CRM

As a small and medium-sized business (SMB) owner, your content must work harder to grab attention among big-name brands. Even without an in-house designer or large budget, well-planned marketing infographics can engage your target audience and get them to convert.

In this post, you’ll learn how to create visual content that keeps your sales pipeline flowing and moves the needle.

What is a marketing infographic?

A marketing infographic combines data, text and design to present information in a way that’s easier to digest and more memorable. This type of visual content communicates a brand’s message quickly and clearly.

Infographics help your busy SMB showcase its value faster. Speed and clarity are crucial for capturing audiences and standing out against more established companies.

For example, here’s part of a process infographic explaining email delivery:

It uses simple icons and short paragraphs to simplify and make the content more approachable for readers.

Marketers typically use infographics as top-of-funnel (TOFU) content. In this “awareness” stage of your marketing funnel, people are just learning about your brand:

Your goal here is to grab attention and build interest (not go straight for the sale, as people aren’t ready to buy).

Infographics work well in this stage because they’re eye-catching, shareable and easy to digest. They allow potential customers to engage with your brand in a low-pressure way while still picking up useful information.

However, you can use infographics throughout your marketing and sales process to:

• Explain a complex product or service

• Highlight key stats or benefits of what you offer

• Share the results of a customer story or case study

• Recap insights from a blog post, webinar or workshop

• Support a sales pitch or email with a quick visual summary

As this article shows, effective digital marketing infographics do more than just inform. They inspire people to act.

Why should SMB owners use marketing infographics?

The best infographics make your message easier to absorb, remember and act on. When every brand competes for audiences’ limited time and attention, thoughtful resources cut through the noise.

It’s no wonder Venngage reports that infographics are marketers’ most successful types of visual content:

Infographics can be powerful assets in your content marketing strategy. They convey value instantly, whether you’re explaining your service or proving results.

According to Canva research, 91% of businesses use visual communication to be more efficient. Teams use it to explain ideas clearly, speed up decision-making and connect better with audiences.

Here are four key benefits of business infographics for SMB marketing:

A single infographic can also deliver value across multiple touchpoints. They’re easy to repurpose across email marketing, sales presentations and your website.

5 simple steps to create a content marketing infographic

When created intentionally, infographics become powerful tools in your content marketing efforts.

You just need to clarify why you’re making one, who it’s for and what action you want people to take after seeing it.

Here’s a step-by-step guide for using marketing infographics more effectively.

1. Define your infographic’s goal

Before you start designing, clarify what you want your infographic to achieve. A clear aim (e.g., a specific sales goal) helps you stay efficient and align your content with tangible, intended business outcomes.

Without big budgets or endless resources, every piece of content needs to pull its weight. Decide if you want your infographic to:

Capture your core takeaway in one sentence. For example:

Your goal aligns your team and makes every decision easier, from what data to include to where to share your infographic once live.

Here’s how to determine yours:

• Identify which customer journey stage the infographic will support (e.g., brand awareness, consideration or decision) to shape the message and tone

• Choose one clear objective to give it purpose (e.g., explaining a product benefit, showcasing a success story or simplifying a common process)

• Decide how you’ll measure impact (e.g., through downloads, email sign-ups, click-throughs or time on page), so you know if the infographic is achieving its goal

By setting a target and success indicators, you’ll build strategic assets that support a broader marketing plan.

2. Identify the target audience

A compelling infographic speaks directly to specific customer needs, questions or pain points. For example, you may target decision-makers from specific company sizes or existing leads who have yet to convert.

When you know your customer, you can tailor every infographic component (i.e., language, tone, visuals and data points) to what matters most to them.

Narrowing your focus also helps make your message more effective and actionable. For instance, this Smart Insights infographic lays out the inbound marketing funnel:

The company targets business owners at SMBs who want to drive downloads, demos and sales with their content marketing. By positioning itself as a trusted resource, Smart Insights increases the likelihood that readers will convert when they’re ready to invest in a membership.

Your customer relationship management (CRM) software is a goldmine for finding key audience information.

Let’s say you use Pipedrive to store key contact data.

You can identify individuals by organization and customer type (as above) or even by job roles, industries, pipeline stages and interaction history. These details help you build clearer customer segments on which to base infographics.

For example, you might categorize:

Reviewing FAQs or sales conversations also helps you spot recurring questions or objections that could become infographics.

The more specific your target audience, the more likely your content is to resonate and drive results.

3. Collect relevant data

Your marketing infographic needs relevant, accurate information to attract and convince potential customers.

In fact, Venngage research also suggests data visualizations are marketers’ most popular type of visual content. The right stats give your infographics credibility, while also showing you understand readers’ real challenges.

In the example below, the project management tool Asana highlights stats from its original research:

Instead of reading through a wordy report, readers understand the story the data is telling at a glance.

Your segments guide the theme and content of your infographic. To find the best-fit data, think about what information each audience needs to take the next step. What’s holding them back?

Determine what data you can gather to:

• Address common objections

• Highlight a success story from the same industry

• Break down how your product solves an operational pain point

Once you’ve pinpointed the type of insight you need, find it. You likely already have a lot of valuable data at hand – you just need to know where to look.

Here’s how to collect relevant customer and market information:

For instance, say you run a B2B software company that helps mid-sized logistics firms improve fleet efficiency.

Your sales team has been filtering won deals in your CRM for the past six months. It notices that 70% of successful clients had the same pain point: tracking fuel usage. Notes and call recordings also reveal that compiling reports was a major frustration.

To create an infographic, you gather:

1. A customer quote from a recent demo about time savings

2. Internal data showing a 30% reduction in fuel costs after three months

3. Industry research about rising fuel prices in the logistics sector

Including this information validates your product’s value and directly addresses a high-priority concern for similar prospects.

Using data that matters to your audience makes your infographic feel trustworthy and persuasive. These two things help move leads closer to a decision.

4. Choose a tool with infographic templates

A tool with ready-made templates saves time and ensures your content looks clean, engaging and on-brand. You won’t need an in-house team or freelance designers to create polished and professional infographics.

For example, Canva offers a beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor across millions of templates:

It’s especially handy for social media marketing. Pre-set dimensions for every major platform and brand kits keep your visuals consistent.

Other popular design tools with infographic templates include:

• Venngage – for more data-heavy visuals, with options to visualize charts and stats

• Piktochart – offers templates designed for marketing, presentations and reporting

• Visme – ideal for interactive infographics and more complex visual content

Templates can also inspire your own infographic designs, so you never have to sit staring at a blank page.

When choosing an infographic marketing tool, pick one that:

• Offers templates for different content types (like timelines, comparison charts or process breakdowns)

• Lets you easily customize fonts, colors, icons and layout

• Allows collaboration if your team is working together on design and approvals

• Provides download and sharing options for web, email or print

Start with a layout that fits your goal, then update the content and colors to match your brand style and audience needs.

5. Share through content marketing efforts

Sharing your infographic through the right content marketing channels helps you reach your audience and guide them further along the buyer journey.

Thoughtful distribution ensures your infographic gets the attention it deserves and drives real results.

First, focus on the channels where your audience is already active, such as your email list, blog or social media. Think about how your infographic fits into your existing marketing campaigns when choosing where to share it.

For example, see if it would work as part of a:

Before publishing, consider the best format and dimensions for each platform. A long, vertical email infographic that looks great as a newsletter might cut off or prove hard to read on Instagram.

For instance, this horizontal Unbounce “landing page rehab” infographic is ideal for how-to guides and presentations:

On the other hand, square or vertical formats perform better on specific social media platforms (like X) and smaller mobile screens.

Remember, one infographic can become an article, several social posts, a slide deck or a downloadable lead magnet. Repurposing drives more value from every piece of content.

Partner with influencers or other businesses to share your infographic. You’ll expand your reach and build credibility through trusted networks.

How to use marketing infographics as part of your Pipedrive sales process

Marketing infographics can support your entire sales funnel, especially during the lead-nurturing phase. A CRM like Pipedrive provides the tools to deliver the right content at the right moment.

First, create contact labels to group people and organizations based on deal stage, interest level or past engagement:

This intent and behavioral segmentation lets you tailor your infographic content to speak directly to each group’s interests or concerns.

Next, build sequences of personalized emails using Campaigns by Pipedrive:

For example, set up a series for warm leads with a comparison infographic that helps clarify your value over a competitor’s. Or design one to send alongside a customer success story from their industry.

Then, let Pipedrive’s workflow automations send infographics at strategic points. A good opportunity is right after a product demo or consultation:

Reinforcing your message with a visual keeps your solution top of mind without manual follow-ups.

Once you send emails, track how leads engage with them using Pipedrive’s Insights for Campaigns:

Look for improved (or declining) email opens, clicks and conversion rates tied to infographic content to guide your future efforts.

You can also run Pipedrive’s AI report generator to ask for insights in your own words:

This easy-to-find data can help refine your message or timing for better results.

Pipedrive’s features help you create and share thoughtful, data-driven infographics that move leads closer to becoming customers.

9 best practices for creating high-quality marketing infographics

An engaging, informational infographic can be one of your most effective marketing tools. It has the potential to earn backlinks and boost your search rankings when shared widely.

Whether you’re creating a flowchart, process or timeline infographic, a few wise choices can ensure your content always delivers real value to your audience.

Here’s how to use infographics in marketing for the best results:

1. Keep it simple – focus on one key message or idea to avoid overwhelming your audience

2. Use plenty of white space – allow room for your visuals and text to breathe, making the infographic easier to digest

3. Prioritize visual hierarchy – arrange elements so the most important information stands out first (e.g., use larger fonts, bold text or contrasting colors)

4. Stick to a consistent color scheme – apply a limited palette that aligns with your brand to maintain visual harmony

5. Use high-quality icons and images – select clear, relevant visuals that support your message (not distract from it)

6. Include data-driven insights – include charts, graphs and statistics to back up your claims and make the infographic more authoritative

7. Be concise – aim for clarity over complexity with short, punchy text and let visuals do the talking

8. Test and optimize – monitor your infographics’ performance to see what resonates with your audience and adjust accordingly

9. Consider search engine optimization (SEO) – when embedding infographic images, include keyword-rich titles, meta descriptions and alt text so searchers can discover them organically

Following these best practices helps your infographics look more credible and support your broader marketing goals.

Final thoughts

A well-designed marketing infographic can boost engagement, build trust and move leads closer to a purchase.

The right tools make the process faster and more effective. With easy-to-use templates, you don’t need a graphic design background to create something impactful.

Pair that with a CRM that helps you segment your audience and automate your outreach so infographics land where and when they need to. Try Pipedrive free for 14 days and see how your marketing can directly support your sales pipeline.

B2B e-commerce is evolving fast, fueled by digital transformation and new customer behaviors.

Competing amid all the change takes more than just keeping up – you need to get ahead.

This article explores eight key predictions shaping the future of B2B e-commerce, backed by expert research and insights. You’ll also learn practical ways to boost sales and earn long-term customer loyalty as the landscape shifts.

1. B2B marketplaces will gain on traditional channels

B2B marketplaces will reshape how businesses find and buy products from each other. They could eventually overtake conventional sales channels like direct websites and product catalogs.

The marketplace model involves B2B sales organizations allowing third parties like Amazon Business and Alibaba to sell directly on their digital platforms. The third party becomes the merchant of record (MoR), handling payments and legal duties. The B2B brand takes a share of the sales value as commission.

The streamlined procurement process means less paperwork and faster B2B transactions. Buyers can also evaluate and compare vendors side by side, so it’s easier to find the best fit.

In a BCG survey, marketplaces outperformed traditional e-commerce platforms for eight out of 10 buyers’ most important needs, including product availability, selection and customer service quality.

In addition to meeting their audience’s key needs, B2B companies get to sell more without extra logistical effort. Sales negotiation, user experience (UX), fulfillment and returns are all taken care of, meaning more time for sales strategies and marketing initiatives.

What to do about it

Start evaluating B2B marketplaces close to your industry and explore listing opportunities.

For example, Amazon Business and Alibaba are ideal for selling general products at scale. Knowde (chemicals) and PartsSource (healthcare supplies) cater to specific verticals.

When building your shortlist, check where your competitors are active and consider traffic volume, fee structures and buyer demographics.

2. Self-service buying experiences will become the norm

B2B buyers are becoming more independent, taking greater control of their purchasing journeys. They expect consumer-grade convenience throughout – including fast, easy access to product details, pricing and ordering.

However, self-service isn’t all about information. Customer experience is just as vital.

Free trials and product sales demos increasingly influence buyers’ decisions. Of the five most-used resources in 2024, the only one to increase year over year was “own prior experience”. Trials remained the most influential.

In other words, a growing proportion of your audience must try before they trust.

Trials and demos are already common in software-as-a-service (SaaS) circles. Forward-thinking brands in many other fields are getting products into sales prospects’ hands.

For example, the office furniture company The Standing Desk offers 30-day trial packages to US customers.

You’ll find risk-free trials on everything from coffee beans and machines to commercial cleaning services. These companies simply lower their entry barrier to build confidence early in the customer journey.

What to do about it

Make it easy for buyers to get hands-on experiences with your product or service.

Start by offering free trials or demos. If that’s not feasible, create interactive product tours or video walkthroughs tailored to different industries and use cases.

Support your self-service experience with intuitive product pages, transparent pricing and contextual help (like tooltips or chatbot guidance).

3. Personalized, omnichannel customer experiences will set the standard

Sales personalization has long been standard in B2C e-commerce. Now it’s becoming essential in B2B too, changing how companies deliver information and price products.

Adobe found that 57% of B2B companies offer customer-specific pricing in their digital channels, acknowledging each client’s unique needs. For example, the industrial supplies firm Grainger shows logged-in users personalized pricing based on account history and contract terms.

Personalized pricing helps to streamline procurement because buyers see the price they’ll pay in real time. They don’t need to inquire or wait.

Like consumers, B2B buyers expect seamless, consistent experiences across channels. Email, e-commerce sites, sales conversations and support interactions must all be customer-centric, with accurate personal information and data-driven product recommendations.

This kind of bespoke, joined-up approach pays dividends. In a Deloitte study, leading B2B brands estimated that customers spend, on average, 62% more when buying experiences are consistently positive.

What to do about it

Use your customer relationship management (CRM) system to segment B2B customers and tailor messaging to their needs.

For example, if hands-on help boosts sales engagement and conversions for one group, increase your focus on demo-driven emails or tools like product selectors.

If another segment prefers reading and research, share relevant use cases or links to industry-specific landing pages.

4. AI and machine learning will drive smarter selling, not just marketing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a tool for B2B marketing teams. It’s becoming crucial for e-commerce sales organizations, too.

Pipedrive’s 2024 State of AI in Business report found that AI supports increased conversions and better cross-sell opportunities across the entire sales cycle.

Right now, the most common use cases are performing actions based on prompts, analyzing sales and performance data and assisting with prospecting and lead management – all are in the workflows of around half of the AI adopters Pipedrive spoke to.

To get more specific, Pipedrive users are leaning on AI to:

Ultimately, these applications help sales teams focus their energy on meaningful interactions that win buyers’ trust, instead of repetitive admin like sending sales invoices.

For example, a sales rep could use Pipedrive’s AI to enrich a lead’s profile with a missing job title or company info, then get a nudge to follow up based on email engagement. Such smart suggestions make it easy to act fast without combing data or second-guessing priorities.

AI’s efficiency gains feed into our last B2B e-commerce trend of personalization. Reps will be more available to work closely on complex deals, giving high-potential leads the attention they need.

What to do about it

Identify repetitive sales tasks you can automate with AI and other sales tools.

Follow-ups, data enrichment and lead scoring are great starting points. Pipedrive can quickly help with all three.

For example, its AI-powered Sales Assistant flags when leads go cold or engage with your outreach. Meanwhile, the Pulse sales prospecting software uses enrichment data to help you prioritize accounts with the highest conversion potential.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is also valuable for managing inventory, invoicing and order processing.

Then, work closely with reps to ensure these tools streamline their work. New technologies should support – not replace – the human touch needed to close complex B2B deals.

5. AI models will shape how buyers find and evaluate vendors

AI won’t just change how B2B sellers operate, it’ll transform how buyers discover and shortlist vendors.

As generative tools become more embedded in everyday workflows, buyers will increasingly rely on what they surface during AI research (much like how they use search engines now).

We’re not all the way there yet. TrustRadius found that only 21% of B2B tech buyers currently use generative AI (or gen AI) during the buying process, and 9% say the tools aren’t helpful yet.

However, this customer behavior will change rapidly as gen AI keeps advancing. For time-constrained buyers evaluating new software categories, AI’s insights will make unfamiliar topics digestible and buying decisions faster.

For example, when we ask Gemini to recommend a simple, easy-to-use sales CRM, it gives us the following information about Pipedrive:

Below it, Gemini profiles and compares other helpful products. It’s a quick and simple way to build a product shortlist and speed up decision-making.

You could even ask the app to reorder products based on a specific factor (e.g., price or social media connectivity), which you couldn’t do with standard search results.

As more buyers turn to generative AI for research, your product information’s visibility across public channels will matter more than ever. This information is where tools like the ChatGPT platform, Gemini and others source their “intelligence”.

What to do about it

Strengthen your brand presence by publishing comprehensive product guides, FAQs and other helpful content online.

Strong, publicly accessible content helps train AI models to represent your company accurately during AI-assisted research. What’s more, TrustRadius found that 90% of buyers click through to sources featured in AI overviews.

6. Sales teams will shift from order takers to strategic advisors

With more and more B2B sales interactions moving to digital channels, traditional sales roles focused on taking orders and providing basic information are becoming less valuable.

Gartner anticipates that 80% of B2B sales interactions will happen in digital channels in 2025, with younger buyers leading the transition. It found that 44% of millennials prefer rep-free buying experiences, compared with 33% across all age groups.

