Using Twitter and CRM Together for Sales Success

5 comments // Nov 24th, 2010 // Good Ideas

So, you work in sales and have decided to (or been forced to) join Twitter.

One of the first things you want to do is see which of your existing clients and prospects are using Twitter. Unfortunately, unless your customer relationship management (CRM) database exists in GMail, Yahoo or AOL (people still use that?) or entirely on LinkedIn… you’re out of luck, as far as Twitter’s direct import feature is concerned.

My friend Dean Holmes pointed out in a comment that there are apps – FlowTown, Gist, Sprout Social – that essentially handle the first 6 steps for a cost. But when have I not been in favor of free? :)

So never fear, sales gurus. There is a pretty simple process for getting all of your CRM contacts into Twitter for free.

1] Export your CRM to a .CSV file. There are so many different CRM tools out there that I’m not even going to attempt to itemize how to do this for different ones, BUT… if it’s not under “file” or if there’s not a giant “export” button, use your database’s Help search function.

export

2] In the .CSV file, make the category headings EXACTLY “Name” and “Email Address” – I discovered first-hand that “Email” or “E-Mail Address” will NOT work. You can delete all other fields that your CRM exported. Twitter will only be searching the email addresses, not the names, but you do need a name field in order for GMail to import the contacts.

cheryl-harrison

3]Get a GMail account. If you already use GMail for personal use, you may not going to want to import thousands of business contacts into your account. If you do want to, great. If not, create a new GMail account just for this.

4] Import the .CSV file into GMail. Go to Contacts, click the “More Actions” button, select “Import.”

import

5] Go to the “Find People” section of Twitter and enable access to your GMail account.

6] Assuming some results came back, you can select the button at the top and follow ALL of your prospects using Twitter, or else individually select prospects to follow.

7] Create private lists based on how you rank your sales prospects. We have a 1-7 ranking. Everyone does it differently. Regardless, the idea here is to categorize your prospects into at-a-glance lists of how far along in the sales process they are.

lists

8] List the prospect’s Twitter name in your CRM. That way, every time you go to call them, you are reminded to check their Twitter stream for any relevant updates.

9] If you have a (relevant) interaction with a prospect on Twitter, add that into your CRM activities. I’ve been doing this on a case-by-case basis… I don’t mark down everytime I “LOL” at something. The point is to arm your sales force (if you’re in marketing) or yourself (if you’re in sales) with useful information.

crm-activities

Helpful? Questions?


5 responses so far, want to say something?

  1. Dean Holmes says:

    Or, you could just use FlowTown or Gist or Sprout Social :) Little costs saves a ton of time. Check ‘em out.

    Nov 24, 2010, 2:50 pm
  2. Cheryl says:

    I’m all about the free :)

    Nov 24, 2010, 2:52 pm
  3. Rich Prete says:

    A smart and sneaky way. Love it.

    Nov 24, 2010, 3:05 pm
  4. Don The Idea Guy says:

    Which CRM program do YOU use, Cheryl?

    Nov 24, 2010, 6:23 pm
  5. Cheryl says:

    @Don – Well, I work for a project management software company (TeamDynamix) and our software includes a CRM, which is what I was trying to figure out how to transfer, hence this blog post :) But in the past I’ve had success using Batchbook. How ’bout you?

    Nov 24, 2010, 6:59 pm

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