", "what is crm", etc. The search engine offers all companies that have advertising in Yandex.Direct or Google Ads (ex-AdWords) to participate in the auction for the right to be shown to you. Depending on the size of the bid and the CTR of the ad at the top and bottom of the page, you get ads for various CRMs (or rarely those who managed to give other ads for this word - an insanely expensive undertaking) and you can click on it. If you do this, you will be placed on the advertiser's remarketing (retargeting) lists and they will now show you and everyone else on the list such as ultra personalized ads on the sites (display network). If you don’t click (and if you click too), it’s too early to rejoice - the search engine has remembered you and now various ads will run after you on all sites. Well, that is, it's not a secret for anyone that you asked about CRM, which means that the game has begun 🙂
https://*****.com/ru/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=type1_search%7Ccid_40424975%7CEkshtein&utm_content=gid_3664236016%7Caid_6926784727%7C15614453365%7C&utm_term=crm%20внедрить&source=zen.yadnex.ru®ion=Нижний%20Новгород_47&device=mobilehttps://cloud*****.ru/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=rsy&utm_content=8072165963&utm_term=битрикс%2024%20купить%20лицензию®ion=47®ion_name=Нижний%20Новгород.mobile.Нижний%20Новгород..none&block=none.0&yclid=5954618054675816680These UTM tags know everything about you and pass your ID to the ad network. By the way, there are users who do not click on the banner and do not cut it with an adblock, they look at the name of the company in the advertisement or on the banner and manually go to the site. Such paranoia is in vain: the site will still remember you if you do not go through an anonymous browser or VPN.
But that's not all. If you searched for CRM and were logged in from the same device to Facebook or other social networks, expect ads there too. Well, if you searched for "crm" in social networks, for example, to see what people write, that's it - you are in focus.
Who can advertise?
Everyone who has a minimal website or a landing page of the stated theme (there are exceptions when a website is not needed at all, but this is a special case).
- The vendor company is the developer of CRM systems itself, which implements directly (for example, we advertise exactly). With a trained eye, such ads can be distinguished from the general mass - they have discreet text and well-thought-out pictures in the Display Network, because the vendor values its reputation and does not risk posting something that could violate the rules of Yandex or the Federal Law “On Advertising”. Although there are "creative" exceptions among young vendors. Advertising leads to the official website or landing page in the same domain.
- Partners, dealers, distributors are companies affiliated with vendors who try to broadcast their policies (which does not always work). Their advertising is more “impudent”, sites are often just business cards or one-page landings.
- Referrals are companies for which CRM is not their main activity, but if it works out, why not get a percentage and money for training and “implementation” (read - the simplest setting). Most often found on social networks, advertising can lead to a landing page, a chat, a page on a social network, or just a data submission form. Among the referrals, there are infobusinessmen (well, we are on Habré, frankly, infogypsies), we will return to them later.
Who is the advertisement for?
If advertisers knew this... 🙂 In fact, of course, we all dream that ads will be watched by decision makers (DM), who will see the ad, be impressed and contact, leaving the exact name (not My Lord), the exact mail ( but not [email protected]) and exact phone number. Of course, we rely on them, but we understand that we also get students with term papers (a student once wrote to us who wanted to take our texts from Habr into a diploma, but at the same time replace the name with another popular CRM), employees who need to learn what CRM is and what lies ahead for them (although partly for them we keep a blog on Habré) and just those who want to clarify what CRM is.
Based on this calculation, advertising should be accurate, honest, relevant to the request and lead to a site that can sell. Here we will analyze what it is and what is behind it.
Where can I encounter advertising CRM-systems?
- But the search - in the issuance of search engines.
- On sites and services - in search partners of search networks (for example, Yandex.Zen, Weather, Maps or any other site connected to search engines).
- In mobile applications.
- In social networks (advertising is placed, among other things, through the sites' own advertising accounts).