As buyers do so much research online, reps can’t afford to simply repeat what their websites say. They must evolve into supportive partners who add another layer of value to the purchase journey, giving experience-based strategic advice.

Gartner’s researchers explained:

Instilling that confidence means positioning sellers as consultants rather than information sources. Customer-facing teams must help buyers make sense of everything they learn on their own, wherever they learn it.

What to do about it

Upskill your sales team to act as trusted advisors. Help them back up public information with real success stories, metrics and insights from customer journeys.

Equip reps with sales enablement tools, including:

Base all of these assets on customer data from your CRM.

7. ‘Headless’ e-commerce strategies will gain ground

B2B companies are shifting away from rigid digital commerce platforms toward headless setups that offer greater speed, flexibility and personalization.

Headless architecture is a composable way of building a website or app where the front end (what users see) is separate from the back end (where the data lives).

Linking the two using application programming interfaces (APIs) lets you change the design aspects and functionality customers see without reconfiguring the whole system. That means less work and fewer mistakes.

Adobe reports that 36% of B2B companies either already use a headless commerce solution or are in the process of implementing one. A further 29% are evaluating headless systems.

Popular commerce platforms for headless architecture include Shopify, BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento).

Some platforms can share data with your CRM for smoother B2B sales workflows. For example, the Pipedrive-Shopify integration lets you manage sales, product catalogs and contact data in a single location.

What to do about it

Talk to your dev team about whether headless architecture could aid your site speed, design flexibility or integration capabilities. They’ll know if it’s the right fit for your B2B business.

If you have other stakeholders to persuade, discuss how integrating front- and back-office systems through APIs could make order management smoother (i.e., more profitable).

For example, linking e-commerce to back-office systems means an online order automatically triggers warehouse fulfillment, speeding up buyer journeys.

8. Security posture will influence more B2B buying decisions

Online security is becoming a key part of the purchase journey, especially in tech.

According to a 2024 G2 survey, 97% of software buyers involved a security stakeholder in procurement, and 81% evaluated a vendor’s breach history before making a decision.

The heightened focus on security reflects the growing risks and fears around data breaches. These aren’t just the IT team’s concerns anymore; they’re business-critical.

ConnectWise reports that 78% of SMBs are worried a serious attack could put them out of business, yet 76% say they lack the in-house skills to deal with cybersecurity issues. They want products to keep their data safe.

Transparency around security practices is essential for e-commerce brands. Badges, compliance certifications and third-party security scores will become standard comparison points between vendors.

What to do about it

Promote your security credentials across the customer journey.

Four in five buyers say data security certifications are essential when selecting a provider, so weaving these into early touchpoints will help you win their trust.

Include badges, assessments and ratings in product listings and sales materials to build customers’ confidence and optimize your sales cycle.

Final thoughts

The future of B2B e-commerce will reward brands that offer flexible, buyer-centric and insight-driven experiences.

The traditional boundaries between B2B and B2C experiences continue to blur, with professional buyers up and down the supply chain expecting the same level of convenience they enjoy as consumers.

Adopting the right tools and strategies will put you ahead of the curve as customer expectations evolve. See how Pipedrive can support you on the journey by combining CRM, AI and automation in one simple platform.

Customer transformation is about shifting from firefighting problems to proactively shaping customer experiences to grow satisfaction and trust.

For SMBs, that means stronger retention and steadier revenue, even with limited resources.

This article gives you a five‑step framework for implementing customer transformation. You’ll learn how to map your customer journey, set up simple automations, personalize outreach and track the results.

Key takeaways

• Mapping the customer journey, workflow automation and personalization are simple ways for SMBs to get started with customer transformation.

• Clean, centralized customer data is the foundation for effective transformation and a better digital customer experience.

• Measuring retention, engagement and response times helps SMBs track the impact of their transformation and identify areas for improvement.

• For most SMBS, a good CRM is enough to put customer transformation into practice – try Pipedrive free for 14 days.

What is customer transformation (and why do SMBs need it)?

Instead of waiting for problems, you anticipate customer needs. Rather than treating everyone the same, you personalize interactions based on their history and preferences.

While most transformation advice assumes unlimited resources and dedicated teams, customer transformation isn’t just for enterprise businesses. Here’s why it matters for SMBs:

• Building a sustainable competitive advantage. While larger companies can outspend competitors, SMBs are better able to adapt quickly and deliver more personal customer experiences. Customer transformation turns that SMB agility into an edge.

• Retaining more customers. Transformation strengthens customer loyalty, which is cheaper and more effective than always relying on customer acquisition. Retention ensures sustainability for SMBs with limited sales and marketing budgets.

• Doing more with the same team. Hiring is costly and slow. Transformation helps SMBs serve more customers and grow revenue without adding new roles.

SMBs need practical approaches that work with limited budgets. That’s why customer transformation for SMBs focuses on improving the use of existing tools rather than introducing new technology.

A strategic, step-by-step approach helps serve your SMB’s customer base while strengthening your market position.

The 5-step customer experience transformation framework for SMBs

Customer transformation doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul.

Pipedrive’s five-step framework breaks it into simple steps that your SMB can gradually roll out to drive results without disrupting day-to-day business.

Learn how and why you should achieve each transformational step below.

1. Audit your current customer touchpoints to spot transformation opportunities

Start by defining how customers interact with your business now.

Create a simple customer journey map by tracking how people move from first contact to purchase.

If you use a customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Pipedrive, look at sales deals you made and the communication history to understand the timeline of customer relationships.

Market research like this helps you understand your target audience better. Look for these specific issues:

• Communication gaps. Where do customers typically go silent or express frustration?

• Response time delays. How long does your team take to respond to different types of inquiries?

• Information silos. Do customer details live scattered across different team members’ notes?

• Inconsistent experiences. Do different team members handle similar situations differently?

Document findings in a shared spreadsheet to easily spot patterns or pain points.

The goal isn’t perfection. A solid overview of your current baseline lets you pinpoint areas to optimize the customer experience.

2. Centralize and organize your customer data to see the full picture

Consolidate all customer information into unified records so your team has a single source of truth.

For instance, store records in your CRM or a shared Google Drive.

While poor data quality sabotages transformation efforts before they start, organized data allows you to understand specific customer expectations and personalize outreach.

Here’s how to compile easily accessible customer data:

• Decide what data matters. Focus on information that helps effective marketing decision-making, such as customer preferences, demographic and psychographic segments or buying history.

• Standardize how you capture data. Create clear rules for entering information so everyone contributes consistently (e.g., always include next steps or tag by company size).

• Segment and prioritize customers. Identify high-value, at-risk or expansion-opportunity accounts so your team knows where to focus.

Pipedrive’s duplicate detection feature merges scattered customer records and eliminates confusion.

Use the custom label function for quick market segmentation. Tags like “high-value”, “at-risk” or “expansion-opportunity” help your team customize marketing tactics.

The more thorough your data is, the more effective your customer transformation efforts will be.

3. Automate routine customer interactions to free up your team

Workflow automation handles repetitive tasks so your team can focus on high-value customer conversations.

While more for customers is great, doing it consistently is what drives customer transformation.

For small teams in particular, automating tasks helps them stay customer-centric and respond quickly to customer needs, even when they’re short on time.

Use the customer segments you created in the last step to decide which tasks to automate first. Focus your marketing automation strategy on the groups where it will have the biggest impact.

Here are some examples:

• Welcome email series – new customer onboarding that introduces your team, sets expectations and provides useful resources

• Follow-up reminders – automatic tasks to make contact when deals stall or to check in with new customers

• Renewal alerts – notifications before contract renewals so you can be proactive and confirm pricing with customers

• Milestone celebrations – automated messages acknowledging customer anniversaries or achievements

Pipedrive has a range of automation templates to help you get up and running fast.

Remember that automation should enhance human connection, not replace it. Prioritize personal outreach for difficult conversations and relationship building to maintain customer satisfaction.

Automation creates consistency, while personalization creates connection. Your next step is to make every interaction feel tailored to the customer.

4. Personalize customer experiences to improve engagement

Personalization helps you build stronger relationships by showing customers you appreciate them and listen to their needs.

Transform generic interactions into personalized experiences using these methods:

• Reference past interactions and purchase history in emails or calls. “Hi [First Name], I noticed you bought [Product A] last month. Here’s a tip on getting the most from it”.

• Segment your email list by lifecycle stage or customer behavior to deliver targeted messaging. Send high-value customers an exclusive update, while new customers get onboarding tips.

• Use insights from CRM data to suggest relevant new products or resources. If a customer frequently purchases [Product B], suggest a complementary add-on before they ask.

Artificial intelligence (specifically generative AI) makes it easier than ever to personalize messages.

Pipedrive’s AI email writer summarizes customer conversations in just a few seconds. Once you’re up to speed, prompt the AI to include details specific to the customer.

Lastly, select the tone and length of email you need for an AI-driven email that’s professional, well-written and customer-focused.

5. Measure the impact of your transformation efforts so you can improve

Remember: you can’t improve what you don’t track.

The right metrics show whether your customer transformation is impacting your business goals and revenue growth.

For SMBs, focus on simple, actionable data points:

Pipedrive’s revenue forecast report shows the value of your open and expected deals over time. This data shows whether your improved overall customer experience translates to increased profitability.

Review these metrics quarterly and adjust your marketing strategy based on what the data reveals. For example:

• Customer retention rate is declining. Identify the point in the customer journey where churn occurs. If customers stop using a key feature after week two, send a targeted tutorial or schedule a check-in call at that stage.

• Response times are slow. Check which channels or types of inquiries are lagging. If support emails take two days to respond, set automated reminders for the team and assign specific agents to high-priority questions.

• Customer engagement is low. Compare engagement across segments. For inactive users, try adding interactive content like product demos or webinars. For active users, test A/B variations of emails to see which content drives more clicks.

• Revenue from deals is below forecast. Analyze which customer segments are underperforming. For instance, offer bundle deals to mid-tier accounts with declining renewals. Create upsell campaigns for customers who recently purchased complementary products.

Customer transformation is iterative. Small improvements compound over time into significant competitive advantages.

Following these steps drives steady gains in customer transformation. Additionally, SMBs should monitor their progress closely for anything that might undo it.

Customer transformation mistakes SMBs should avoid

Being aware of mistakes from the start of your SMB’s transformation strategy prevents costly missteps. Here are a few pitfalls to watch for.

Trying to transform everything at once

Transforming everything in one go overwhelms teams and slows down day-to-day work.

Instead, tackle one step at a time. Clean up your customer data first, then move on to automation. Only add personalization after you’ve completed these steps.

Taking transformation slow and steady ensures sustainable growth.

Ignoring data quality in CRM records

Tidying up data isn’t the most exciting task, but avoiding this step has a knock-on effect.

Automated emails with incorrect names damage relationships. Market segmentation based on outdated information lessens the impact of marketing campaigns.

Keeping your data clean gives you the biggest return on investment (ROI) for your efforts. Check your customer records periodically for duplicates or incomplete entries to ensure organization and accuracy.

Not asking for customer feedback

Transformation should improve customer experience, but you won’t know if you’re succeeding without asking customers directly.

Send simple surveys after implementing changes via a website chatbot or email. Here’s a simple example from insurance company Getsafe:

Use the customer feedback to optimize your approach.

Focusing on vanity metrics instead of business impact

Enterprise transformation often emphasizes metrics like “digital engagement score” or “omnichannel optimization”.

Large companies can afford to invest in these because they have complex ecosystems and dedicated teams to act on the insights.

For SMBs, tracking vanity metrics is a distraction. Instead, focus on metrics like retention that actively drive growth.

Set up a simple report on your CRM to track your metrics over time and see whether your actions are making a difference.

Implementing transformation without team training

CRM tools and automation workflows only succeed when your team understands how to use them effectively.

Invest time in training team members on new processes. Explain how individual contributions support broader business goals. Remember that initiatives like workflow automation improve the employee experience too.

When everyone understands the “why” behind the tools, your team is more likely to stick to new processes.

Customer transformation FAQs

Final thoughts

Customer transformation helps SMBs differentiate themselves and compete with larger businesses, even without a big budget.

Simple automation and personalization can be enough to begin a new era of your customer experience (and operational efficiency for your team).

Your CRM is key to making this transformation real. Pipedrive lets you centralize customer records, automate tasks, track engagement and monitor revenue in one place.

Start your 14-day free trial today.

Every customer interaction with your business defines how buyers perceive your brand, shaping their loyalty and directly impacting sales.

The challenge is knowing where all customer touchpoints occur and how to optimize them for better results.

This article shows you how to identify, analyze and improve touchpoints across the customer journey. Learn practical strategies and examples to streamline processes, personalize communication and turn interactions into growth.

Key takeaways from customer touchpoints

• For SMBs who struggle to manage touchpoints consistently, using a CRM can streamline communication and follow-ups.

• Pipedrive’s CRM makes it easy to track, automate and personalize every touchpoint so you can drive long-term growth – sign up for a free 14-day trial.

What are customer touchpoints?

Customer touchpoints are the points of contact between a consumer and your business.

These touchpoints happen online or offline. For example, interacting with staff in-store or discovering your business online and becoming a loyal customer.

What are touchpoints for? Put simply, each touchpoint shapes how your target customer base perceives your business and influences their purchasing decisions.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need reliable touchpoints to understand customer needs, tailor their products to the right market and boost sales effectively.

What are common SMB client touchpoints (with examples)

Customer touchpoints fall into three main stages: pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase:

Source: The Power MBA

Touchpoint mapping shows the full customer journey. The process identifies where you can improve engagement, reduce friction and deliver a better experience.

The following sections explain each stage more closely, with examples of customer touchpoints showing how they work.

Pre-purchase consumer touchpoints

Pre-purchase touchpoints occur before the customer buys from you.

Consistent, trustworthy and engaging pre-purchase experiences build the momentum that drives conversions.

For example, a prospective customer could:

Here’s an example of a paid social media ad from website builder SaaS Framer on LinkedIn:

Source: LinkedIn

By appearing in users’ feeds, this ad raises brand awareness and introduces Framer’s value proposition. It also highlights a solution to a common pain point: building and launching a website.

Here’s how the ad nurtures leads at the start of their journey:

In short, this touchpoint captures interest. It informs potential customers and sets the stage for future interactions that can lead to conversions.

Purchase touchpoints

Purchase touchpoints occur at the point of sale.

They directly affect how smooth and satisfying the customer’s experience is when making a purchase.

Common examples include customers:

Take a look at this confirmation email from vegan skincare brand Haoma:

Source: Really Good Emails

This email engages the customer immediately after buying, reinforcing their decision and creating a positive emotional connection with the brand.

Highlighting the tree-planting initiative also enhances Haoma’s brand perception. Customers learn that their purchase has a meaningful impact beyond the product itself.

Post-purchase consumer touchpoints

Post-purchase touchpoints happen after the customer completes their purchase.

They’re key for building customer loyalty, ensuring repeat business and sales referrals.

Typical examples include existing customers:

Here’s another example from Framer:

Source: Really Good Emails

This post-purchase email suggests additional templates and features customers might like, keeping the brand top of mind after their initial purchase.

It also strengthens relationships and boosts loyalty and customer lifetime value (CLV) without a significant marketing spend.

Why customer touchpoints matter for SMBs

Monitoring and optimizing your SMB’s customer touchpoint strategy helps you deliver a seamless buyer journey, build better relationships and get more value from your limited resources.

The key benefits include:

By paying attention to each touchpoint, SMBs can create a customer journey that satisfies buyers and drives growth for long-term success.

5 simple but effective ways to identify customer touchpoints

Listing all possible customer interactions, gathering feedback and creating a customer journey map are some ways to identify touchpoints.

These five steps help your SMB pinpoint key interactions and optimize the customer journey.

1. Create a customer journey map

Identify customer touchpoints by tracking the key interactions across the entire customer journey.

Start by outlining the stages your customers move through so you can see where touchpoints naturally occur. To do this, create a clear framework of the buying journey for your ideal customer persona.

Here’s how the map might look:

• Pre-purchase (also known as awareness and consideration). New customers discover your business through ads, social media posts, search engines or word-of-mouth. They research your products, read reviews and compare options.

Mapping these stages helps you understand where customers interact with your brand and the opportunities to improve their experience.

CRM systems like Pipedrive let you track and visualize the entire journey, making it easy to see where touchpoints exist and where additional customer engagement could help.

For example, create pipeline stages to align the process with your unique customer journey. Then, monitor leads and deals as you nurture them.

Here’s how these stages look in Pipedrive:

With this oversight, you can nurture leads effectively, sharing information at the right time to increase the likelihood of conversion.

2. List all possible interactions

Identifying every way a customer interacts with your business ensures you take every opportunity to influence and improve their experience.

Start by thinking broadly about how people might come into contact with your brand. For example, a customer might:

To capture all of these interactions systematically, follow these key steps:

By listing all interactions, you create a comprehensive map of potential touchpoints to optimize engagement at every stage.

3. Gather customer feedback

Asking customers for feedback gives you direct insight into which touchpoints matter most and where you can improve the overall experience.

Example: A SaaS company sends a short net promoter score (NPS) survey after onboarding a new customer. It asks for feedback about ease of use, clarity of instructions and overall satisfaction.

Customer responses reveal that certain features are confusing or that in-app guidance is insufficient, highlighting touchpoints that need improvement.

This direct feedback allows the company to refine the product experience, increase user satisfaction and boost customer retention.

Apply these strategies to collect meaningful feedback from customers at every point:

Centralizing and analyzing this data is another key part of the process.

A CRM like Pipedrive allows you to see patterns, identify key touchpoints and understand customer behavior throughout the journey.

Use Pipedrive’s sales dashboards to view key customer data at a glance and quickly spot trends in engagement, drop-offs and conversions

This visibility helps SMBs identify which touchpoints are working well and which need improvement.

