Find out how you can use CRM to help attribute sales and put your time, money and effort in the right places
When we first set up Propane, one of the problems we came across in our advertising was tracking exactly where sales had come from.
Ad platforms don’t track whether a particular ad generated a sale. And it can take someone a couple of weeks after seeing an ad to buy something.
It gets even more complicated when you’re using multiple platforms, with lots going on in each place.
This is why it’s really important to have some sort of CRM.
How we use ActiveCampaign to attribute sales
CRM basically keeps a record of previous interactions with people on your database. It helps you find out where clients come from and what causes them to make a buying decision.
It’s somewhere for people to opt in and come through the virtual doors of your business.
We use ActiveCampaign, which allows us to click on people’s profiles to see:
- which lists they’re in
- what caused them to opt in
- when they opted in
- how many emails they receive
- their level of engagement with us
- previous interactions
All in one place.
This makes it much easier to see where our clients have come from and what caused them to make a buying decision.
CRM will change how you see advertising, too. We have some keywords across a few platforms that we know just work in terms of generating customers long-term.
Having that attribution set up from CRM will really help you see the long-tail effect of everything. Because you start making decisions that will help you put your time, effort and money in the best places.
Why is all of this important?
Because as an online personal trainer, you have to figure out where to best allocate your time and resource to grow your business.
The problem is, you can’t do everything.
This is why we’ve focused on the things that we know, thanks to our CRM, are very likely to generate sales.
It’s heartbreaking to spend years doing things that you then realise haven’t generated sales.
You might have been spending hours on Instagram, thinking that has helped sales. But what if those clients have actually come to you through word of mouth and referrals?
Finding the trigger source of your sales
It’s important to know where sales are coming from when you spend a lot of time and money advertising on social media platforms.
Put simply, you should be noting down your initial source (what caused your customer to opt in? where are they from?) and the trigger source of sales.
But how do you identify the source?
Each source (or platform) you want to track has its own landing page. When people opt in via that link, they’ll be tagged by the platform they arrived through, and this shows up in your CRM.
Why not just ask people how they found you?
Because people have a recency bias. They might have seen a post on Instagram, which caused them to get in touch. But it might have been a Facebook ad from two years ago that triggered them to follow you.
The problem you’re trying to solve is finding more people online who are going to buy from you.
You need to increase your chances of doing this by making sure you’re focusing on the platforms that are most likely to generate sales.
The thing that you can ask people for better insight is: What was the trigger source or event that caused them to sign up, and buy from you?
This is something that’s more reliable, as it’s likely to be a more memorable moment for the client.
Your sales cycle length
The gap between the opt-in and the trigger event is your sales cycle length.
If you track:
- the point that someone enters your CRM
- when someone buys from you
You’ll be able to calculate the average buying cycle (how long it takes people after they opt in to make a buying decision).
You’ll probably find that this is about 14 days. Which is the same amount of days as the challenge we teach people to run. And for very good reason.
Find out more about our 14-day challenge
The root of many problems is: You can end up doing well (or doing badly) in a business and not knowing why, because you haven’t got the CRM nailed down.
Because without any attribution, you’re just guessing.
You only have so much time as a business owner. So make sure you’re building systems and automations that will help grow things over time. And free up more time to build your business by cutting down on the things that aren’t working.
Get in touch
You can book in a call if you’re ready to chat to us about business mentoring.
Find out more about our processes
If you want to learn more about our process, what we teach and how our system works, you can grab an overview video here.
You can also find some how-to business guides here and subscribe to our podcast for more advice on growing your business as an online coach.
Try ActiveCampaign for your business
You can book in a call with a member of the ActiveCampaign team, who are happy to offer 15% off through Propane.