- Well, even though we are not talking about content, being on Habré, I can’t help but mention two more types of advertising that work great - this is actually high-quality content (the formula is simple: from 80% of benefits, no more than 20% of PR) and banners that are purchased directly at the site and are placed with a hard target.
This is general, brief information about the advertising that runs after you on the Internet. And now it's time to move on to specific examples and analyze them in order to understand if they promise us too much? And then you will roll your lip for a free CRM with training and a textbook as a gift, and then - come on pay.
Are company blogs on Habré an advertisement?
Definitely yes, this is advertising and PR. But this type of promotion is somewhat different from classic advertising activities, this is the so-called win-win situation. You read interesting and useful (not always, alas) company articles and pay for it by viewing ads, and whoever needs it gets important information about the product. For example, our blog. You are guaranteed nowhere in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet you will find so many detailed materials about CRM - we actually post everything that we know ourselves (excluding company cases, because there are NDAs, approvals and nerves). We have written 100 articles on Habré and they are all honest, reflect our experience, help hundreds of readers navigate the world of CRM. And it seems justified to us advertising inside such articles. The same can be said about about 70% of company blogs on Habré.
We watched the ad for you - there are miracles!
Growth in sales and profits
The biggest lies in CRM advertising are the various claims that the CRM system will do something for you, increase something for you, or that you can increase something thanks to CRM.
No vendor can guarantee you that after the implementation of their CRM system, your sales will grow by 10%, 2 times, by an order of magnitude, etc. Of course, sales automation most often leads to process optimization and, as a result, to sales growth, but for each company these indicators are strictly individual and depend on many factors. Therefore, having met such advertising, you can safely ask for guarantees and terms of such growth. But about the increase in profits, it is written cunningly - up to 30% (well, that is, from 0 to 30%), but what if the profit decreases during or immediately after implementation?
We will increase sales by 2 times, increase profits up to 30%. Disproportionate, don't you think? Will sales margins go down?
This announcement became "Patient Zero". It was after him that the idea of this article arose. To increase sales several times with high-quality software is an infinitely false promise. By the way, I left a request, but no one called me back.
More modest, but also a lot
Right here: 40% growth due to implementation. Where do they get these numbers from, I wonder?
No I do not believe. And I'm not going to be convinced, because sales growth, changes in their quality, average bill and sales cycle are very individual. Under no circumstances should such obligations be assumed.
Rates are rising, guarantees are increasing. Profit growth in the first month? And if the fall is due to the fact that managers will be trained and mastered in the CRM system?
Total
No CRM vendor can guarantee sales growth, especially within the exact time frame and by the exact percentage. The effectiveness of CRM implementation and the impact of implementation on business performance is determined by a huge number of factors, individual for each company. In addition, an increase in profits can occur not at all due to sales growth, but due to process optimization and lower operating costs.
Implementation in 15 minutes, an hour, a day, etc.
We have a new amazing project - . When we implement it to clients or write an article on Habré, we say - start in 5 minutes. And we are responsible for the fact that the start of this service will take exactly 5 minutes, adjusted for the connection speed. Because it's a simple web application where you create an application form and start the work of supporting your customers in a new user-friendly interface. Here's what it looks like:
Interface . By the way, you can register and see how the profile is set up and tickets are easily created - we really like it ourselves 🙂
And here is how the interface of the CRM system and the client card in it look like. Do you think it is possible to implement it in 15 minutes, an hour or a day? Its first time to view and test purely in terms of functionality is already 3 hours, and then, if you know what CRM is and understand how to perceive its interface. But this is so, a bit of irony. In fact, the problem is that in advertising the word “implementation” means anything: registration in the system, initial setup, “running” with hints (tips) through the interface, etc.
Main window (desktop) RegionSoft CRM
RegionSoft CRM client card
For an ordinary person who runs a business and encounters a CRM system for the first time, implementation is an abstract story and, most likely, looks exactly like installing the system on a PC or setting it up in a browser window. In fact, implementation is a complex, long-term, step-by-step process of putting a CRM system into operation. It includes a preparatory stage (analysis of business processes, consultations, optimization of processes, formation and collection of requirements), the stage of installation and training itself, and gradual commissioning. To appreciate the depth of this process, take a look at the diagram we developed:
.