By analyzing these patterns, you make data-driven business decisions to optimize interactions and enhance the overall sales cycle.

4. Check your analytics

Monitoring analytics lets you see exactly how customers interact with your brand and identify which touchpoints are effective.

Example: On reviewing its analytics, a financial services firm notices that many potential clients visit the “Investment Plans” page but abandon the process before scheduling a consultation.

This data highlights a key touchpoint where prospects hesitate. The business now has an opportunity to improve the user experience by clarifying plan benefits or simplifying the booking process.

Consider the following strategies to analyze your client touchpoints:

Centralizing and analyzing customer data is essential for understanding effective touchpoints. A single source of truth helps you see patterns and identify where leads drop off across the buying journey.

Pipedrive’s sales CRM consolidates all interactions (like website visits, emails, calls, social engagement and support requests) into one platform.

This data allows businesses to visualize customer behavior, identifying which touchpoints drive conversions and lose business leads.

Pipedrive’s custom reports and insights feature also make it easy to track key metrics at a glance, monitor trends over time and measure the effectiveness of specific touchpoints.

By analyzing the data, your SMB can make informed decisions to improve customer interactions and increase sales.

5. Involve your frontline staff

Frontline employees see firsthand how customers interact with your business, making them a valuable source of insight into which touchpoints work well and which need improvement.

Example: A consulting firm asks client-facing consultants to report which questions or concerns come up most often during client meetings.

These insights reveal recurring friction points, such as unclear onboarding instructions, confusing proposals or gaps in service explanations. Identifying these issues allows the firm to optimize these touchpoints and improve the overall client experience.

Follow the steps below to involve your staff in identifying and refining customer touchpoints:

Involving frontline staff gives SMBs a clear view of customer pain points and opportunities for improvement.

How SMBs can optimize customer touchpoints

Optimizing consumer touchpoints gives SMBs a practical way to improve the buying journey, increase sales and drive growth.

Here are some practical strategies for strengthening key touchpoints.

Map the customer journey with simple tools and methods

Mapping the customer journey helps SMBs see the big picture, making it easier to understand how customers move through the sales process and how to refine each stage for better results.

There’s a lot of complex software on the market for plotting and tracking customer journeys. However, smaller businesses with limited budgets don’t need to invest in expensive tools.

Here are some simple, cost-effective tools and methods for mapping purposes:

• Create basic CRM pipelines. A simple and customizable CRM like Pipedrive lets you create deal stages that mirror the customer journey. Tracking leads as they move through stages highlights where customers stall and helps you prioritize improvements.

These tactics give SMBs a clear, actionable view of the customer journey to make improvements without a significant investment.

Focus on high-impact client touchpoints

Not all interactions carry the same weight, so SMBs can maximize resources by prioritizing touchpoints that require small changes for the biggest wins.

These small changes lead to more consultations without draining time and resources.

Here’s how to identify high-impact touchpoints for your business:

• Analyze conversion data. Review CRM metrics or analytics tools to identify touchpoints where leads stall but require minimal effort to fix. Focusing on these quick wins helps you boost conversions with low-effort improvements.

• Collect customer feedback. Ask clients which interactions were confusing, slow or frustrating. Feedback highlights the touchpoints that affect satisfaction so you can prioritize improvements with the biggest impact.

• Review support team insights. Consult frontline employees about common customer questions or complaints. Their observations reveal critical touchpoints that may not appear in data alone, helping you focus on critical changes that improve the overall journey.

Prioritizing these high-impact touchpoints ensures your SMB uses its time and resources efficiently. Your businesses will be able to deliver a smoother customer experience that drives conversions and builds brand loyalty.

Improve communication speed and clarity

Fast and clear communication reduces confusion, strengthens trust and ensures customers move smoothly through the buying journey.

Follow these tips to make your communication with customers more effective:

• Automate routine messages. Use CRM tools like Pipedrive to send instant email confirmations, follow-ups and reminders. Email automation ensures customers receive timely updates without adding extra work for staff.

• Standardize messaging. Create clear, concise templates for emails, chat responses or in-app notifications. Consistent messaging helps customers understand processes and expectations, minimizing confusion across touchpoints.

• Monitor response times. Track how quickly staff respond to inquiries using CRM dashboards or analytics. Identifying slow points allows SMBs to adjust workflows or resources so that customers always receive prompt, reliable communication.

Clear and consistent communication helps SMBs build trust, engage leads and convert more prospects into loyal customers.

Personalize follow-ups

Personalizing follow-ups strengthens relationships, improves nurturing and increases the likelihood of renewals or long-term partnerships.

This tailored follow-up helps the client maintain their equipment efficiently. It minimizes downtime and shows that the manufacturer understands their specific customer needs.

Here are some tips to make follow-ups more effective:

• Send tailored thank-you messages. Include the customer’s name and reference their recent order or interaction. Personalized customer appreciation makes them feel valued, loyal and likely to buy again.

• Offer relevant recommendations. Suggest compatible products, upgrades or services based on the customer’s purchase history. Targeted recommendations help clients get more value and drive additional sales.

• Schedule timely reminders. Send follow-ups at the right moment, such as before scheduled maintenance or product upgrades. Timing messages to align with client needs ensures relevance and encourages action.

A CRM helps SMBs manage personalized follow-ups by planning, scheduling and automating communications.

Pipedrive, for instance, allows businesses to schedule follow-up emails and set automated reminders for sales reps to contact leads.

Here’s an example of an email automation sequence in Pipedrive:

Writing compelling emails can be a time-consuming, laborious process that strains sales and customer support reps. When content quality starts to drop, conversions will too.

The Pipedrive AI email generator eases creative stress by turning natural language instructions on tone, style and length into high-quality email drafts.

This functionality ensures every follow-up is timely and relevant, turning each interaction into an opportunity to deepen engagement and drive conversions.

Customer touchpoints FAQs

Final thoughts

Every customer touchpoint directly shapes satisfaction, loyalty and growth. To optimize every stage of the buying journey, SMBs must map all touchpoints, prioritize high-impact moments and personalize communication.

Use a tool like Pipedrive’s CRM to centralize interactions, automate reminders, schedule personalized follow-ups and track engagement performance.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial to transform every customer interaction into stronger relationships and higher conversions.

When marketing agencies use the right software stack, scattered projects and messy workflows become smooth, organized systems.

But with so many options available, knowing which tools are worth your time and budget can be hard.

In this article, you’ll discover seven must-have software solutions supporting different marketing agency needs and how to pick the best fit for your business.

Key takeaways from marketing agency software

• The right marketing agency software stack combines CRM, project management, reporting, social media, email, content and accounting tools.

• Start with tools that solve your biggest pain points – like client relationship management and project coordination – before adding specialized platforms.

• Look for software designed specifically for agencies, like white-label reporting and multi-client management features, rather than generic business tools.

• Pipedrive works as your agency’s CRM, project management platform and email marketing tool in one solution – try it free for 14 days.

What are key features to look for in marketing agency software?

The right marketing agency software combines must-have functionality and user-friendliness to boost productivity.

While every agency has unique needs, here are the core features to consider when evaluating your options:

Ultimately, knowing which features to prioritize and what you can add later as you scale is essential to investing in the right technology for your company’s needs.

How to choose marketing agency software for your SMB?

Follow these six simple steps to select software that aligns with your marketing business and growth plans:

1. Audit your current workflows. List your pain points – think scattered client communications, manual reporting and project bottlenecks. Prioritize functionality that will have the fastest impact.

2. Consider your team size. Small agencies benefit from all-in-one platforms combining CRM, project management and basic reporting. Larger agencies (20+ people) may need additional functionality through tools that integrate well together.

3. Plan your total budget. In addition to software subscription and integration fees, account for any hidden costs, such as tool onboarding time and staff training expenses.

4. Evaluate integration capabilities. Consider software that best fits your workflow and connects seamlessly with your existing tech stack to reduce manual effort and eliminate project, data and team silos.

5. Try before you buy. Leverage free trials from reputable platforms before you commit to test-drive features on real workflows with your team.

6. Focus on user adoption. Involve your team in tool evaluation and selection. Prioritize software that they find intuitive and valuable for their work.

Now that you have a clear picture of your marketing agency’s requirements, it’s time to navigate the best options on the market.

Top 7 marketing agency software solutions

The right marketing tool will transform your agency operations.

Here are seven platforms that address different aspects of marketing agency workflows, including an all-in-one solution and specialized software to address specific functions.

1. Best for CRM and end-to-end client communication: Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that helps marketing agencies communicate with their clients while tracking leads and deals in one place.

Potential clients often need several meetings and team approval before signing a marketing contract. The relationship changes completely once they become paying clients.

With Pipedrive, you can monitor exactly where each prospect is in your sales process. And communicate with them effectively at each stage of the marketing funnel.

Once you’re working together, all client marketing information (outreach, project history, email chains, renewal info, etc.) stays on the platform so nothing falls through the cracks.

Key Pipedrive features for marketing agencies

Here are the specific functionalities that make Pipedrive work well for marketing agency workflows:

• Visual deal pipelines. See where each deal or client project stands with sales pipeline stages like “Discovery call” or “Campaign launch”. Customize steps to suit your unique workflows.

• Client team management. Interact with multiple contacts at each client company, from the CMO who approves budgets to the project manager who needs weekly updates.

• Campaign milestone reminders. Automatically schedule sales and marketing client follow-ups like “send monthly performance report” or “schedule quarterly strategy review”.

• Email sync and notifications. See your full conversation and project history without digging through Slack or hunting down old email threads.

While these features are enough to help most marketing agencies stay organized and connected to their clients, remember that the best CRM for your business depends on your agency’s size and workflows.

How to know if Pipedrive is right for your marketing agency

Consider size, pain points and tech preferences to decide if Pipedrive is the best option for your agency.

If you’re undecided, Pipedrive offers a 14-day free trial to experience the platform before you commit.

Pipedrive integrations

Pipedrive’s Marketplace offers hundreds of out-of-the-box CRM integrations to slot easily into your tech stack, including:

Pipedrive also integrates with Zapier, opening workflow automation to more business apps.

Zapier’s automated workflows help you cut down on repetitive tasks. For example, if you’re a marketing agency for software companies, you could set up the following trigger:

“When a new SEO retainer deal closes in Pipedrive, automatically create an ‘SEO audit’ project in Asana and add the client to the ‘Monthly SEO Reports’ list in Mailchimp”.

Pipedrive pricing

Pricing plans start at $14 for Lite and go up to $79 for Ultimate (all paid per user, per month when billed annually).

The tiered plans let you start small and add more features as your agency grows. You can enrich your plan with add-ons like:

You get everything you need to manage projects, clients and campaigns in one place.

2. Best for standalone client reporting and analytics: AgencyAnalytics

AgencyAnalytics allows marketing agencies to create automated client campaign reports and dashboards.

Source: AgencyAnalytics

Pulling data manually from different platforms to create client reports can take hours. You jump between Google Analytics, Facebook Ads Manager and email platforms to compile basic campaign performance data for your presentations.

AgencyAnalytics puts your marketing data in one place for quicker reporting with less manual input.

Key AgencyAnalytics features for marketing agencies

Here are the specific features that help agencies streamline reporting workflows:

• Customizable dashboards. See SEO rankings, PPC spend, social engagement and email performance in one view.

• Automated client reports. Schedule weekly or monthly reports so clients get updates automatically.

• White-label reporting. Reports show your agency branding instead of AgencyAnalytics’ for a professional look.

• Campaign comparison functionality. Compare performance across different clients or periods to determine which strategies work best.

These features help marketing teams save time on reporting tasks. With this in mind, the best analytics tools depend on your client reporting needs and data sources.

How to know if AgencyAnalytics is right for your marketing agency

Consider your current reporting workload and client expectations to see if you need to add AgencyAnalytics to your tool suite.

AgencyAnalytics offers a 14-day free trial, so you can test whether it streamlines your reporting workflows effectively.

AgencyAnalytics integrations

AgencyAnalytics connects with the other marketing tools agencies use daily, including:

• Google Analytics 4. Pull website traffic and conversion data directly into client reports.

• Mailchimp. Track email marketing performance alongside other campaign metrics.

• All standard social media apps. Report performance on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and more.

With over 80 integrations, AgencyAnalytics gives you a comprehensive picture of your marketing efforts to share with clients.

AgencyAnalytics pricing

AgencyAnalytics’ Agency pricing is $179 per month, billed annually. The plan includes 10 clients, with each additional client costing $10 per month.

3. Best for social media management: Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media management platform that helps marketing agencies schedule posts, monitor mentions and track performance.

Source: Hootsuite

Managing social media for several clients means constantly switching between apps. Bring different posting schedules and brand voices into the mix, and it gets chaotic fast.

Hootsuite provides a single dashboard to centralize client accounts.

Key Hootsuite features for marketing agencies

Here’s how Hootsuite helps agencies manage multiple social media accounts:

• Multi-account posting. Schedule posts across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. No need to log in to each platform separately.

• Content marketing calendar view. See all planned client posts and spot gaps or overlaps in content schedules.

• Social listening. Monitor brand mentions and hashtags for all clients, so you can respond to comments or catch potential issues.

• Team collaboration. Assign posts for approval, leave comments on content and manage who can access which client accounts.

As you consider how these features can help your marketing agency organize its social media strategies, remember that the tool depends on your team’s size and account volume.

How to know if Hootsuite is right for your marketing agency

Consider how many social accounts you manage and what your workflow needs are before opting for Hootsuite.

Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial so you can see if its functionality matches your needs before you commit.

Hootsuite integrations

Hootsuite connects with popular platforms, including:

• Asana. Link social media campaigns to your project management tool.

• Slack. Get notifications when posts get published or need approval.

• Adobe Creative Suite. Import graphics and videos directly into your content calendar.

• Google Analytics 4. Track how social media traffic converts on client websites.

With over 100 integrations available, Hootsuite can likely slot easily into your existing marketing strategies and tools.

Hootsuite pricing

Hootsuite pricing starts at $99 monthly for the Standard tier (billed annually). The plan includes up to five social accounts.

For unlimited social accounts, choose the Advanced plan at $249 per month (billed annually).

4. Best for marketing collaboration and project management: Asana

Asana is a project management platform that helps marketing agencies organize internal workflows and coordinate team tasks.

Source: Asana

Marketing campaigns can involve many team members and freelancers. Designers create assets, copywriters draft content and account managers review deliverables.

In addition, everyone has different deadlines. Clear project organization is essential to avoid creative work bottlenecks and campaign launch delays.

Marketing agencies can use Asana to break down campaigns into manageable tasks and keep internal teams coordinated.

Key Asana features for marketing agencies

Here’s how Asana helps marketing agencies keep campaigns on track:

• Creative workflow management. Set up approval processes so nothing goes live without proper sign-offs.

• Campaign task templates. Create reusable workflows for common projects like product launches or seasonal campaigns.

• Resource allocation. See who’s working on what and when, helping you balance workloads and avoid overloading team members.

• Internal team communication. Keep project discussions, file sharing and updates organized by campaign.

Good task management can remove a huge headache for agencies. Along with functionality, there are a few other things to consider to see if Asana is right for you.

How to know if Asana is the right marketing agency management software

Consider your current project organization and team collaboration needs:

Asana offers a free plan, so you can try the platform out and scale up if necessary.

Asana integrations

There are over 100 Asana integrations, including agency tools like:

• Pipedrive. Automatically create a task or project when you start, close or move a deal. It’s ideal if you already use Pipedrive’s CRM and want to use it as your central marketing hub.

• Mailchimp. Track Mailchimp email campaigns and key performance indicators (KPIs) in Asana tasks.

• Slack. Turn ideas and action items from Slack into trackable tasks and comments.

With plenty of other options, you can sync your marketing agency project management software with your most-used tools.

Asana pricing

Asana’s free plan covers basic task management.

Most agencies will need to start with the Starter plan at $10.99 per month (billed annually). This tier includes features like project dashboards and universal reporting.

5. Best for search engine-optimized content creation: Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool that gives you data-driven guidance to create copy that can rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Source: SurferSEO

Content that drives more traffic and generates SEO leads means understanding two things. First, what Google wants to see. Second, what competitors are doing better.

Surfer SEO analyzes the top-ranking pages for any keyword and tells you what your content needs to compete.

With this knowledge, you can deliver measurable traffic increases that justify your clients’ content marketing investment.

Key Surfer SEO features for marketing agencies

These Surfer SEO features help you create content that’s more likely to rank:

• Content scoring. Get a real-time score as you write. See how well your content messaging matches what’s currently ranking for your target keywords.

• One-click optimization. Use AI to improve content and add internal links.

• Content structure guidance. Get recommendations for ideal word count, heading structure and how many times to use key phrases.

• Automated SEO audits. Easily find opportunities to improve your client’s traffic.

These features help you create content faster and drive traffic. However, the best SEO tool will depend on how much content you produce and your clients’ goals.

How to know if Surfer SEO is right for your marketing agency

Content marketing is a core part of most agency services, but not every agency needs a content optimization tool. Here’s how to understand if Surfer SEO is for you:

Surfer offers a seven-day money-back guarantee for first-time subscribers so you can see if its content workflow fits your team.

Surfer SEO integrations

Surfer SEO connects with standard content creation tools, including:

• Google Docs. Optimize content directly in Google Docs with real-time SEO suggestions.

• Google Search Console. Analyze your existing content performance and find optimization opportunities.

• Contentful. Create content within your content management system (CMS) to reduce copy-and-pasting between tools.

• ChatGPT. Get search data while creating AI-generated content.

Surfer SEO also has an API that lets different apps share data.

You can use the API to connect Surfer SEO to your existing tools. Or can use it to build your own content marketing automations.

Surfer SEO pricing

Surfer SEO’s Essential plan is $79 per month (billed annually) and suits small businesses.

