Whether you have an established small business, or you’re a start-up, it’s essential you have a great CRM helping you navigate your sales and marketing.
What is considered a small business?
Before we get to the good stuff, let’s talk about what kind of small businesses we will be discussing in this article. The United States defines a “small business” as having fewer than 500 employees. To me, a company with 499 employees is not a small business, it’s a GIANT business! For the purposes of the information covered here, we will be looking at the best CRM software for very small, or tiny, or micro, or mom and pop, or single entrepreneur businesses.
Because we will be focusing on very small businesses, you are not going to see some of the more well known CRM names like Salesforce, Infusionsoft and Microsoft Dynamics. These are great products too, just not typically a good fit for a mom and pop shop.
What’s included in these CRM’s?
At a minimum, your CRM will help you get and stay organized and it will give you a single place to put all of your customers. Every CRM on the list will give you a place to put notes, a todo system, and an easy way to categorize your contacts.
Some will include additional features especially when you upgrade to their higher tier levels.
At AllClients, we think we have the best solution for very small businesses, but we know we are not the only game in town. There are some other great CRMs to consider and we want our customers to be as informed as possible.
Here are the 5 best CRM’s for the business owner with a very small business:
Active Campaign
You can get started with ActiveCampaign for just $9/mo but you’ll want to get to the $49 level as soon as you can. ActiveCampaign is an intuitive CRM that will start you out with a great basic CRM, 500 contacts, email and text marketing, and some basic marketing automation. ActiveCampaign is also good at lead scoring and newsletter management.
OnePage CRM
OnePageCRM is a simple CRM that’s all about helping you take the next action. Like… make that call, set up a demo, or follow up and check in. It’s power is in its simplicity. There is not a lot of clutter or unnecessary features, the one page is simple to understand and you can get started in minutes. Their pricing is as simple as their one page CRM: $12 per user, per month.
Hubspot
While Hubspot is often used by a “large” small business, they also have a free version for those just getting started. You’ll get all the standard contact management features, reporting dashboards, basic deal tracking, email marketing and more. Then as you grow, you won’t have to worry that you will outgrow HubSpot!
Constant Contact and MailChimp
I grouped Constant Contact and MailChimp together as they are pretty much interchangeable products and serve the same market. While not really CRM’s, so to speak, they are email marketing products with some light CRM functionality. They have beautiful email templates and all the email tracking you will ever need. A good choice if you are looking to tiptoe into the world of CRMs.
Insightly CRM
While Insightly is not cheap ($49 per user, per month) it has a CRM and project management all in one system. It includes marketing automation, workflow automation and custom dashboards all in its standard offering. They even have a mobile app that scans business cards.
So now you know the top CRM companies you should consider when shopping for the right CRM for your small business.
You also might want to take a look at some of these great resources:
What should I look for in a CRM?
The benefits of sending beautiful emails