Mastering CRM is a separate topic, and it also cannot take 15 minutes. First, the employee dives into the interface, learns the main functions, then enters data and learns how to use the modules, then gets used to the settings and setup wizards (for example, calculators and business processes), builds reports, learns to use mail and telephony in CRM, interacts with colleagues. In the course of mastering the CRM system, users get acquainted with the software documentation, which for a real, experienced vendor takes not a couple of hints and not three sheets. It is a large detailed manual for several hundred pages - in 15 minutes you definitely won’t be able to read it, let alone master it. For example, the manual for our RegionSoft CRM 7.0 takes 300 sheets - , he introduces CRM in as much detail as possible.
If mastering CRM takes 15 minutes, this is not a CRM system, but a contact manager
These guys are almost champions in terms of promises. “CRM of the new generation” (from the new generation there is only that it was apparently developed by representatives of the new generation) is understandable at first glance and does not require training - this is what the landing page says. On the one hand, this system is not so simple, on the other hand, what kind of sales automation it is (not to mention operational work!), If it does not require training.
Actually, here it is the truth - “basic implementation”. In essence, setting up a web application and allowing employees to access it. After that, the “non-basic” begins, as a rule, most vendors have a paid one. Also cunning, but it looks more honest than the examples listed above.
Exactly. But that's not accurate 🙂
CRM will be written directly for you, on order
At this point, my right eye began to twitch and I was overcome by memories of how one of my first managers of a medium-sized business offered not to bother buying CRM, but to write my own CRM on my knee. They started writing - there is no longer a company, and the system was never written. Because it's not real. It is realistic to write a simple solution that will store information about customers and deals, display reports and send reminders from the base calendar. This is not a CRM system, although it is called so. The development of a normal, acceptable for work and automation of CRM takes several years and costs several million rubles. Why do you need it when there are dozens of ready-made solutions for every taste and even for every budget?
If you look at the websites of companies offering the development of CRM systems, you will see that the interfaces are similar, and so is the architecture. The fact is that now there is a Symfony framework (PHP), on which these CRMs are written - this is the most popular option. Although there are solutions for Laravel and even Yii. Well, besides, there are open source projects that are easily turned into commercial ones, not forking, but simply by repeating part of the code.
The problem is that you will get a CRM with an acceptable interface, everything will suit you, but as you use it, so many errors, bugs, problems, security holes, etc. will come out that the only thing you want is to quit CRM and buy a ready-made solution (tested, with support, honed features and best practices on board).
Process manufacturing CRM is scary to imagine. Are you wondering if there is firing or, for example, honing? What if there is cracking?
Sometimes by “we will write” we mean a standard vendor CRM, which the partner modifies or configures to suit your requirements - but this does not mean that CRM is “written” for you, it is finalized and redesigned for you.
This is absolutely fantastic. If something else can be done with web-CRM, then development under Windows is difficult, long, expensive. And it's silly when there are good solutions with a proven implementation experience, a history of failures and successes, and with stable versions.
I do not repeat twice, I do not repeat. It is interesting to ask to meet the deadlines of at least six months.
Not everyone pays!
I’ll make a reservation right away, we are talking about a free tariff, when all the others are paid, we are not considering open source now. Free is perhaps the most common marketing tool. The calculation is simple: to acquaint the user with the CRM system closer, bind it and then bring it to a paid subscription. I will single out several types of free.
- Free CRM is essentially a demo version with a limited validity period (usually 14 days, less often 30). You study it, make the first transactions, test it, leave your data. After that, there is an honest communication on the subject of the purchase.
- Free CRM of the old release - CRM is available to the user with or without restrictions, but the old release (see the number of the current version and the free version). Typically delivered as is, unsupported, and suitable for solo entrepreneurs for basic customer and transaction tracking. Legacy is legacy, no good.