At $175 per month (billed annually), the Scale plan includes weekly content performance reports – which may be a better fit for most agencies.

6. Best for multi-client email marketing: Mailchimp

Mailchimp helps you manage email campaigns for multiple clients when you join its Mailchimp & Co program, designed for agencies and freelancers.

Source: G2

Managing email marketing for multiple clients usually means creating separate accounts for each one. Or mixing client data in often confusing ways.

Mailchimp & Co lets you connect all your client accounts to yours and manage them from one centralized dashboard.

You can switch between client campaigns without losing track of which audience or template belongs to whom.

Key Mailchimp features for marketing agencies

Here are the features that help agencies manage email marketing efficiently:

Switching email platforms later can be a pain and even mess with your email deliverability. It’s well worth comparing platforms and features before you make a decision.

How to know if Mailchimp is right for your marketing agency

Here are a few things to consider before choosing Mailchimp as your multi-client emailing platform:

Mailchimp’s 14-day free trial lets you see if it’s the email marketing platform for you.

Mailchimp integrations

Mailchimp connects with hundreds of marketing and business apps, including:

• Google Analytics. See which email campaigns drive the most traffic and customer conversions on client websites.

• Pipedrive. Automatically add new clients to the right email list – ideal if you already use Pipedrive and want to streamline or scale follow-ups with minimal effort. Here’s how to integrate Mailchimp into Pipedrive’s all-in-one marketing automation toolkit.

• Shopify. Track purchase behavior and send targeted product recommendation emails for your e-commerce clients.

These connections eliminate manual data entry between your email marketing and other agency tools.

Mailchimp pricing

Mailchimp’s Essentials plan allows you to send up to 10,000 emails per month with three audience segments. The plan costs $13 monthly if you have up to 500 contacts. Annual pricing is available through the sales team.

You join the Mailchimp & Co program when you sign up at no additional cost, or later when you have more email clients.

7. Best for billing and finance operations: Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct is a cloud-based accounting platform that helps marketing agencies manage their invoicing, expense tracking and financial reporting tasks.

Source: G2

Marketing agencies have complex billing needs. Some clients are on retainer, while others pay per project.

You need to track profitability by campaign or service type. Plus, good forecasting to plan freelancer budgets.

Sage Intacct is for businesses with complex billing that need financial visibility to make informed business decisions.

Key Sage Intacct features for marketing agencies

Sage Intacct offers some features designed to simplify complex agency finances:

• Project-based billing. Track billable time and expenses, then automatically generate invoices.

• Multi-client financial reporting. See profitability by client, service type or time period to understand which parts of your business make the most money.

• Automated invoicing workflows. Set up recurring invoices for retainer clients and automated payment reminders to improve cash flow.

• Expense management. Track client expenses, team travel and overhead costs with approval workflows to keep spending organized.

Sage Intacct’s features cater specifically to agencies and project-based businesses looking to keep track of their financial management. You’ll need additional tools to manage different aspects of your marketing services.

How to know if Sage Intacct is right for your marketing agency

Consider your current billing challenges and financial reporting requirements to see if Sage Intacct is a fit.

Choosing the right billing and accounting software is a big decision. Before you commit, talk to Sage’s sales team to get your questions answered.

Sage Intacct integrations

Sage Intacct comes with hundreds of integrations to make accounting easier, including:

• Time tracking apps. Connect tools like Harvest or Toggl to automatically sync billable hours into project billing.

• Ramp. Link credit card transactions, reimbursements, payments and vendor bills in real time.

• Payroll systems. Unify your payroll and financials without duplicate data entry or complex integrations.

• Payment processors. Connect with credit card payment systems to automate invoice collections and improve cash flow.

When your systems work well together, you reduce the chances of billing errors that could become costly over time.

Sage Intacct pricing

Sage Intacct offers custom pricing plans specific to your business. Some sources report annual pricing starting from $9,000.

Final thoughts

There are hundreds of SaaS tools, but the best marketing agency software stack is what makes your life easier. One way to do that is to choose solutions that cover multiple bases.

Pipedrive is an all-in-one agency CRM, project management software and email marketing tool – ideal for handling all your sales and marketing efforts. Try the platform free for 14 days and see how it can transform your workflows.

Events are one of the best ways to get personal with potential customers, but you need a solid plan to get people to show up.

Effective event marketing is your playbook for promoting the event, filling every seat and creating genuine sales leads.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to make the most of your event marketing. You’ll discover how to build hype before your event and turn that energy into a packed sales pipeline.

Key takeaways for event marketing

• Event marketing is promoting an event to fill seats and meet potential customers.

• Brands use event marketing to turn in-person conversations into sales opportunities.

• A strong event marketing plan covers how to promote the event, capture leads on the day of the event and follow up to close deals.

• Pipedrive’s CRM helps you automate lead capture and follow-up, so you can nurture every prospect. Try Pipedrive free for 14 days and close more sales from your next event.

What is event marketing?

Marketers use different types of events to achieve specific business goals. Here’s a look at the most common events and why they’re valuable for your business:

The right event management plan turns event attendees into leads and customers. It builds a connection with your audience that a simple ad or email can’t match.

A quick example: Pipedrive’s webinar series

Pipedrive’s webinar program is a textbook example of how to turn educational content into highly qualified sales leads.

Here’s what Pipedrive’s marketing schedule generally looks like:

• Before the event. Pipedrive advertises the webinar on sites like LinkedIn, using problem-focused titles to get the right people interested. Users sign up through a form, which gives Pipedrive their contact details.

• During the event. Pipedrive’s team gives practical tips and shows how their tool solves the problem. They also hold a live Q&A session to answer audience questions.

• After the event. A recording is posted on the Pipedrive website so people can watch it anytime. The company also sends follow-up emails to everyone who registered.

This model shows effective event marketing through a series of digital events rather than one large-scale conference or trade show.

Another example: Adobe MAX conferences

Adobe hosts an annual conference called Adobe MAX, which is a masterclass in building community and generating excitement through experiential marketing.

Here’s a look at Adobe’s marketing schedule:

• Before the event. Adobe starts building hype months in advance. The company announces keynote speakers and launches engaging social media campaigns. It also starts creative contests to get the audience and influencers involved early.

• During the event. The conference is an immersive hybrid event. It uses a mobile app for schedules and hosts hands-on training workshops. Adobe live-streams the main keynotes to include a global audience that couldn’t attend in person.

• After the event. Adobe uploads session recordings for on-demand viewing. It sends out highlight reels and post-event surveys, and uses themes from the event to guide its content marketing for future events.

Adobe’s strategy makes MAX a conference that inspires and energizes its user base.

How to create an event marketing strategy in 4 steps

A solid event marketing strategy ensures that every dollar you spend contributes directly to your sales pipeline.

These four steps will guide you through the event lifecycle, from planning to measuring your final ROI.

1. Pre-event planning: laying the groundwork for a high ROI

Your goal before any event is to get the right people to show up on the day.

Success hinges on choosing the best promotional plays for your audience.

Before you send an email invitation, there are a few things you need to do:

• Define some specific, measurable marketing goals (e.g., book 20 qualified meetings or register 150 webinar attendees)

• Identify the ideal customer profile you want to attract or meet

• Set a clear budget for your promotional activities, including any ad spend

If you have those basics covered, you can start building your strategy. Once you have a shortlist of promotional methods, compare what each one offers.

Here are some key approaches to consider:

Here are some tips to get the most from these methods.

• When running email campaigns, don’t rely on a single announcement. A sequence that builds from awareness (“We’re excited to announce…”) to urgency (“Last chance to register!”) is more effective.

• If you’re using social ads, target people who follow the event organizer’s company page on LinkedIn and use the event’s official hashtag to join the online conversation.

• Likewise, if you decide to work with a partner, make it as easy as possible for them to promote you. Give them a promo pack with pre-written email copy, social media posts and images.

The best strategies blend these methods. When you mix channels, you create multiple touchpoints and can reach your ideal attendees in different contexts.

How Pipedrive can help turn strategy into action

A customer relationship management (CRM) system makes executing these marketing strategies much easier.

Pipedrive’s Campaigns add-on gives you tools to run a professional email campaign that drives registrations.

Use a three-part email sequence to build interest and urgency:

• Announcement. Include details about the event (what, when, where), the key benefit for attendees and a clear call-to-action to register.

• Value add. Send a follow-up email that shares more value, like a speaker spotlight or the session agenda.

• Final reminder. Finish with a short, urgent email sent a day or two before the event (or before early-bird pricing ends) to drive last-minute decisions.

To build your sequence, go to the Campaigns tab in the main menu and click “+ Campaign” to open the email builder.

Now, use Pipedrive’s AI email writer to draft the copy for your announcement email. In the editor, select the “AI writer” icon in the toolbar.

Give it a simple prompt about your event to generate a strong first draft quickly.

Next, edit your draft as needed and go to the Recipients section and choose the filtered email list you want to target.

Rather than sending it immediately, schedule the campaigns to send at a specific time that’s best for your audience.

When the first campaign is complete, return to the Campaigns dashboard and create your value-add email.

Update the copy and schedule it for a few days after the first one. Repeat the process for your final reminder email to complete the sequence.

2. During the event: making every conversation count

The pre-event plan gets people in the door, but the sales conversations you have on the day drive sales revenue.

The event itself can be chaotic, with many booths and brand activations. You need event marketing tools to cut through the noise and find the best sales opportunities.

Your team’s on-site success comes down to a few core event strategies:

• Use a digital lead capture system and ditch the business card fishbowl

• Ask questions to qualify leads before you start pitching

• Focus on the quality of conversations, not the quantity

• End every promising conversation with a clear and agreed-upon next action

The biggest mistake teams make at events is inconsistent lead generation.

When one person writes notes, another collects business cards and a third sends themselves emails, leads will fall through the cracks.

The solution is having a single event platform your team uses for every lead. It could be your CRM’s mobile app or a simple QR code at your booth that directs visitors to a lead form or landing page on your event website.

Here’s an example of what this looks like in practice:

A unified system means you capture leads in the same way. They’re ready for immediate follow-up as soon as the event is over.

Once your capture system is in place, you can focus on the quality of your conversations. The goal is to determine if a prospect is a good fit as quickly as you can.

Asking a few targeted questions can help you qualify leads on the spot. Here are some simple discovery questions to guide your discussions:

The answers to these questions are gold. Capture them as notes in your CRM. This context allows you to send a personal and relevant follow-up message instead of a generic template.

Finally, never end a good conversation with a vague “we’ll be in touch”. A strong conversation always ends with a concrete next step you both agree on. It turns a casual chat into the first stage of your sales process.

How Pipedrive can help automate lead capture

A successful on-site lead workflow includes three quick actions that vastly improve the event experience for marketers:

1. Scan business cards. Capture a new prospect’s contact information in the moment.

2. Add qualifying notes. Record the answers to your questions for personalized follow-up.

3. Tag leads. Apply a unique label to group your event contacts for easy tracking later.

Pipedrive’s mobile functionality lets you digitize every conversation as it happens.

To manage your conversations at the event, open the Pipedrive mobile app. From the main menu, select “Contact scanner” to record a prospect’s details using your phone’s camera.

After scanning, Pipedrive creates a contact.

Before you save it, scroll down to add notes and apply a specific event label to keep everything organized.

Finally, if you agree on a next step during your conversation, schedule it immediately.

In the new contact’s profile, choose “Add activity” and create a follow-up task.

For a more hands-off approach, create a Web Form (you’ll need to add the LeadBooster feature to your plan).

Go to the Leads tab and select “Web Forms > New Web Form”.

Choose “Registration” and set up important fields in the form builder. When you’re finished, use a free online tool to turn your form’s URL into a QR code for visitors to scan.

3. Post-event follow-up: turning conversations into customers

The conversations at an event get you in the door, but you need a solid follow-up strategy to convert prospects into customers.

An effective follow-up strategy should look something like this:

Speed is your greatest advantage. The enthusiasm from a great conversation fades quickly, so sending a prompt email the next day shows you’re organized and keeps the momentum going.

Your email also needs to be personal. Avoid sending a generic “Thanks for visiting our booth” blast to everyone.

A better approach is to segment leads into tiers based on the notes you took at the event. For example, you can group your new contacts into hot, warm and cool leads:

Here’s what it looks like to label your contacts in Pipedrive’s CRM:

For your hot and warm leads, mentioning a detail from your chat makes a huge difference. A simple reference separates your message from the dozens of other follow-ups they’ll get.

Remember that most leads from an event aren’t ready to buy immediately. Don’t discard them if they don’t reply to your first email.

Entering your warm and cool leads into a long-term nurturing plan helps build brand awareness. When they’re ready to make a decision, you’ll be the first person they think of.

How Pipedrive automates your post-event follow-up

Pipedrive’s automation tools let you segment your new contacts and send the right message as soon as possible.

Here’s how Pipedrive helps with each step of your follow-up strategy:

• Creating email templates. Prepare personalized messages in advance to save time.

• Building automations. Trigger emails and tasks for your hottest leads.

• Segmenting event leads. Use filters to create hot, warm and cold email lists in real-time.

• Launching nurture campaigns. Keep in touch with your long-term prospects.

To get started, write your messages in Pipedrive. Go to Company settings and select “Email templates”.

Create templates for your hot and warm leads, using merge fields to add personalization.

Go to the Workflow Automation tab to build your workflow.

Set the trigger for when Pipedrive creates a new contact and add a condition that the person must have your event label, like “Q4 Summit 2025”.

Add an “If/else condition” that checks the person’s labels.

Set the condition for the “Yes” branch to be “Person > Label > is > Hot”. The “No” branch will apply to warm leads.

Last of all, assign the correct email to each branch.

In the “Yes” branch, add an action to send your hot lead template. In the “No” branch, add an action to send your warm lead template. Pipedrive will send the right follow-up based on the label your team applied on-site.

You can build automations for each segment based on their event label – one for hot leads, another for warm – and trigger personalized follow-ups automatically. For a more in-depth look at Pipedrive’s Automations, check out the video below.

4. Measuring your success: calculating true event ROI

Tracking your event ROI lets you measure the financial impact of your efforts as new leads move through your sales pipeline.

The trick is to use the contact labels you created for each lead during the event. These tags let you filter your main pipeline to see only the deals from that specific event.

You’ll see your event leads’ performance in real-time. You can track the number of deals and their combined value, separate from all your other sales activities.

Use this data to work out your ROI and report your marketing results to stakeholders.

To calculate your ROI, you first need the total event cost. Make sure you include all expenses for an accurate result.

The formula for ROI is the total revenue minus the event cost, all divided by the cost.

For example, say the event cost $5,000 and you’ve closed $20,000 in deals. Your current ROI is ($20,000 − $5,000) / $5,000 or 300%.

The best way to monitor these numbers is with a dedicated sales dashboard that pulls all your key event marketing metrics into a visual report.

Your sales dashboard should show your total leads, pipeline value, deal win rate and total revenue closed from the event. It gives you a live look at the event’s ongoing performance.

With this detailed context, you can optimize your next event’s digital marketing efforts.

How Pipedrive improves your event reporting capabilities

A CRM gives you the hard data to track your sales KPIs and prove an event’s value.

Pipedrive’s reporting tools track every deal from your event to calculate your ROI.

To start, you need to see all the deals from your event. Go to the Deals view and filter deals for your event label.

Next, go to the Insights tab, click the “+” icon and select “Dashboard”. Give your new dashboard a clear name to create a space for all your event reporting.

Inside the dashboard, click “+ Add report”. Choose a Deals started report to see the total number of leads and pipeline value from the event.

Add another report to your dashboard, this time for Deals won. This report will show you the total revenue you’ve closed from the event.

Use the live data to calculate your ROI. Take the total revenue from your “Deals won” report and apply the formula above to get your ROI percentage.

4 advanced tactics to maximize event conversions

Once you have the fundamentals of event marketing down, you can use additional tactics to stand out from the crowd.

Here are four event marketing best practices top performers use to make the most of every event:

Use these tactics to move beyond just attending events and start creating memorable experiences for your most important prospects.

Final thoughts

Successful events are a powerful way to generate revenue, and a solid event marketing plan is what turns conversations from the event floor into closed sales.

A sales CRM gives you the control to execute that plan at every touchpoint. It organizes your leads, automates follow-up and tracks results so you always know your ROI.

Try Pipedrive free for 14 days and see how it can streamline your event workflow and help you close more deals.

Buyers research in public. They compare vendors, ask peers for advice and react to expert posts long before they speak with sales. B2B social media marketing meets that intent where it happens and turns attention into qualified conversations.

A focused B2B social media marketing strategy builds credibility with the decision-makers involved in a purchase, from evaluators to budget owners. Customer proof, product walkthroughs and clear points of view reduce uncertainty and lift meeting acceptance rates.

Capture clicks, comments and direct messages with forms or integrations and send them to your customer relationship management (CRM) system with a defined next step so social interactions turn into scheduled meetings and trackable opportunities in your sales pipeline.

Speed and consistency close the loop. Capturing UTM data, auto-assigning owners and setting service level agreements (SLAs) on social leads ensures fast follow-up.

Key takeaways for B2B social media marketing

• Build a focused strategy around your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buying committee, using clear content pillars (proof, product, POV) and CTAs that route to meetings or trials.

• Pick two core platforms (often LinkedIn and YouTube) and one to test, then judge performance by meetings, opportunities and pipeline in your CRM.

• Capture every click, comment and direct message (DM) with UTMs, assign owners with SLAs for fast follow up and log context to keep handoffs clean.

• Use Pipedrive to centralize social-sourced leads, automate assignments and follow ups. Report meetings, opportunities and pipeline so you invest where ROI is proven, try Pipedrive free for 14 days.

What is B2B social media marketing?

