We all exchange business cards these days as it’s such an ingrained part of business interactions. But for many people, that’s where it ends. The card goes into a drawer or wallet and is often forgotten.
However, business cards can and should play an important role in business development, from building up a database of contacts to providing sales leads. That’s made possible by having a strong contact management solution in place. But that’s not where the benefits of a good contact management solution end. Here are some more.
Keep contact information organised
As mentioned before, there’s a tendency for people to collect business cards, put them somewhere and then forget about them. Then when they need to contact that person, they’re unable to find their contact information. In situations such as these, a contact management solution such as Sansan could be handy as it stores all contacts in one place and also makes searching for them easy and quick.
Easier to remember vital information
Do you have a business card but, no matter how hard you try, you can't recollect where you met that person? Or maybe there is a vital detail you need to recall about your new contact such as what new products they’re looking to purchase? A contact management solution allows you to add notes against a new contact, so you never have to worry about forgetting vital details. This can help your sales team to identify potential leads and can help with follow-up emails from your business to the contact, which will make a great first impression.
Make business cards part of your business infrastructure
Instead of contact information sitting in silos within your business, a contact management solution can bring it to the heart of the organization. The business card will become part of the contact management circle, with repeat sales as the ultimate goal. It will also be able to unite contact information from different channels and different parts of the organization, opening up new lines of business that had perhaps been overlooked before.
Connect to a CRM or other systems
Getting contact information into a contact management system is one thing, but a huge benefit is being able to integrate that information with other programs or applications. Its impact on customer relationship management is an obvious one; providers such as Salesforce allow contacts to be plugged straight in as sales leads. HubSpot has also gained a big following, and there are options to scan your business cards into it.
Increase sales
There is nothing more effective for sales than getting in touch with the right people at the target company. A contact management system enables your sales team to pull together all the right contacts and send group emails, which will undoubtedly increase the chances of making a sale.
Business cards are often given and received with very little thought about what happens next. But that means that the benefits to a business, attainable from managing contacts through a cloud-based, centralized contact management system, are entirely ignored in the process. Rectifying this could mean a big step forward in a company's journey.