- Free CRM with time limits, users, features, disk space, etc. - sort of like a "full-fledged" CRM forever. The most tempting trap: you start using it actively, enter data, and after 3-5 months you start to miss something, and this something is found in the paid version. It’s a pity to drop the data, change CRM and choose again too lazy, you just switch to a paid subscription.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with this - be sure to find out the full restrictions, specify the validity period of the free plan. Let me take this opportunity to remind you: free cheese is only in a mousetrap.
Here and free, and the rise in sales in 15 days. Is it worth looking further?
CRM simple, free sales increasing
This is a special case. Try to understand what is wrong here without looking at the caption under the picture.
Ultimately, it's not free. Do you know why? Because "implementation for 0", i.e. the setup will be free and an hour of training, no one spoke about licenses / connections. But another not very honest trick “Only 1 day!” Of course, not alone, I caught this ad for a week (I suspect this is retargeting.
The same story: 7500 instead of 20, or even for zero - for introduction. What is included in it.
One hundred million customers
How does the software purchase work? First, a potential user registers on the site and gets access to a free or demo version, tests it, and only then makes a purchase decision. Not all leads convert into customers. But, in principle, no one prevents the company from calling everyone who left data on the site a client. Actually, therefore, customers can be counted by registered leads, by the first payment (in a good scenario, about 8-10 times less), by regular customers (usually below 10%). But for marketing, all means are good, so there are companies on the market with millions of customers. In principle, this is an indicator of the level of the company, but you should not blindly believe the numbers.
Everything is fine here - and the perfect order in sales, and 15 customers. You wonder: where, with such orderly sales, are those terrible sales departments of companies that you contact ...
By the way, in one of the advertising materials of the partners of the same company, the figure is not 5 million, but 2 million, in 2017. It would be nice to synchronize advertising templates.
There is also a version “we will show CRM for 0 rubles” - pure trick. All decent vendors provide an online demonstration of the CRM system absolutely free of charge, there is no advantage in this.
Other magic
When you create advertisements for Yandex.Direct, sooner or later, the creative cynically starts to burst out and you want to write something like "RegionSoft CRM - we have been holding the market for 15 years" or "Hyper CRM for your amazing business." These ads are bad: they do not carry any information load. However, you need to stand out somehow - which some companies working with CRM systems do.
For example, they pass off ordinary things as their competitive advantages or beat facts that, in fact, a particular CRM does not have.
Almost everyone has been saying for a long time that all prices are open without registration. Well, everything is simple here: you want x rubles for CRM, you set the price x + 3000, you give an ad. Marketing of the organization, 1 course. But in fact, these guys are just the ones who offer you to get a price for answering 3 questions, and not follow a direct link to the site - thereby they will receive more information about you. Cunningly, and in principle, not very obvious to an inexperienced user.
Well, this is a classic of the genre: "do not buy CRM until you see ours." Pure clickbait.
There is no ERP system behind this advertisement, we checked, but again, no one bothers to be called as such. And it looks and sounds solid, like two in one.
By the way, about ERP, more precisely, about the not entirely honest content of what is behind the click on the ad. It happens that they offer industry-specific CRMs - but in fact, you get demo access to the same CRM system, and your indication of industry affiliation helps the sales manager choose the most suitable script to communicate with you. During the tests, I came across one company directly with a canonical approach: the ad is given according to “CRM for ...”, there is a list of industries on the site, but in fact you register in the same interface - even entities and directories for the sake of decency are not named under the industry.
By the way, specifically lawyers treat CRM with coolness for a number of reasons, including security. Not to mention that they don't have dozens of business tasks, there are very specific processes, and they prefer to combine Excel and shelving with paper archives.
TOP 3 companies in the Russian Federation is also a big question (TOP 3 among all is unlikely, TOP 3 CRM is not, TOP 3 of some class of vendor partners is most likely).