B2B social media marketing is the use of channels like LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Reddit and industry communities to reach defined accounts, educate buyers and generate sales-ready interest. It blends organic and paid programs to influence awareness, consideration and meeting creation.

The work spans content marketing and conversion. Content demonstrates outcomes with proof and practical guidance. Conversion paths move prospects to a clear next step, book a call, start a trial, join a webinar or request pricing, with tracking that ties every interaction back to the pipeline in your sales CRM.

Done well, it’s a coordinated motion across marketing and sales: consistent messaging, clean handoffs from social to reps and measurement that goes beyond vanity metrics to meetings, opportunities and revenue.

– Edelman & LinkedIn, 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report

How do I build a B2B social media marketing strategy?

Start with the buying committee. Define ideal customer profile (ICP), roles and recurring questions by stage. Map content to those moments: customer proof for risk reduction, product snippets for evaluation and POV posts to frame the problem you solve.

Choose clear conversion paths. Every post should point to a next step that sales can act on, book a call, start a trial, register for a webinar or download a playbook. Track with UTMs and capture sources in your CRM so sales meetings and opportunities are attributable.

Set a publishing rhythm you can sustain. Establish content pillars (proof, product, POV), assign owners and create an approval flow that protects voice without slowing you down. Review performance weekly and adjust topics, formats and CTAs based on reply quality and meetings created.

Align with sales early. Share a calendar of upcoming posts, enable sales reps with short reply guides and route high-intent comments or DMs to owners with an SLA. The strategy works when content, conversion and handoff operate as one motion.

What are the best social media platforms for B2B marketing and how to choose?

Use the platforms your buyers already trust, then judge each by reach in your ICP, format fit and ability to create meetings and pipeline.

• LinkedIn: Primary B2B network for reach, targeting and credibility, best for thought leadership, customer proof and direct meeting CTAs.

• YouTube: Searchable sales demos, tutorials and case study videos that sales can reuse, great for long-tail discovery and enablement.

• X (Twitter): Real-time industry conversation and expert distribution, useful for founders and product leaders to build authority.

• Reddit and niche communities: Authentic research moments, participate helpfully, collect insight and route qualified interest.

• Facebook and Instagram: Retargeting, sales events and broad-audience industries, pair with clear offers and tracking.

• TikTok: Viable if your ICP is present, short product walkthroughs and tips can earn low-cost attention.

What are B2B social media marketing best practices that drive sales?

Start with a clear, consistent message. Pick three or four themes that match buyer questions, customer proof, product walkthroughs, practical tips and a leadership point of view, stick to them across channels.

Lead with outcomes, then show how. Use short clips or carousels to demonstrate the result, followed by a simple next step (book a call, start a trial or register for a demo). According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2025 B2B research, 58% of marketers say video delivers the best results.

Repurpose with intent. Turn one case study into a 60-second video, a short post thread and a one-pager for sales. Make it easy to pass along, according to Demand Gen Report’s 2024 study, 72% of B2B buyers share content with teammates.

Bring experts to the feed. Feature product managers, solution engineers and customers in simple, repeatable formats. Familiar faces build trust and sales can reuse those clips in outreach.

Measure what moves deals using sales dashboards. Review reply quality, meetings booked and opportunities opened each week. Cut formats that earn likes without conversations and double down on posts that lead to sales meeting bookings.

Turning social into revenue: attribution and handoffs

Forrester’s Buyers’ Journey Survey (2024) found that buyers see social media as meaningful and impactful throughout the purchase process, therefore, make every interaction attributable and handoffs fast and consistent.

Capture source data at the edge. Add UTM parameters and campaign IDs to every link and map them in your CRM with campaign and UTM tracking. For comments and direct messages, capture details through web forms or live chat and chatbot, then route them to an owner with lead routing rules.

Set ownership and speed standards. Assign social-sourced leads automatically, enforce response targets with SLA reminders and use email templates to keep replies consistent. Make it easy to book time directly from the thread with a meeting scheduler.

Log context sales can use. Record the post, topic and pain point that sparked the interaction, plus the next step and date, use custom fields so the story travels with the record.

Report beyond vanity metrics. Track meetings, opportunities and revenue with pipeline reporting and compare results by platform and message in source and channel dashboards so budget moves to what creates sales conversations.

How to choose between B2B social media marketing services and an agency

Choose the model that fits your goals, pace and internal capacity. Use this quick comparison to decide how to staff and scale without losing sales alignment.

How to choose a B2B social media marketing agency

Here are some steps for choosing the right B2B social media marketing agency:

1. Define success. Set targets for meetings, opportunities and pipeline from social, do not focus on just impressions or followers.

2. Check domain fit. Ask for case studies in your industry, sample assets and example creative campaign briefs.

3. Audit measurement. Confirm UTM discipline, CRM mapping and cohort reporting by platform, message and audience.

4. Test the operating model. Review their cadence for planning, approvals, posting and rapid iteration.

5. Validate creative and POV. Run a small creative test to assess voice, proof usage and narrative consistency.

6. Confirm paid media chops. Look for clear learning agendas, audience design and budget pacing controls.

7. Run a pilot with exit criteria. 60–90 days, one ICP, one offer, agreed SLAs and a go/no-go based on meetings and early pipeline.

How Pipedrive supports B2B social media marketing (sales alignment)

Pipedrive turns social engagement into qualified leads you can act on. Web Forms and live chat and chatbot help in capturing contacts from LinkedIn, YouTube, X and communities with integrations, campaign management solutions and UTM tracking.

Context travels with the lead. Use custom fields to store the source platform, post and offer, then route new leads with lead routing rules to the right owner. Add a direct path to book time with the built-in meeting scheduler to convert interest while it’s fresh.

Speed and consistency come from workflow automation. Assign owners automatically, start follow-ups when a form is submitted or a meeting is booked and use SLA reminders to keep response times tight. Teams reply with email templates and stay on track with activity sequences.

Revenue impact is visible in one place. Pipeline reporting shows meetings, opportunities and value from social cohorts, while source and channel dashboards compare performance by platform, message and audience.

Managers coach on what works, marketing sees which posts drive conversations and teams stay accountable with activities and goals to track follow-ups and hit targets.

FAQ for B2B social media marketing

Final thoughts

B2B social media marketing works when it’s built for outcomes: the right message on the right platform, a clear path to act and a fast, consistent handoff to sales.

Keep the program small enough to run well, measure it against meetings and opportunities, then scale the formats and channels that move deals.

Use Pipedrive as the operating layer, social is more than awareness. Leads are captured with context, follow-ups happen on time and revenue from social cohorts is visible.

Customer experience (CX) outsourcing gives revenue teams a way to meet rising demand without adding permanent headcount. Buyers expect fast answers across chat, email, voice and social, whereas trials create a spike in product questions.

Renewals and expansions depend on timely help. An outsourced model can extend coverage to 24/7, add languages and protect response speed so qualified intent inquiries turn into scheduled sales meetings and stage-tracked opportunities in your sales pipeline.

With the right setup, outsourced CX fits your sales motion through clear service level agreement (SLAs) and defined handoffs. Align on three metrics: first response time (FRT), time to qualified transfer (TQT) and appointment set rate (ASR) to protect speed, context and conversion.

Conversations are captured in your customer relationship management (CRM) software, so notes, next steps and qualification data stay with the account. The guide covers operating models, omnichannel management, service levels tied to revenue, partner selection and a 90 day rollout.

Key takeaways for customer experience outsourcing

• Customer experience outsourcing gives revenue teams 24/7 coverage, added languages and faster response without permanent headcount.

• Tie outsourced omnichannel customer experience management to revenue outcomes with clear routing, shared playbooks and CRM captured context.

• Set and review SLAs that move sales, first response time, time to qualified transfer and appointment set rate, to protect intent and lift meeting rates.

• Select partners with sales literacy, native integrations, robust QA and transparent reporting, then pilot narrowly with clear exit criteria and scale on results.

• Roll out over 90 days and use a CRM like Pipedrive to centralize interactions, automate SLA timers and report pipeline from outsourced channels, explore how it works and try Pipedrive free for 14 days.

What is customer experience outsourcing for sales?

Customer experience outsourcing is a managed service where a partner handles customer interactions under your brand across channels like chat, email, voice, in-app and social, while feeding context into your CRM and handing qualified opportunities to sales.

In a sales context, scope often includes appointment setting, pricing and trial support, light qualification, warm transfers to reps, renewal assistance and routing expansion signals to account owners.

Unlike generic call coverage, outsourced customer experience is governed by playbooks, QA and service levels tied to revenue outcomes. You define the audience, scripts, brand standards and escalation paths.

The partner provides trained agents, workforce management, multilingual capacity and reporting. Together you operate one knowledge base, one qualification rubric and a cadence of calibrations so pre-sale conversations create momentum instead of friction.

– McKinsey, 2024

How outsourced CX supports revenue across the funnel

Outsourced customer experience can absorb inbound demand at the top of the funnel. Agents handle first responses via chat and email as part of inbound lead management, answer basic questions and route qualified interest with lead routing rules to the right sales rep. Speed here protects intent and lifts meeting rates.

During trials, partners guide activation, remove friction and capture product feedback. Conversations are logged in your CRM so notes, blockers and next steps travel with the account. That context shortens discovery and improves forecasting.

Near renewal, a save desk can surface risk early. The sales team escalates usage concerns, aligns on remediation steps and books time with the account owner. For expansion, agents flag new stakeholders or use cases and trigger warm transfers to sales.

The model works when qualification is consistent. Use one set of criteria for fit and intent, define warm transfer standards and review a sample of interactions weekly.

Outsourced omnichannel customer experience management

Omnichannel CX spans chat, email, voice, social DMs and in-app messaging. Each sales channel should serve a specific outcome: chat moves pricing questions to a meeting link, voice handles complex use cases and books a consult, email confirms decisions with a brief recap and next steps.

Routing rules protect intent. Simple questions stay in the CX queue. Qualified interest transfers to sales within a defined time and edge cases escalate to a specialist with a clear handoff path.

Brand voice and knowledge stay consistent. The partner works from your knowledge base, scripts and macros. Release notes flow into enablement and sales agents tag recurring themes so marketing and product see what prospects ask most.

Measurement and key performance indicators (KPIs) ties channels to revenue. Track first response time (FRT) by channel, time to qualified transfer (QTQ), appointment set rate (ASR) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) for pre-sale interactions.

As KPIs improve, meeting volume and qualified opportunities rise. Include first contact resolution (FCR) too: according to SQM Group, every 1% improvement in FCR drives a 1% rise in CSAT and about 1% lower support costs, linking channel KPIs directly to loyalty and margin.

Customer experience outsourcing service levels that move revenue

Set service levels that support revenue moments. Focus on first response time (inbound sales), time to qualified transfer, appointment set rate and pre-sale CSAT. Add a quick data check so each transfer includes the essentials: what was discussed, who owns it and the next step with a date.

Set targets by channel and intent. During business hours, reply to chat in under a minute and to sales emails within the hour. Create fast lanes for high intent signals. Align incentives to these sales targets and review a small QA sample each week to lift both speed and quality.

Monitor downstream impact. Track no show rates and time to first meeting after transfer. If bookings don’t hold, improve the handoff and confirmation steps. Treat service levels as a living agreement and recalibrate monthly based on volume, channel mix and results.

Build vs. buy: when customer experience management outsourcing makes sense

Outsourcing works when demand outpaces coverage, especially during trials, launches or seasonal peaks. It also helps when you need 24/7 or multilingual support, but can’t justify permanent headcount. The goal is faster responses without diluting brand or qualification.

– Deloitte, Global Outsourcing Survey 2024

Keep core strategy and governance in-house. Own the knowledge base, qualification rubric, CRM fields and sales reporting. The partner supplies trained agents, workforce management and capacity across channels.

Anchor the decision in cost per qualified transfer versus your fully loaded internal cost (including delays).

How to select an outsourced CX partner

Use this checklist to vet vendors for revenue impact:

• Proven outcomes. Appointment setting, trial support and renewals – ask for vertical case studies and outbound call samples.

• CRM/help desk fit. Native integrations, clear field mapping and reliable activity logging, confirm data ownership.

• SLA readiness. Agree service levels and a simple handoff checklist: owner, timeframe, context and next step.

• Quality review and coaching. Hold weekly review sessions of a sample of calls and chats, use a simple scorecard and check that required fields and next steps are recorded.

• Security and data protection. Document how customer data is handled, confirm security certifications and sign a data-processing agreement, keep logs of who accessed what.

• Coverage and staffing. Define hours and languages, how quickly new team members are trained and a staffing plan for busy periods and launches.

• Reporting visibility. Provide easy-to-read reports by channel and by audience or message, with shared access for your team and the partner.

• Pilot design. Target a narrow audience with one offer for 30–60 days, with clear success criteria tied to meetings booked and opportunities created.

Implementation plan: a 90-day rollout for revenue teams

The following CX outsourcing plan lowers risks, keeps messaging consistent and proves improvements in response time, sales handoffs and meetings booked, with clear actions and checkpoints at every phase.

1. Days 0–30 (foundations): Align scripts, tone of voice with sales mirroring (matching buyer language and pace) and qualification criteria. Map CRM fields, build a shared knowledge base, set channel-specific service level targets, set up test queues and create baseline reports.

2. Days 31–60 (pilot): Open limited hours and a small set of channels. Handle first responses, apply the qualification criteria and record structured notes. Hold weekly quality reviews with sales managers, refine the handoff and confirmation steps. Track first response time, time to qualified transfer and meeting rate.

3. Days 61–90 (scale): Expand hours, languages and channels based on the pilot. Set a simple cadence: daily check-ins, weekly quality reviews and a monthly service-level review. Finalize reports for first response time, time to qualified transfer, meeting rate, customer satisfaction and pipeline from outsourced channels, then publish a short improvement plan.

How Pipedrive supports outsourced CX for sales

Pipedrive gives revenue teams a clear, shared view of every interaction. Email sync, sales call tracking and custom fields keep customer history, qualification notes and next steps in one place, so handoffs to sales include the context that moves deals forward.

Sales automations route conversations to the right owner, apply SLA timers and trigger warm transfer tasks with the details a rep needs to act quickly. Alerts surface risks when response times slip or required data is missing, helping managers coach in real time.

Sales dashboards track the metrics that matter for outsourced channels: First Response Time, Time to Qualified Transfer, Meeting Rate, CSAT and pipeline created from the cohort. Shared views keep your partner accountable and make it easy to compare performance by channel, message and segment.

With Pipedrive as the operating layer, outsourced CX stays aligned to revenue goals: consistent qualifications, faster handoffs and measurable impact across the funnel.

Final thoughts

Customer experience outsourcing can unlock faster response, cleaner handoffs and more meetings without expanding headcount. The model works when it’s governed like a revenue program: one knowledge base, clear qualification rules, omnichannel coverage and service levels tied to outcomes.

Make visibility the standard. Operate from your CRM, review SLAs and QA every week and tune routing and scripts based on what moves prospects forward.

With the right partner and operating cadence, outsourced CX becomes a repeatable way to capture intent, protect renewals and create pipeline.

Cross-team collaboration encourages employees to align their efforts and contribute meaningfully to shared company goals.

Creating a culture of open communication and information sharing is particularly important in SMBs where lean teams and tight resources make every contribution matter.

In this article, you’ll learn what effective cross-functional collaboration looks like and how to improve it. You’ll also discover the role of technology and how tools like Pipedrive and AI keep teams on track and boost productivity.

What is cross-team collaboration?

Cross-team collaboration happens when employees from different departments work together towards a shared goal using open communication, shared responsibility and collective problem-solving.

This approach is mission-critical in small businesses and remote teams where resources may be limited and workflows are naturally decentralized.

Here’s what cross-team collaboration looks like at a startup SaaS company where employees hold multiple roles:

• The founder or tech lead provides technical expertise, showing customer-facing employees how clients can use the product’s features to solve specific pain points

• The lone member of the sales team collaborates with a marketing agency to explain customer needs and refine messaging

• The sales lead shares sales objections with the founder to shape the tool’s value proposition and development roadmap

• The customer success lead, who is also responsible for billing, meets with the founder every month to run through churn rates and payment queries

Open communication and teamwork prevent information siloing, helping everyone juggle multiple responsibilities successfully.

What are the benefits of cross-team collaboration?

Increasing teamwork between departments helps small businesses boost productivity, improve workplace culture and deliver better, more consistent customer experiences.

Here are three benefits of cross-team collaboration for SMBs.

1. More open communication, fewer siloes and higher productivity levels

According to McKinsey research, collaborative teams complete projects 20% to 25% faster. They share knowledge, solve problems and are more productive by using technology to enhance collaboration.

Clear communication breaks down information siloes, making departments less likely to duplicate their work and better able to keep cross-functional projects moving forward.

Shared data also improves decision-making by ensuring all teams can access the same insights.

For example, when the marketing department shares lead reporting data with sales reps, they won’t waste time on unqualified prospects. Similarly, customer support teams that relay customer feedback to developers help them inform and accelerate product roadmaps.

2. Happier workplaces and higher talent retention rates

Employees thrive in workplaces that encourage cross-team collaboration. Like team-building activities, cross-team collaboration efforts boost employee engagement, build trust and create a better corporate culture.

A strong workplace culture will help you hang on to employees, too. Research by MIT Sloan finds that corporate culture is a more reliable predictor of employee attrition than wages.

Culture is also a compelling factor for younger employees. An EY survey of US workers found that nearly four in 10 Gen Z and millennials say it significantly impacts their intent to stay at their current workplace.

Cross-team collaboration directly improves culture by breaking down departmental barriers and creating shared wins, which younger workers value.

The benefits of collaborating with cross-functional teams also add up over time. Long-time employees find collaborating easier, improving workplace happiness and retention rates.

3. Better alignment and more consistent customer experiences

According to research by Forrester, a lack of organizational cooperation is the biggest impediment to improving the customer experience.

When different teams work together towards a shared goal and communicate openly, they’ll naturally deliver a consistent customer experience that contributes to your brand story, increases customer trust and boosts sales.

When sales and marketing align on their target audience’s pain points, they deliver consistent and relevant messages that reduce friction and keep prospects moving through the sales funnel.

5 ways to achieve cross-team collaboration

To enjoy the benefits of cross-team collaboration, you must align teams, increase communication and improve knowledge sharing throughout your small business.

Use these five cross-functional team collaboration strategies to build cooperative teams without tearing up your existing workflows or hiring expensive outside consultants.

1. Create shared goals to align teams

Start every cross-departmental project or initiative by clearly defining what you want to achieve. A common goal helps teams work together and align their work with company objectives.

Uniting behind clear goals also eliminates territorial behavior and cross-departmental competition. Rather than competing to find the right prospects, marketing and sales work together to close sales.

How to achieve it

Use the objective and key results (OKRs) framework to create a big-picture business goal and smaller milestones or sales metrics that let each department track its progress.

For SMBs, OKRs focus scarce resources on the most valuable business activities.

For example, a software company that wants to expand its business by launching a new product might set key results, such as generating 50 new leads per quarter.

Since they rely on marketing to drive growth, they also aim for 75% of those leads – marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) – to be validated by the sales team as sales-qualified leads (SQLs). The company might also target 95% customer satisfaction to maintain quality as it scales.

In action, creating relevant OKRs means:

• Breaking down your big vision into a set of short-term tasks and objectives for each department to make progress visible and more realistic

• Making the process even more collaborative by involving each team at the start of the process to ensure you get buy-in

• Setting individual and departmental goals (like sales commission), while also creating company-wide initiatives like a bonus scheme that rewards all employees fairly

Remember to celebrate each department’s achievements across the business to boost teamwork and reinforce each department’s role in helping your company meet its goals.

2. Invest in tools to boost communication and collaboration

Long email chains, project bottlenecks and missed deadlines happen in businesses of every size. Collaboration tools stop them from becoming major roadblocks for small teams that might otherwise struggle to play catch-up.

Technologies like project management software and video conferencing let small teams be even more agile than larger competitors and complete every project on time.

For example, a shared project dashboard like the one below makes it easy to see each task’s owner and status:

Here are three essential collaboration tools for small businesses seeking to eliminate data silos and enhance their communication plan.

SMBs can purchase tools on subscription, meaning they don’t have to invest in expensive one-off solutions to improve collaboration.

How to achieve it

Choose the best collaboration tools for your company by considering:

• Ease of use. Does the tool have a clean navigation and a simple interface that every employee can use?

• Scalability. Will the tool grow with your business and adapt to evolving workflows?

• Integrations. How well does the tool integrate with your existing business apps?

• Support. What support is available, and what does the onboarding process look like?

However, be careful when implementing too many tools simultaneously, as it may make it harder for teams to keep track of tasks.

3. Systematize and automate workflows

Everyone has different perspectives and working styles, but systematized and automated workflows remove ambiguity from cross-departmental tasks.

By clearly defining processes and responsibilities, there’s less risk of duplicated work or essential tasks falling through the cracks. Teams can leverage diverse skill sets while everyone takes responsibility for tasks, and work progresses smoothly.

Workflow automation streamlines processes, handling monotonous tasks like notifying someone that a piece of work is ready for your review.

Project management tools often let you create automations using pre-defined triggers. Here’s what it looks like in Pipedrive:

GP Law Group, an LA-based personal injury and mass tort litigation firm, shows how automation transforms collaboration. Since centralizing work in Pipedrive, they’ve increased their caseload by 160% and doubled team size.

Their automated workflows ensure they never miss filing deadlines by:

• Populating each new deal with pinned notes for maximum visibility of important case information, like treatment plan, status of medical records and status of negotiations

• Creating calendar events when the team adds essential dates, like the Statute of Limitations (SOLs), to deals

• Pushing important activities to Slack, where the team holds each other accountable

Centralizing and automating work on the platform improves collaboration and speeds up client onboarding.

How to achieve it

Start systematizing processes by identifying critical and repeatable workflows. For every department:

• Document the process. Write down each task employees must complete, including step-by-step instructions that make it easy for a new hire to complete the task.

• Standardize procedures. Add templates, best practices and examples that help employees complete tasks similarly.

• Automate repetitive tasks. Use existing software to automate manual processes, such as assigning a task to an employee or creating a due date.

• Assign roles and responsibilities. Add job titles and names next to every task in your workflow.

You now have a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) that employees can use to complete a task or learn how another department works.

4. Make resources accessible to everyone

Assets like your SOPs are only helpful if everyone can access them. A knowledge management system (KMS) can organize internal information into an easily accessible repository where teams can find and share it.

This central hub removes information barriers between departments, aligning everyone around the same playbook for a consistent customer experience.

As well as SOPs, a KMS holds all your organization’s most important data:

For example, adding buyer personas and ideal customer profiles (ICPs) to your KMS ensures marketing and sales teams focus their messaging on similar topics relevant to your target audience’s needs.

How to achieve it

Several dedicated knowledge management software solutions, like HelpScout, and cloud-based storage solutions, like Google Drive, are available. However, any platform that stores or organizes information works as a knowledge repository.

For example, create a KMS using Pipedrive Smart Docs. It integrates with your CRM, meaning you can autofill documents with sales data, and it comes with user access permissions, so you can decide exactly which documents each team views.

Whichever tool you use, make your system as intuitive as possible using document hierarchies and hyperlinks to help users quickly find the necessary information.

5. Collect and action employee feedback

Frontline employees are often the first to spot collaboration issues like redundant meetings or overly complex workflows. Get their opinion to find and fix roadblocks that stop your team from working together efficiently.

Employee feedback systems, such as surveys and suggestion boxes, foster open communication and help create a culture where everyone feels heard.

How to achieve it

Gather employee input with:

• Employee surveys. Use a tool like SurveyMonkey to create a collaboration-based questionnaire that gets sent to staff automatically every month

• In-person meetings. Hold regular check-ins with employees or team meetings to discuss ways they think collaboration can improve

• Suggestion boxes. Encourage team leaders to create an anonymous suggestion box in their department where employees can leave feedback and propose ideas

Employees are more likely to provide feedback if it leads to fundamental changes. Share your improvement plans every month or quarter and follow through promptly to demonstrate your commitment to collaboration.

How to boost collaboration efforts with Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM that centralizes all of your sales and customer data, increasing accessibility and making it easier for separate teams to work together towards shared goals.

For example, Pipedrive’s Contacts timeline, shown below, offers a complete history of customer interactions that sales and customer success (CS) teams use to align themselves during the customer onboarding.

The timeline gives CS teams access to every interaction, allowing them to learn which features customers care about and tailor the onboarding process. It’s easy to see which sales rep to contact if customers need clarification.

Pipedrive does more for collaboration than centralizing sales data, though. Here are three other ways to use the platform to help teams in your small business work more effectively together.

Optimize post-sales delivery processes using project management tools

Projects by Pipedrive is a project management software available on Power and Enterprise plans and as an add-on for Professional accounts and lower.

Companies use it to bridge the gap between sales and delivery teams, helping with onboarding and project completion as soon as they finalize a deal.

For example, a digital marketing agency can use Projects to set up a new client workflow every time its sales team closes a deal. It can assign, track and complete regular marketing tasks, like creating blog posts and social media assets, without using another tool.

Pipedrive’s Projects has several features that increase cross-team collaboration, including:

• A centralized workspace that brings all project-related information, such as tasks, documents and timelines, into one place

• A kanban-style board so team members see the status of live projects at a glance, increasing visibility and accountability

• Task assignment and tracking capabilities so everyone knows their responsibilities and how their tasks contribute to the bigger picture

• Communication tools like notes, comments and mentions to encourage in-app knowledge sharing and reduce context switching

• Project templates that ensure standardized workflows and save time at the start of projects

This project management tool also syncs with Pipedrive’s CRM, meaning your team doesn’t have to switch between different tools. This integration simplifies small business workflows while reducing the risk of tool fatigue and data loss.

Streamline hand-offs between departments with workflow automation

Pipedrive’s Automations feature helps you automate the repetitive manual parts of your processes to reduce errors, increase productivity and ensure work moves smoothly from one department to the next.

For example, create an automation that automatically transfers the ownership of a deal between marketing and sales teams once it reaches a certain point in your sales pipeline. Another trigger can then transfer ownership from sales to customer success once you sign the contract.

Here’s what creating a trigger in Pipedrive looks like:

Automating hand-offs ensures that no deal slips through the cracks and every team member has the information they need to complete their task.

Increase collaboration and communication with tool integrations

Pipedrive integrates with hundreds of business apps to eliminate data silos, automate processes and increase team communication.

Here are a few examples of how to use three popular communication and collaboration tools with Pipedrive:

• Asana – keep teams up to date with sales developments by automatically updating tasks when a deal’s status changes

• Trello – increase information flow and eliminate human error by automatically attaching customer information from Pipedrive to task cards

• Slack – improve communication by creating automatic alerts about important activities, like a new deal

Use SmartApps, Pipedrive’s AI-powered recommendation engine, to suggest relevant integrations based on your existing workflows.

You can also manually search for apps. Pipedrive’s AI-powered search feature will recognize natural language queries to find the perfect tool integration, even if you don’t use the exact terminology.

Why AI should be part of cross-team collaboration

AI solves cross-team collaboration challenges in small businesses by breaking down communication silos, enabling real-time insights and automating routine tasks to increase efficiency and alignment across various departments.

Here’s how AI can be part of cross-team collaboration.

Keep teams on track with AI project managers

AI agents act as project managers, automating routine tasks, sending reminders and automatically scheduling work. They reduce manual workload and human error, ensuring cross-team projects stay on track.

Here are some of the ways AI improves project management:

• Analyze project data to identify potential delays and bottlenecks

• Send reminders and suggest actions when employees miss task deadlines

• Summarize project information, allowing employees to grasp essential details quickly

Pipedrive’s Sales Assistant acts as an all-in-one sales-focused AI agent. It does everything from recommending actions on deals to summarizing lengthy email threads.

For example, customer success teams use the email summarization tool to quickly understand what customers liked during the product demo and help them achieve their goals:

Sales Assistant improves task management and increases productivity, meaning fewer bottlenecks and delays in sales-focused workflows.

Increase information flow with AI insights

AI-powered analysis improves cross-team collaboration by unlocking insights and increasing access to information. Artificial intelligence analyzes data sets much faster than humans, spotting trends they might miss.

It also makes sharing and consuming those trends easier using AI dashboards and reports. For example, Piperdrive’s AI report generator lets teams ask simple questions about vast data sets.

This automation means marketing teams don’t have to wait for sales to discuss lead quality. Using a text-based prompt like the following gives a real-time answer from Pipedrive Insights instead:

By automating information retrieval and accelerating analysis, AI keeps information flowing across departments, ensuring each team completes tasks on time and to a high standard.

Boost productivity with generative AI

A novel way to strengthen cross-team collaboration is by using generative AI as a virtual teammate that helps with supporting tasks, such as brainstorming ideas and creating content.

AI handles tasks others don’t have time for, reducing bottlenecks and freeing up teams to focus on higher-value tasks.

For instance, if sales teams are always waiting on marketing for outreach emails or one-pagers, ChatGPT can help generate content quickly, freeing up marketing’s time and accelerating sales.

Pipedrive’s AI email writer takes this further by crafting engaging and personalized messaging that sales reps can send without waiting for input from other teams.

To reach out to a sales prospect, they can simply give the tool a short prompt:

The employee can then tweak the output to get the desired effect and personalize it with data from Piperdrive’s CRM.

Final thoughts

Cross-team collaboration helps small businesses stay aligned and productive, even with limited resources. With the right tools and a culture of open communication, teams tackle and achieve ambitious goals together.

With AI, it becomes even easier to streamline workflows, share insights and improve productivity.

Pipedrive combines AI and collaboration tools into a single platform that gives small businesses everything teams need to work well together. Improve collaboration in your SMB by signing up for a 14-day free trial.

One of the core goals of marketing teams is to reach their target audience with messages that feel personal across every channel.

Integrated marketing helps brands cut through the noise, align teams around a strategic approach and deliver a seamless experience from the first ad to the final purchase.

In this article, you’ll learn what integrated marketing is, why it matters for SMBs and how to build an integrated marketing plan that drives real results.

Key takeaways from integrated marketing

• Integrated marketing unifies your brand image across different channels for a stronger impact.

• A customer-centric, data-driven approach helps optimize campaigns and build brand loyalty.

• Measuring KPIs like reach, engagement and conversion rates proves ROI and guides future efforts.

• Pipedrive gives marketing teams a central hub to manage integrated marketing campaigns. Try it free for 14 days.

What is integrated marketing?

Integrated marketing is the practice of delivering consistent messaging across all customer touchpoints to create a unified brand experience.

Instead of treating each channel as a separate initiative, an integrated marketing strategy combines digital marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and even offline tactics like billboards or events into one cohesive plan.

The goal is to eliminate silos within a marketing team so that every campaign feels connected, reinforces the same brand identity and builds trust with the target audience.

For example, a small business launching a new product might:

This integrated marketing approach ensures that customers encounter unified messaging no matter where they engage.

Are integrated marketing and multichannel marketing the same?

Multichannel marketing and integrated marketing are often interchangeable, though not the same.

• Multichannel marketing means using different channels, such as social media, email marketing and TV ads. Each channel runs independently. For example, a company might launch LinkedIn ads and send email promotions, each with different messaging.
  

• Integrated marketing also uses multiple channels, but coordinates them under one marketing plan. In this case, the LinkedIn ads and emails would all deliver the same messaging and brand experience.

Why integrated marketing matters for SMBs

Marketing teams operate in an environment where customers engage with brands through more touchpoints than ever, including social media platforms, webinars and industry events.

The challenge is that showing up across multiple channels isn’t enough. Gartner research shows that while 86% of customers appreciate personalized communication, 55% will disengage if it feels invasive, and 40% will leave if it’s irrelevant.

Customers expect every touchpoint to align with their needs, interests and behaviors. By unifying campaigns, SMBs can cut through fragmentation and deliver seamless customer experiences at every stage.

Companies that master integrated marketing communications have clear advantages: stronger brand recognition, higher conversion rates and more loyal customers.

This approach ties every sales channel together under a single brand identity.

Core principles of integrated marketing

Integrated marketing only works when teams align around a few core principles. The following table gives a quick summary of what those principles are and why they matter:

Together, these principles form the foundation of an integrated marketing approach that scales across platforms and delivers unified messaging at every touchpoint.

How to develop an integrated marketing plan

An integrated marketing plan gives your team a clear framework for coordinating campaigns.

Below is a four-step process to help teams align on priorities and measure the impact of your campaigns.

1. Choose the right marketing channels

The first step in building an integrated marketing plan is deciding which channels to invest in.

Base this on where your target audience spends time and how they prefer to engage with your brand.

To make the right choices, start by analyzing:

• Customer demographics and pain points

• Existing channels’ website traffic and conversion rates

• Past campaign metrics such as reach, engagement and sales promotion performance

• Competitor activity across social media platforms, email marketing and other digital marketing channels

By identifying which channels matter most, your marketing team can focus resources where they drive the greatest impact.

2. Create unified assets and messaging

Once you’ve identified the right channels, the next step is to ensure that every piece of content reinforces a single brand message.

Email campaigns, social media ads and landing pages should all share the same tone, visuals and value proposition.

To make this happen, marketing teams should:

• Develop a clear brand message and brand positioning statement

• Use shared design templates and brand guidelines

• Align campaign messaging with customer needs and pain points

• Ensure every asset supports a consistent brand identity

Consistent messaging increases the chances that your target audience will remember your campaigns.

3. Assign clear ownership across the marketing team

Every campaign should have defined ownership at each stage.

Assigning specific people to manage campaign strategy, content creation and performance avoids overlap and confusion.

For example, a software company running an integrated marketing campaign for a new product launch might assign:

• The content team to create assets

• The demand generation team to manage paid media

• The communications team to handle public relations

• The marketing manager to oversee reporting

Smaller teams may need to wear multiple hats. For example, the content team handles both assets and PR while demand generation runs paid media, reporting and campaign analysis.

4. Launch campaigns with coordinated timing

Now it’s time to launch campaigns in a coordinated sequence across channels.

Timing matters because launching assets in isolation can confuse the target audience. Coordinated rollouts create momentum and reinforce the brand message.

To align timing, marketing teams should:

• Map out a campaign activity calendar that schedules launches across all chosen channels

• Sequence assets so that awareness content (like PR and billboards) supports demand-focused efforts (like email marketing and landing pages)

• Align timing with customer journey stages to move prospects smoothly from awareness to conversion

For example, say a real estate agency issues a press release to announce the release of a new report. It immediately follows the announcement with social media marketing via LinkedIn and Instagram. Finally, it pushes email marketing to leads.

The company takes all these steps within the same week to maximize impact.

How to measure integrated marketing campaign performance

Once you’ve created and launched your integrated marketing plan, the next step is proving its impact.

You need the right key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure performance accurately. These metrics should show how campaigns drive engagement and revenue across different channels.

Below is a table briefly explaining some of the most important KPIs to track.

Tracking these KPIs allows marketing teams to move beyond vanity metrics and make data-driven adjustments that improve performance and return on investment (ROI).

Multi-touch attribution models

While the KPIs above are essential for tracking performance, they often treat each channel in isolation, which creates a partial view of campaign impact.

In integrated marketing, no single channel carries the entire weight of conversion. That’s why multi-touch attribution is important.

Multi-touch attribution models assign value to every touchpoint a customer engages with along the journey, whether that’s a social media ad, an email campaign or a landing page.