And of course, where without robots, neural networks and artificial intelligence! Again, the point is in the definitions of these concepts. First, let's define robots. There are robots in most serious CRM systems, but not everyone guessed to call them that. In most cases, robots in CRM are software triggers that trigger an event. For example, you created a deal, set yourself a task to call in three days - a day, an hour and 15 minutes before the call you will receive a reminder. This is essentially a robot, not a human. There are more complex robots: they launch and transfer business processes from stage to stage, make calls, make backups and synchronizations at night according to a schedule, and so on. No sci-fi - normal code (okay, not normal - good, thoughtful code).
A fair announcement, the robots are in place, doing their routine. But still, the robot is more of a marketing name, even if it does not produce a WOW effect on you and does not take your soul for a wallet.
With neural networks and artificial intelligence, things are more complicated. Indeed, there are several CRM systems in the world and in Russia that use these technologies, and this is remarkable from the point of view of development and engineering interest. And quite remarkable from the point of view of a very large company: based on the analysis of closed deals and / or behavioral patterns of clients, the result of a relationship with a new client is predicted (For example, you sell stationery and office supplies all over Russia and have long noticed that lawyers buy a lot of office paper – you don’t need AI for this. But after 3-4 thousand closed deals, you notice that lawyers (with paper), buying more soap and towels per employee, buy even more candy and tea. You won't see it, but the AI will calculate it. These are the companies that take customers in their office, and they can offer something specific - but you will already get to that with your mind, the AI will only recommend to new customers with a large volume of paper and detergents to offer more candy). So, if you have a small volume of closed deals (less than 3-4 thousand deals at least), then such CRM as a software package with artificial intelligence is useless for you: it will have nothing to learn from, there will not be enough data (well, that is, there is nothing infer the likelihood of an event occurring). Do not fall for beautiful terms!
Violation of the Federal Law "On Advertising"
To begin with, a quote from the Federal Law "On Advertising" (Article 5):
3. An advertisement that contains untrue information is recognized as unreliable:
1) about the advantages of the advertised product over the goods in circulation, which are produced by other manufacturers or sold by other sellers;
This includes superlatives (best, strongest, fastest, etc.) applied to the product if there is no evidence of the above statement (Forrester recognized Chamomile CRM as the best in terms of speed); here - everything that is connected with "number 1". Such ads are disrespectful to competitors and users. You can safely complain about them to Yandex/Google and to the FAS. However, we will not do this - is this what they do with research samples 🙂
Who said it's the best? Who thinks she is?
Number 1 and this is not number 1 at all, even from those whom you and I hear most often. By the way, 100% reliability is also a so-so statement - even super fault-tolerant servers have 99.6-99.9%. And here is an external cloud with data, backups, the application itself, ping ...
However, some vendors have the right to claim that they are number one. For example, you can order a paid study (from about 1-1,5 million rubles) in the context of a narrow industry sector and get #1 there according to some criterion (indicate details under an asterisk on the site). As a user, this doesn’t seem hot or cold for you, but, firstly, you can easily trust No. 1, and secondly, the cost of such research will fall on your shoulders through the growth in the cost of software.
Mystical coincidences
There is nothing special in this announcement, a listing of CRM functionality. Everything would be fine if it weren't an advertisement... like RegionSoft CRM, letter for letter, but at the same time a completely different system. At the same time, this is our rather old announcement, which I am proud of - I managed to express my thoughts about functionality very capaciously.
Here is an advertisement of a certain partner company of one of the well-known CRMs:
And here is a screenshot from the interface of our Yandex.Direct with this very text:
It is difficult to assume that this is a coincidence, especially since there are no business processes or KPIs in the CRM system promoted by the partner company (and this is neither good nor bad - they just have their own CRM philosophy, we have our own philosophy, in which has a place for a complex KPI system, business processes and other business bells and whistles).
Infobiznes
Large CRM systems strive to build their partner network and therefore make joining the ranks of distributors as simple as possible, and sometimes even offer exclusive conditions for coaches, business trainers, who are often information businessmen. Therefore, be prepared to pay money to a sales or team building coach, and for the same money you will receive advertising of the CRM system and its further imposition in an aggressive form.