Example: an accountancy firm might see strong email click-through rates and assume email marketing drove most conversions.

With multi-touch attribution, the data could reveal that initial awareness came from a LinkedIn ad and the final push came from a webinar follow-up.

Using a multi-touch attribution model, marketing managers can see how different platforms contribute to conversion rates and allocate budgets more effectively.

This data-driven approach ensures integrated marketing campaigns are optimized across the entire customer journey rather than overvaluing one channel.

Successful integrated marketing examples

Integrated marketing is most effective when campaigns combine multiple channels in a cohesive, impactful way.

The following real-world B2B integrated marketing examples show how two small businesses managed this successfully.

UserEvidence

In 2023, customer feedback platform UserEvidence launched The Evidence Gap report, a research-driven piece designed to spark conversation about how B2B companies use proof in their marketing.

The campaign combined influencer marketing, employee advocacy on LinkedIn and coordinated social media activations, ensuring the report’s insights reached the right target audience.

The campaign fueled UserEvidence’s social media marketing for months, extending its life beyond the initial launch

This integrated marketing approach worked because every touchpoint reinforced the same brand message – that proof is critical to closing the gap in B2B marketing.

Clay

Prospecting tool Clay’s integrated marketing engine uses partners, creators and customers to drive reach across social media.

The product is flexible and horizontal, so agencies and experts can build novel workflows like waterfall enrichment, then publish tutorials and demos that Clay amplifies across LinkedIn.

For Clay, partners are an extension of the brand. Advocates congregate in a large Slack community of about 27,400. Clay seeds playbooks, collects feedback and turns the best examples into content marketing that powers a steady drumbeat on search engine-friendly pages and social media platforms.

Power your integrated marketing strategy with Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM software for marketing and sales teams that gives your team a single place to plan campaigns, track sales and unify messaging across touchpoints.

Here are some ways Pipedrive can help.

Visual pipelines for connected campaigns

One of the biggest blockers for integrated marketing is the lack of visibility between marketing campaigns and sales activity.

If each team works in separate systems, you lose track of how leads flow from the first campaign touchpoint into the pipeline.

Pipedrive’s pipeline management software gives both teams a single view of the customer journey.

You can set up multiple pipelines for different campaigns, products or markets, then track how prospects move from initial awareness to closed deals.

For example, a SaaS company might use one pipeline for inbound leads from email campaigns and another for outbound efforts, keeping progress and performance clear in both streams.

With everything visible in one place, marketing can see which campaigns are creating momentum and sales can see exactly where each lead came from.

Automation for consistent follow-ups

Even strong campaigns can lose their impact if follow-ups are delayed. When leads wait too long for a response, they forget your message and move on to other options.

Pipedrive helps by automating follow-ups so every prospect hears from you at the right moment.

Set emails or tasks to trigger when someone takes an action or reaches a new stage in the pipeline.

Triggers ensure a consistent experience and allow your team to spend less time on repetitive work.

Integrations for a seamless workflow

Integrated marketing only works when your tools connect smoothly. If your CRM and campaign platforms don’t sync, data gets messy and customers end up with a fragmented experience.

Pipedrive’s Marketplace offers over 500 integrations with sales and marketing tools that tie your workflow together. For example:

• Trello. Track campaign creation tasks as Trello cards so marketing teams can manage progress in one place.

• lemlist. Send personalized email sequences from lemlist while keeping engagement data in Pipedrive.

• Jotform. Capture leads through forms and send them straight into your CRM without manual entry.

• Zapier. Automate repetitive marketing workflows, like adding new leads from form submissions into Pipedrive or triggering nurture emails.

Integrations let you streamline your tech stack by combining multiple tools into one access point.

Case study: how Trainify unifies CRM and email marketing

Trainify combined Pipedrive’s CRM with the Campaigns add-on to manage email marketing and sales in one place, reducing tool sprawl and saving two hours per week.

The team created 28 targeted campaigns from within Pipedrive, tying messages to deals and stages so outreach stayed consistent across touchpoints.

How Trainify used Pipedrive:

• Built and sent emails with Campaigns using CRM data for segmentation and personalization

• Linked campaign activity to the pipeline to monitor movement and adjust messaging in real time

Result: One system for CRM campaign management that keeps integrated marketing communications aligned and measurable

Read the full case study.

Final thoughts

Integrated marketing is essential for teams that want to grow. Consistent messaging across channels builds trust and keeps the customer journey smooth.

The key is having a plan that connects your channels, aligns your team and shows you what’s really driving results. With the right KPIs in place, you cut wasted effort and double down on what works.

Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to see how it can simplify your integrated marketing campaigns and help you grow smarter.

For small businesses, solid conflict resolution skills can turn potential disputes into stronger team and client relationships.

Resolving conflicts effectively helps protect your revenue and builds trust, giving your business a long-term advantage.

In this article, you’ll learn the essential conflict-resolving skills SMB leaders need and conflict resolution strategies for common business scenarios. You’ll also discover actionable systems and processes to stop conflict before it happens.

Key takeaways from conflict resolution skills

• For SMBs, conflict resolution skills protect client relationships and revenue by preventing minor issues from spiraling into costly disputes.

• Active listening, emotional intelligence, clear communication and mediation skills form the foundation of effective conflict resolution.

• Processes like client check-ins and team retrospectives reduce the risk of recurring disputes.

• Pipedrive helps you monitor customer relationships and build conflict-resistant systems into your workflows – try it free for 14 days.

1. Active listening to defuse tension

Active listening means listening to understand, not just reply.

When you listen, you give your full attention to what someone says. This skill stops conflicts from escalating between team members or with customers.

Active listening slows the conversation down, ensuring all parties feel heard and understood.

Here are some active listening skills with responses you can tailor to your situation:

• Paraphrase what you heard. “So you’re saying the project timeline feels unrealistic because…”.

• Ask clarifying questions. “Help me understand what you mean by ‘unfair workload’”.

• Reflect emotions back. “You sound frustrated about the lack of communication”.

• Summarize key points before responding. “Let me make sure I’ve got this right…”.

• Be aware of your nonverbal communication. Wait three seconds before you respond and maintain eye contact when you do.

Practice this soft skill and you’ll find that you’re naturally less inclined to jump to conclusions. You’ll also save time by addressing the real issue from the start.

2. Emotional intelligence to understand what’s driving conflict

Emotional intelligence means recognizing and managing emotions (both yours and others’) during tense situations.

Strong emotional intelligence stops you from worsening team or customer conflicts through reactive, empathic responses. When you understand what’s driving emotions, you address the real problem instead of just the surface tension.

Here are key emotional intelligence skills and response techniques to consider:

• Notice your body language and facial expressions. Tight shoulders or a furrowed brow signal rising stress. Use these signs as a cue to pause before you react.

• Name emotions out loud. “I can see this situation is really frustrating for both of us”.

• Take a pause when you feel triggered. “Let me think about this for a moment” buys you time to respond thoughtfully.

• Match your tone to the situation. Use a calm, steady voice, even if others raise theirs.

• Acknowledge others’ feelings before offering solutions. “I understand you’re worried about the deadline”.

Emotional intelligence helps you focus on solving team and customer problems instead of winning arguments.

3. Negotiation and problem-solving to find win-win solutions

Negotiation and problem-solving involve finding win-win solutions for both parties, where everyone gets something they need.

Smart sales negotiation protects both current deals and future sales opportunities. When you focus on mutual benefit instead of winning, you build a level of trust that leads to better partnerships and greater customer loyalty.

Here are some examples of conflict management skills for successful negotiations between team members or customers:

• Identify shared goals first. “We both want this project to succeed and stay profitable”.

• Offer multiple choices. “We could extend the deadline, add resources or adjust the scope. What works best for you?”.

• Be firm on priorities but flexible on methods. Protect the non-negotiables, like quality assurance, while exploring creative ways to meet deadlines or sales budgets.

• Acknowledge trade-offs openly. “If we rush this, we might compromise quality, but if we delay, you’ll miss your launch window”.

• Focus on future value, not past mistakes. “How can we prevent this issue on the next project?”.

Master this balance between assertiveness and flexibility, and you’ll not only de-escalate conflict but shorten your sales cycle.

4. Clear communication to set expectations early on

Clear communication means expressing your needs and boundaries in ways customers or team members can easily understand and accept.

Effective communication prevents workplace conflict before it starts. When team members know exactly what’s expected and why, confusion and resentment don’t have room to grow.

Clear communication with customers also builds trust and prevents disputes. Stating expectations around timelines or deliverables up front reduces the chance of frustration later on.

Here’s how you can communicate to reduce and resolve conflicts:

• Use “I” statements to express concerns. “I need the reports by Tuesday to meet our client deadline”. Not “You always submit things late”.

• State boundaries with business reasons. “We can’t extend credit beyond 60 days because it affects our cash flow”. Not just “That’s our policy”.

• Be specific about expectations. “Please update the project status every Friday by 3 PM” beats “Keep me informed”.

• Choose neutral language over charged words. Say a project is “behind schedule”. Not that it’s “a disaster”.

• Acknowledge different perspectives before presenting your point of view. “I understand you’re focused on quality, and we also need to consider the deadline”.

Strong communication skills help you create a work environment where issues get resolved through understanding rather than arguments.

5. Mediation and facilitation to find common ground

Mediation and facilitation means guiding conflicting parties toward solutions with an open mind and without taking sides.

Strong mediation skills turn you into a valuable asset when workplace conflict arises between team members or with customers.

Instead of letting disputes damage relationships and productivity, you become the person who helps involved parties find common ground. Here’s how:

• Set ground rules at the start. “We’ll each speak for two minutes without interruption, then discuss solutions”.

• Ask open-ended questions that reveal shared interests. “What outcome would make this project successful for both departments?”.

• Redirect blame toward problem-solving. “Let’s focus on preventing this issue next time rather than what went wrong”.

• Summarize each person’s perspective before moving forward. “Sarah needs faster approvals, Mike needs quality control, but both ultimately want to delight the customer”.

• Stay neutral with your language. Use “the situation” instead of “your problem” or “their mistake”.

Developing dispute resolution skills is useful for anyone, and learning how to apply them in real-life work scenarios will help you feel confident when team or customer disputes arise.

How to apply conflict resolution skills to common business scenarios

Conflict situations aren’t just unpleasant. They can derail sales activity and impact your team’s well-being.

Be prepared for everyday causes of conflict with the following tips to stop them from hurting your business.

When service delivery goes wrong

Service delivery failures, like a broken feature or delayed shipment, put customer connections and sales revenue at immediate risk.

Own up to the impact on your customer’s business right away with an apology email. Here’s a good example from Zocdoc:

Next, create a plan with specific steps and deadlines so customers know exactly how you’re fixing things.

Offer a discount or account credits to say sorry. It’s a small gesture that shows you care about customer relations.

Send a follow-up email within 24 hours that spells out what happens next. Good follow-through shows accountability and often makes relationships stronger than if nothing had gone wrong.

Navigating pricing and scope disputes

Pricing and scope disputes can kill deals and damage client relationships if you handle them poorly.

When clients ask for extra work don’t just say no, as that can make them feel dismissed. Instead, explain how the new request affects timeline, quality or other priorities they care about.

Find middle-ground solutions that work for both sides. You might offer a basic version now and the full version later. Or even let them choose features to cut to make room for new ones.

Reset expectations early when budgets get tight. It helps to use language that connects costs to business goals. Instead of “This costs $5,000”, try “This feature will save your team 10 hours per week, which pays for itself in two months”.

Resolving team conflicts that impact customers

Workplace conflict between team members can cause a lack of professionalism that hurts your company’s reputation and potential deals.

Address any tension fast before customers notice. Get both sides to explain their point of view. Focus on finding common ground around shared work goals, like customer satisfaction, then figure out how to deliver it together.

Stay neutral when conflict situations come up by focusing on the work impact, not who’s right or wrong. Ask questions like “How does this affect our client deliverables?” instead of taking sides.

Managing vendor and supplier disputes

Supplier problems can hurt your customer relationships (even when the mistake isn’t yours), as you’re ultimately responsible for the outcome.

Fix today’s problem for your customer. Sometimes, that means adjusting timelines. Other times, it’s about finding alternative suppliers. Occasionally, it requires eating into extra costs to keep everyone happy.

Know when to escalate issues and when to handle conflict management yourself. Let go of minor issues with good vendors.

Repeated failures need higher-level conversations about the relationship. When the conversation happens, approach the dispute as a shared problem to solve together rather than as a blame game.

While knowing how to resolve common disputes is crucial, building systems that stop them from arising is even more powerful.

How to build a conflict-resistant business

The most effective conflict resolution strategies focus on preventing problems before they appear.

Here are three practical strategies for building prevention into your sales and customer success workflows.

1. Spot trouble early (and keep note of it)

Early warning signs help you address issues while they’re still small and fixable.

Most causes of conflict start as minor communication breakdowns or unmet expectations that grow over time.

Here are some warning signs to track for successful conflict mitigation:

A customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Pipedrive helps you track potential issues with employees you engage with and people you do business with.

Add a note to customer profiles whenever you notice changes in client communication or unusual behavior patterns. This oversight will help you keep your team aligned and proactive.

Create custom labels like “relationship risk” or “follow-up needed” to flag customer accounts that need extra attention.

To spot interpersonal conflict in your team, create safe spaces where people feel comfortable giving feedback to managers and each other.

Make it clear that employee feedback builds stronger personal relationships and prevents bigger conflicts that impact everyone’s well-being.

2. Set clear expectations from the start

Workplace and customer conflicts usually surface because people have different ideas about what was supposed to happen.

When you spell out exactly what everyone can expect, you remove the guesswork that leads to disappointment. Make sure to document:

• Project deliverables with quality standards and deadlines

• Communication preferences and response timeframes

• Change request processes and approval requirements

• Team member roles and decision-making authority

• Payment terms and late fee policies

Use Pipedrive’s Projects to create a central database for each customer where you store important documents and notes.

Log activities like phone calls and emails, or set tasks with assignees and due dates.

Documented expectations give you a shared reference point to return to whenever questions or disagreements arise.

3. Build feedback and training into your business processes

Sometimes, workplace conflicts escalate because people don’t know how to address problems. Or, they lack the communication skills to resolve disputes constructively.

Systematic feedback and employee training fix both issues. Here’s how to integrate these activities into daily operations:

• Weekly team retrospectives that identify stress points before they cause interpersonal conflict

• Quarterly satisfaction surveys about customer service

• Post-conflict reviews to update processes and prevent similar future issues

• Regular training sessions with human resources that improve self-awareness

• Team building activities to work on problem-solving skills and teamwork

Use Pipedrive’s automations to stay consistent with these conflict management strategies.

Set up automatic activities for customer check-ins or team retrospectives so everyone knows what’s coming up, keeping your team proactive and your corporate culture strong.

Conflict resolution skills FAQs

Final thoughts

Conflict resolution techniques turn potential disasters into stronger client and team relationships.

By integrating conflict-resolving skills into daily workflows, you can mitigate disagreements while nurturing healthy customer connections and fostering a positive team and company culture.

Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to monitor warning signs, organize your processes and strengthen your team’s ability to stop conflict in its tracks.

Conflict is a natural part of working closely in small teams. Handle it constructively, and you turn conflict into a catalyst for better business outcomes.

Effective conflict management defuses tension and turns challenges into opportunities to improve teamwork, increase employee engagement and build a more innovative, collaborative workplace.

In this article, you’ll learn five conflict management strategies you can implement in the workplace, along with example scenarios. You’ll also discover how a collaborative CRM like Pipedrive helps reduce disputes and solve them faster when they arise.

What is conflict management?

Conflict management involves identifying and resolving disagreements between two or more employees.

It’s a part of personnel management that uses emotional intelligence, active listening, problem-solving and mediation to minimize negative incidents. It also promotes positive outcomes, such as stronger levels of trust and better working relationships.

There are many sources of conflict in small businesses, including:

• Unclear roles – a chief sales officer and customer success manager both believe they own the customer onboarding process, leading to tension and duplicated work

• Communication gaps – a remote development team blames a missed project deadline on the design team’s inability to answer emails promptly

• Creative differences – two marketing managers have vastly different ways of creating campaigns, leading to intra-department tension and missed deadlines

Conflict resolution strategies resolve issues before they escalate and impact morale.

Imagine a mid-sized B2B SaaS company where project handovers consistently cause issues between designers and developers, delaying product launches.

A director holds a mediation session to solve the conflict. They actively listen to each team’s grievances. Then, they make them aware of the conflict’s impact on the business and help them create a collaborative handover management process that delivers clarity and accountability.

By encouraging teams to work together to solve the issue, the director improves collaboration and productivity and ensures products launch on time.

Now you’ve got an idea of what conflict management looks like, you’ll want to know why it’s so important when managing small businesses.

Why conflict management matters in SMBs

Conflict management is critical in small teams with fewer resources, where a single personality clash can derail entire projects. While intimate settings can heighten tensions and spotlight poor working relationships, they also make it easier to address the problem.

Here are the benefits your small business can expect when you apply effective conflict management strategies.

Lower costs and higher productivity

Conflict management stops workplace disputes from becoming enormous productivity drains, saving businesses millions.

Research finds that conflict costs US companies $3,216.63 per employee per year in productivity. That’s over $1.6m annually for a company with 500 employees..

Quick resolutions let people focus on their work rather than managing tension or ignoring employees. Work gets completed rather than delayed.

Effective conflict management also frees up managers’ time dealing with disputes, which averages over four hours a week, according to the Myers-Briggs Company.

Happier employees and higher retention rates

Conflict management stops disputes from becoming a leading driver of turnover by increasing employee engagement and boosting morale.

Studies show that those who rate their work environment as “uncivil” are three times more likely to be unsatisfied with their job and twice as likely to leave within a year. Conflict also causes 53% of people to feel workplace stress and 77% to disengage.

Solving issues openly and fairly gives your employees confidence that you will address their grievances. It empowers them, allowing them to contribute ideas without fear of backlash.

A more innovative and collaborative workplace

While disputes can damage relationships if left unmanaged, constructive conflict management fosters trust, cooperation and innovation.

The Myers-Briggs Company finds that the most frequently mentioned positive benefit of workplace conflict was the opportunity to increase collaboration and cooperation.

Disagreements can even lead to innovative approaches, writes Amy Gallo, a cohost of the Women at Work podcast and the author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People):

Conflict resolution skills and open communication prevent costly disruptions, transforming tensions into growth opportunities.

Next, discover how to improve your conflict resolution decision-making by knowing which conflict management styles yield the best results.

What are the different conflict management styles?

The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model identifies five distinct conflict modes, each with different levels of assertiveness and cooperativeness.

In assertive styles, users address their own concerns. In cooperative styles, participants satisfy the concerns of others.

You can see the different types of conflict management styles explained in the following table:

Another way to compare the styles is to use the level of assertiveness and cooperativeness to place them on the following matrix:

5 examples of workplace conflicts and how to manage them

Workplace conflicts are commonplace, with CIPD research suggesting that a quarter of employees face them every year. Disputes occur for various reasons, ranging from simple misunderstandings to significant differences in style and approach.

Handling conflict quickly and effectively requires a tailored approach that considers the issue and the employees involved.

To guide you, here are five common examples of conflict management and suggestions for resolving them.

1. Cultural misunderstandings

Cultural misunderstandings happen when employees from different backgrounds misinterpret a colleague’s language, behavior or communication style.

Conflicts aren’t malicious at first, but they can generate resentment, create rifts, cause good employees to leave and even lead to legal action.

How to resolve the conflict:

The HR manager decides that a policy of mediation, open communication and listening is fundamental to solving the matter. They arrange the following:

• A private meeting where one colleague explains why they found the comment so offensive

• Establishing communication guidelines that encourage employees to discuss their perspectives on culturally sensitive topics

• Mandatory diversity training that teaches employees how to navigate cross-cultural issues in the workplace

A successful meeting involves the offending employee apologising to their colleague, eliminating the need for disciplinary action. An honest conversation and ongoing training help both workers collaborate better moving forward.

2. Work-style clashes

Work style clashes are a type of interpersonal conflict that occurs when employees have differing approaches to completing tasks. They can erupt into arguments, lower employee morale and hinder productivity.

They’re the most common cause of conflict in the workplace, according to the above-mentioned CIPD study.

What issues did the most serious incident of conflict focus on?

Almost half (46%) of survey respondents said classes resulted from personality differences. The second most common cause was incompetence, responsible for 36% of conflicts.

How to resolve the conflict:

Noticing the delays, the business owner steps in to mediate the issue and find a compromise between the two working styles that are unlikely to change significantly. Mediation steps include:

• Facilitating a conflict resolution session where both parties share their working preferences and concerns

• Building a hybrid workflow that strikes a balance between both working styles

• Changing “due dates” to “start dates” to encourage employees to work on projects sooner

The business owner acknowledges that neither employee is willing to change their working style drastically. They find a middle ground that gives both some leeway while ensuring work gets done on time.

3. Power struggles

Power struggles happen when unclear roles or overlapping responsibilities mean senior leaders compete to own the same task. This lack of structure results in duplicated or unfinished work because each team thinks the other is responsible.

Ownership-related conflicts are prevalent in small businesses with limited teams and flat hierarchies.

How to resolve the conflict:

Seeing how the power struggle is destroying the customer experience, the CEO makes intervening a priority:

• Holding individual meetings helps the CEO to understand each leader’s perspective

• Chairing a mediation session lets both parties air their grievances with the existing process and work together toward a solution

• Creating a shared vision and strategy enables leaders to see that they both care about giving the customer a great experience

• Building a collaborative workflow offers a compromise where both teams can have input over the process

Senior leaders rarely back down from a power struggle, so a win-win solution requires compromise.

By demonstrating that the heads of sales and customer success ultimately share a common goal, the CEO effectively turns the conflict into an opportunity to establish new workflows that improve customer experiences.

4. Performance-related issues

Underperforming colleagues commonly cause workplace conflict, as coworkers take on more work to complete tasks.

Whether due to laziness or unclear instructions, managers must resolve performance issues promptly before high-performing employees seek new roles.

How to resolve the conflict:

When high-performing SDRs complain to sales managers about the state of affairs, it’s up to them to have an honest conversation about the rep’s performance. The sales manager:

• Uses CRM reports to compare the under-performing rep’s activity with the rest of the team

• Sits down in private with the rep to show the disparity and uncover the reason behind it

• Realizes the rep’s underperformance wasn’t due to laziness but a lack of training

• Arranges for the rep to redo the company’s onboarding process and have one-on-one sales coaching

Performance-related issues don’t have to escalate into an argument or disciplinary action. Difficult conversations can uncover the root cause, improve productivity and boost team morale without having to let a team member go.

5. Resistance to change

Some conflict situations occur when employees are unable or unwilling to adopt new policies. They can cause resentment among team members who go out of their way to learn new practices, and lead to incomplete work due to poor communication.

How to resolve the conflict:

The development lead acknowledges their team’s concerns and speaks to the developer in private to resolve the situation. They:

• Ask why the developer doesn’t want to use Slack, validating the person’s feelings rather than dismissing them

• Communicates the reasons for the change clearly and honestly, showing them how their work life will improve by using the tool

• Provide training and support to get up to speed with Slack

• Offer to meet regularly with them to see how they’re getting on and whether they can improve workflows further

By addressing the developer’s resistance with empathy and involving them in the change, the manager reduces tension, encourages adoption and builds a more collaborative remote team.

How Pipedrive supports conflict management

Pipedrive is a sales-focused customer relationship management (CRM) tool that small business owners can also use to mitigate workplace conflict.

The platform can help SMBs overcome some root causes of power struggles, performance problems and work-style clashes through effective collaboration, communication and accountability practices.

Here’s how to manage conflict in the workplace using Pipedrive’s core features.

Centralize sales and customer data to increase visibility

A CRM system acts as a company’s single source of truth, centralizing customer data, contact information and interaction history. The software ensures everyone in your business works from the same set of accurate information, reducing silos and increasing transparency.

Features like activity tracking and communication logs minimize misunderstandings and reduce disputes about responsibilities.

For example, employees can use Pipedrive’s contacts timeline feature to see who contacted a lead and when:

If performance or work-related issues crop up, managers have the data to address and fix them quickly and effectively.

Use project management features to set deadlines and assign responsibility

Projects by Pipedrive is a project management tool that lets you map out projects, delegate tasks, set deadlines and track progress.

Here’s what a typical dashboard looks like in Projects:

Use the following features to reduce conflicts within and across departments:

• Set task ownership and deadlines – assign tasks and subtasks to specific team members with due dates, ensuring everyone knows their responsibilities and timelines

• Centralized communication – add notes, share files and mention team members directly within specific projects to centralize information and minimize communication issues

• Progress tracking – create customizable dashboards to track project statuses and bottlenecks, allowing you to resolve conflicts before they escalate

Centralizing your small business’s tasks in Projects reduces power struggles and other conflicts that stem from project ownership or communication issues.

Run reports to solve performance-related conflicts

Use Pipedrive’s Insights feature to address conflicts about performance by tracking real-time sales activity.

Insights lets you break down rep performance in the following ways:

• Activity reports – the number of sales activities reps complete

• Email reports – the performance of emails that reps send

• Lead conversion – how well reps convert leads into deals

You can monitor everything through customizable dashboards like the one below:

Regularly reviewing reports helps sales managers identify underperforming salespeople before their poor performance leads to team unrest.

Conflict management FAQs

Final thoughts

Effective conflict management turns disputes into growth opportunities. Increasing collaboration in your small business boosts employee satisfaction and cultivates a positive, results-driven workplace.

A CRM like Pipedrive enhances transparency and communication to fix your conflicts fast. It prevents clashes over responsibilities and priorities, centralizes work efforts and stops tasks falling through the gaps.

Discover how Pipedrive’s collaborative features can improve your team’s collaboration and reduce workplace conflicts with a free 14-day trial.

Increasing market share is an easier growth strategy for small business-to-business (B2B) companies than chasing new territories or innovating new products.

You can use several strategies to increase market share, like optimizing pricing and improving sales efficiency.

In this article, you’ll learn seven market penetration strategies, why increasing market share matters and how to calculate your current penetration rate.

Key takeaways for market penetration

• Market penetration measures how much of your total addressable market currently uses your existing product or service.

• Higher penetration directly correlates with profitability, economies of scale and wide competitive moats.

• Increase market penetration by refining your pricing, enhancing product-market fit or pursuing sales strategies like account-based marketing.

• Pipedrive increases market penetration by streamlining sales processes, centralizing data and increasing efficiencies – try it free for 14 days.

What is market penetration?

Market penetration measures how much your target market uses your product or service.

In other words, it’s how well your product sells.

Market penetration is calculated as a percentage of your total addressable market. Use this metric to benchmark your performance, analyze competitors and find business expansion opportunities.

Market leaders have high penetration rates – think Apple and the smartphone market.

Startups and small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) may have less penetration, but can win a larger market share through a solid market penetration strategy.

Successful market penetration leads to more brand recognition and higher sales without launching a new product or entering a new market.

It can also lead to greater market share, a term people commonly confuse with market penetration.

Market penetration vs. market share vs. market expansion

Market penetration, market share and market expansion are similar terms with slightly different meanings:

• Market penetration measures customer adoption rates within your defined target market. It tells you what percentage of your target market you’re serving.

• Market share calculates your revenue as a percentage of total industry sales, so you know how much of the total market you control.

• Market expansion is the process of entering new potential market segments, customer segments or product categories. It encompasses strategies for growing beyond your current market.

While increasing product market fit can increase market share and penetration, it’s not a market expansion strategy as it doesn’t increase your total addressable market.

Is customer penetration the same as market penetration?

Customer and market penetration are related but distinct concepts that measure different things in marketing and business analysis.

• Market penetration: The percentage of the total addressable market using your product. E.g., if there are one million potential smartphone users in a region and your company sells to 100,000, your market penetration is 10%.

• Customer penetration: The percentage of your existing customer base that uses a specific product or service, or the average number of products adopted per customer. E.g., if you have 1,000 customers with 200 using your premium service, your customer penetration for that service is 20%.

Now that you know the difference between all these terms, it’s time to learn why increasing penetration matters for SMBs.

Why high market penetration matters for small B2B brands

Deeper market penetration creates advantages rival companies find difficult to replicate.

It’s why small business leaders often prioritize penetration over market expansion or product diversification strategies.

Here are the full benefits of market penetration.

Increase sales and market share

Greater market penetration means more sales, a bigger market share and a larger company without investing heavily in product development or new market expansion.

That means higher profits. The Harvard Business Review identified market penetration as a key determinant of profitability as far back as 1975:

Source: The Harvard Business Review

More recent research by McKinsey finds that a 5% increase in revenue per year results in an additional 3% to 4% increase in total shareholder returns. That’s like increasing your market cap by 33% to 45% over a decade.

Leverage economies of scale

Higher market penetration rates allow you to spread fixed costs like salaries and equipment across more accounts. It lowers per-unit costs and improves profit margins.

SMBs with bigger customer bases often enjoy more supplier bargaining power. You could negotiate better rates with volume discounts to further increase your margins.

In a SaaS business, this could involve negotiating better rates on cloud infrastructure and operational tools like employer of record (EOR) software.

Build a competitive moat

Strong market penetration builds a competitive moat, which Warren Buffett calls the sign of a “truly great business”.

Higher penetration rates create a flywheel model. The more people who use, review and talk about your products, the stronger your word-of-mouth marketing. The result is even more customers without higher marketing costs.

You may even enjoy network effects if you’re a community-based B2B business like Slack and G2. As more customers adopt your platform, it becomes more valuable for everyone and more consumers will be interested in it.

Increase customer data

A bigger customer base generates more customer data. Small businesses can use the data to improve personalization efforts and keep pace with larger, more advanced competitors.

Consumers prefer brands that make them feel understood and unique. Research by Deloitte finds that brands that excel at personalization are 48% more likely to exceed revenue goals and 71% more likely to improve customer loyalty.

Source: Deloitte

Your data advantage will compound over time. It can lead to even greater personalization efforts, stronger customer success programs and more accurate sales forecasting.

Before you can look at increasing penetration, learn to measure your current penetration rate.

How to calculate your market penetration rate

To calculate your market penetration rate, you must know the number of customers you currently serve (your total sales) and the target market size.

You’ll find the first figure in your customer relationship management (CRM) system and the second in market research reports. Many reports are available from market research firms like Mintel, Statista and IBISWorld.

The market penetration rate calculation is simple:

Consider an e-commerce software company targeting mid-market retailers with 500–2,000 employees.

If its total addressable market contains 5,000 companies and there are 400 current customers, market penetration equals 400 ÷ 5,000 × 100 = 8%.

Once you have your market penetration rate, proceed to implement strategies to improve it.

7 B2B market penetration strategies

The Ansoff Matrix, a strategic model that helps leaders choose business growth strategies, depicts four main ways to grow a company.

Here’s what the matrix looks like:

Most businesses view market penetration as the lowest-risk option. Product development, market development and diversification often require significant upfront investments in new ventures without a guaranteed payoff.

It’s a safer bet for small businesses to do more of what works.

Here are seven proven SMB market penetration strategies you can use individually or in combination to win more of the market.

1. Manage everything in a CRM

Centralizing all your sales data into a single platform, like a CRM, makes it easier for sales reps to address your target market.

Your team can access all relevant data in one place, eliminating silos and ensuring consistent and personalized interactions across every touch point.

The result: a faster and more responsive service that prioritizes customers and closes more deals.

Pipedrive’s visual sales pipeline and in-depth customer profiles are a great way for sales teams to find customer information, track deal progression and identify bottlenecks.

Here’s what your team’s sales process could look like in Pipedrive:

Reps can add notes to customer profiles and refer to them to stand out in future conversations. For instance, if a client loves to travel, a salesperson can make a note to ask about upcoming trips.

Pipedrive’s workflow automation features let you further streamline processes. You can create triggers that send personalized follow-up emails, move deals along pipeline stages and update customer contact cards.

These combined features help sales teams manage more deals at once, improve customer relations and finalize more sales.

2. Optimize your pricing

Pricing is a powerful market penetration strategy that helps you gain market share by undercutting competitors and removing barriers to adoption.

Here are four effective sales pricing strategies to increase penetration:

Zoom’s pandemic pricing strategy shows how you can rapidly gain market penetration.

3. Find and increase product market fit

Better product-market fit increases customer satisfaction and makes it easier to grow.

Sales reps will face fewer objections and convert more deals, faster. Happy customers will tell their friends about a great product, creating organic growth through customer referrals.

Achieving all these benefits requires systematic feedback collection and rapid product development. Start by collecting feedback throughout the customer journey:

• Hold individual or group customer research sessions

• Run in-product surveys and feedback widgets to gather real-time, contextual input

• Deliver automated NPS surveys at key touchpoints

• Organize focus groups or beta testing sessions to observe user interactions

Once you’ve collected all that feedback, you’ll need a place to store it.

Pipedrive lets you create a customer feedback tracker to store, review and action customer suggestions.

From there, it’s a case of implementing feedback to improve product-market fit.

4. Implement account-based marketing to drive demand

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a sales strategy that concentrates sales resources on high-value prospects within your target market.

Instead of trying to sell to everyone, you take a personalized approach that addresses key decision-makers’ unique pain points and goals.

A high-touch service accelerates sales processes, increases deal sizes and boosts conversion rates. Increase your ABM success using the following tips:

Data platform Snowflake has achieved remarkable success with its account-based marketing efforts.

5. Use AI to increase sales efficiency

Artificial intelligence can dramatically boost your sales productivity and sales efficiency. It helps teams close more deals in their existing markets with less effort.

For example, Pipedrive is an AI-powered CRM that helps sales teams automate repetitive tasks, find high-value prospects and create engaging sales messages faster.

Pipedrive’s AI Sales Assistant monitors your pipeline and sales data. It highlights at-risk deals and suggests which prospects reps should focus on instead. Sales teams spend more time on the deals that are most likely to convert as a result.

The AI email writer helps reps create high-quality, personalized emails at scale, including choosing the type, tone and length of content

6. Run marketing campaigns

A comprehensive marketing campaign increases market penetration by rapidly raising brand awareness and attracting new customers.

Use targeted placements, engaging sales messaging and high-impact offers to stand out and capture more of the market’s attention.

For example, a software company could:

These efforts can be costly, but they can significantly accelerate market capture while increasing brand recognition and driving higher sales volumes.

7. Leverage partnerships and loyalty programs

You can reach more of your sales prospects with the help of partner companies and platforms.

For example, a project management platform might partner with productivity consultants to reach more of its addressable market.

By carefully selecting and supporting these partnerships, you can reach the same customer demographics and grow market share without investing a lot of your own team’s time or resources.

Here are three ways you can expand your distribution channels:

Pipedrive Marketplace is a great example of this strategy.

By creating an ecosystem for third-party apps, Pipedrive accesses new target audiences and markets without direct sales effort. The CRM also benefits from increased product adoption, deeper brand loyalty and better platform functionality.

Final thoughts

Market penetration strategies like price optimization and ABM can increase market share without the need to launch new products or enter new markets.

Market penetration strategies can also build brand recognition, stronger relationships and economies of scale for your SMB.

Pipedrive gives you the tools to streamline your sales process, improve your sales efficiency and convert more leads. Start a free trial today to see the AI-powered CRM in action.