There are other ways: information businessmen sell books and manuals about CRM, offer you checklists in exchange for data, according to which they will then do what you need to do? That's right - sell a CRM system. However, often regulations, checklists, etc. super important files will be sent to you for free, but again - in exchange for your phone and e-mail.
From what I caught during the research, they sent me: 2 checklists, a training manual authored by Captain Obviousness, demanded over the phone details about my company in exchange for a checklist and - cherry on the cake - they sent a complete manual for the well-known Russian CRM for 2017 year.
No, friends, sending something in 2019 in exchange for user data is not a gift, it is essentially a sale. And this must be treated responsibly.
One of the masterpieces of infobiz, which came to me by CRM requests, but did not shed any light on automation. With the end of minutes and a perpetual counter, this tool has long been outdated, but PDF, of which there are only 3 left ... Have they run out of stock? Why did none of the CRM-specialists guess to use the formula “Only 1043 74 licenses left”?! 🙂
And not even CRM
It happens that instead of CRM, something else comes across in its logic and purpose: I came across two help desks, one sales coach, two marketing systems and a bunch of IP telephony of all stripes and types. Below is the most unrecognizable and harmless of examples:
I prepared this article for a long time (to collect advertising and get into the lists of remarketing, retargeting, etc.). During this time, I found out the reason for this positioning - one of the helpdesks decided for some reason to join the camp of simple CRM systems, which was reported on Facebook. However, this is more of a mini-helpdesk than CRM, but since there is no industry standard as such, everyone is free to call themselves as they see fit.
This is also not CRM at all, but a connector for connecting (you can call it integration with a stretch) a bunch of different services. In general, roughly speaking, a crutch-connector for the corporate software zoo.
By the way, during the test (about a month and a half), I was followed by ads of lead generators, various software a la contact manager, business trainers and coaches, sales courses, and so on. So for every poor fellow looking for CRM, the hunting season is open. In some other areas, the same (try to start choosing a car or a driving school), in some better ones (usually for specialized goods and services).
And now on Instagram such subscribers are coming, as in the notification below.
Babki are coming. Where CRM is, there are babki.
And what about them?
Five years ago, I promoted software that pretended to be CRM on the international market (it was another company, not RegionSoft). And I noticed that the attitude towards CRM systems abroad (Western Europe and the USA) is completely different: this is the necessary working software, which has requirements and which must be. No one accuses companies of imposing, everyone is interested in the possibilities of new products, small businesses are active and open to communication.
Therefore, the ads are boring, without a twinkle. Whether business at us!
And in general, the ads of Russian companies in Google turned out to be much more boring than in Yandex. I have several versions of why the same companies have such a difference, but I'm almost sure that these are components of one big reason - the reluctance to contact Google Ads:
- Google audience in Russia is less interesting
- campaign settings are much more complicated and longer
- Google's ad requirements are stricter.
By the way, if you have never been affected by disabling advertising in Google Ads / AdWords, I can share my impressions. You get up in the morning, log into your account, there is a lot of red and it is clear that the ad does not work. You call support, they drive you to specialists, then you write letters and get pretty cool answers. If there is no personal manager, the blocking can last a long time, so the secret is simple: get support, dream about it - and everything will be fine. The guys are terribly bureaucratic, but adequate.
This music can play forever - while I was writing this post, blurting, grouping and drawing conclusions, bizarre and not very advertising of CRM systems and business services of all stripes and types continued to fall on me. Each advertiser strives to stand out, thereby often overstepping the bounds of legal, honest and reasonable. Each buyer has the right to choose. Learn to read company ads and you will be able to choose a worthy automation partner whose business approach is read even in the ad.
Our arsenal for complex business automation:
is a powerful desktop CRM system for small and medium businesses.
NEW! — cloud-based helpdesk with a user-friendly interface and high speed.
Write, call, contact - we automate to the teeth! 🙂
Source: habr.com