How To Get Started With CRM For Startups

Last updated on August 7th, 2023

Is your company a startup or a new small business? If so, this guide will offer you ways of customizing your CRM and 7 relevant solutions to consider.

The beginning of a company can come with a litany of tasks, plans, paperwork, and requirements.

Being organized and using the right software will help set you up for success — even in the hustle and bustle of startups.

One of the key software that a startup should invest in is CRM —  the pinnacle of managing and nurturing your business and customer relationships.

Table of Contents:

• How CRM Benefits Startups
• Is A CRM Worth It For A Small Business?
• 8 Ways Startups & Small Businesses Can Customize CRM For Their Needs
• The 7 Best CRM Software For Startups
• How Startups Should Handle The CRM Implementation Process

---

Automate All Your Communications With VipeCloud

VipeCloud is the only Automation tool your small business needs to
be the hero to your customers.

With Email, Texting, Social, Suites, Chat, Stories, Video Email & Sign Up Forms fully built-in, we provide you with the perfect platform to grow your business.

15 Day Free Trial – Get started risk free. No CC needed.

Get Started Free Now

---

How CRM Benefits Startups

Customer relationship management is a system that helps businesses maintain good customer relationships that facilitate growth. 

No matter a startup’s size or phase, creating an excellent customer experience is key to future business success.

According to Epsilon research, 80% of customers are more likely to buy after a personalized experience, which is exactly what a CRM implementation will help startups do at scale.

However, the benefits of CRM for startups doesn’t end at improving the customer experience. Startups will also gain the following abilities:

• Track growth metrics (Revenue, CAC, Customer Churn Rate, LTV, etc.)
• Sales enablement resources that boost effectiveness & efficiency
• Track customer journeys
• Integrations that connect CRM to critical external software 
• Marketing tools for customer attraction and nurturing 
• Consolidation of tools helping reduce needless costs
• Organization of business workflows which helps teams optimize day-to-day operations 

Is A CRM Worth It For A Small Business?

Small businesses need to focus on the customer experience to compete with enterprise-level competitors with virtually endless budgets.

CRM software might be commonly known to be complex, expensive, and only accessible for large organizations.

However, now is the best time in history for small businesses to adopt CRM solutions due to these 3 reasons:

• Affordability
• Ease of use 
• Support 

Affordable CRM software, like VipeCloud, is made to bring a customizable solution to the SMB market so small startups can focus on scaling with efficiency and effectiveness.

8 Ways Startups & Small Businesses Can Customize CRM For Their Needs

Let’s look at how startups and small businesses can customize CRM to meet their needs.

1. Integrations

CRM integrations allow your startup and small businesses to plug and play their favorite software. 

Your business probably already has a tech stack, so investing in a CRM that has compatibility with your tech stack is crucial to not add more complexity than there already is.

Also, a CRM with more integrations can give your tech stack more capabilities. 

For instance, if Zapier is a significant player in your automation, CRM can help you sync chatbot leads into your CRM or record payment events with the associated contact. 

2. Customized Workflows & Automation Sequences 

Automation sequences use logical timeframes (set by the user) to send out campaigns. 

Customizing these workflows based on how your startup handles the customer lifecycle helps you have a repeatable system and deal-winning process. 

And it doesn’t have to be overly elaborate.

Just look at this simple 4-step automation:

Having specific workflows established can act as “plays” that run year-round.

Here are some automation sequence ideas with VipeCloud’s CRM:

• Have a signup form followed up with a 3-step email sequence 
• A/B Test 2 lists with email sequences 
• Craft a text drip campaign that brings customers to a series of products

3. Proper Fields For The Right Information 

Signup forms are a great way to capture lead data and updated customer information.

For sales and marketing to be optimal, it’s crucial for the information you collect to be up to date. 

So it only makes sense to show the proper fields and hide or disregard the ones you don’t need. 

Having too many fields can negatively affect conversion rates. Precision Marketing Group, has found that that 3-5 fields are optimal.

With your important fields, users should be required to complete the form the right way. 

For example, VipeCloud lets you set unique conditions, which ensures the proper fields accept the correct characters (phone number = number characters only, etc.)

4. Customize Sales Dashboard

Sales dashboards play a significant role in deal monitoring. 

Some startups may have preferences for how the dashboard looks depending on which seat members are using it. 

So this form of customizability helps tailor the CRM for each team member.

5. Automatically Sync Your Inbox 

As a startup is first beginning, everything that can be a deal should be factored in.

With email syncing, you can view emails through your CRM and connect your email to your email suite that’s filled with a variety of features that enhance and connect your email system to your tech stack.

6. Tailored Pricing Quotes

No matter your niche or industry, the end of a sales deal needs precise execution.

In other words, the documents and information your prospects need have to be accurate and received in a timely fashion.

Fortunately, this is where CRM’s CPQ (configure price quote) capabilities come into play.

CPQ allows you to deliver accurate price quotes to your interested buyers. VipeCloud’s CPQ tool: Estimates, lets you email your quotes and track how it has been interacted with. 

Here are some benefits of having CPQ established for your startup:

• Accurate pricing 
• Reduces sales delays for action-items
• Improves the customer experience 

7. Customize Sales Pipelines

You can customize your startup’s sales pipeline stages and names to reflect your company’s unique sales cycle. 

Sales pipelines can also be customized based on:

• The size of your deals 
• The latest task done for each deal
• Deal summary 

And pipelines don’t just end with sales — they can be made to manage internal workflow management.

8. Customized Templates 

Templates are a way to consistently repeat campaigns that are proven to succeed.

For example, you can A/B test templates to see which creates a higher ROI, so you know which to use in the future.

Templates are also a great way to create more brand consistency, which is important when you’re growing a company with a loyal customer base.

Why?

It takes multiple impressions for a person to remember your brand, so staying consistent will imprint a more memorable impression about what your brand stands for.

The 7 Best CRM Software For Startups

Let’s now shift gears into the top 7 CRMs (in order) that startups should consider investing in.

1. VipeCloud 

VipeCloud is a cloud-based CRM that was made to support versatility and the wide range of needs of its end-users. 

Thanks to VipeCloud’s versatility, it’s adopted by users in countless industries and specified niches.

Marketing Capabilities 

VipeCloud’s Marketing Suite provides the following assets to end-users:

• Signup forms
• Email marketing builders
• Text message campaign builders
• Automation 
• Segmentation capabilities 
• A social sharing automation tool

Sales Capabilities 

When we look at sales capabilities, VipeCloud’s Sales CRM has these tools which can add efficiency and effectiveness to your process:

• Sales pipelines
• Contact scoring
• Reports (sales data 
• Scheduler (Calendar)
• Estimates (CPQ system to automate your pricing estimates)
• Task Management 

Support For Startups

VipeCloud provides countless resources to learn from:

The “features” on the VipeCloud website is an excellent section for learning about the CRM and its use-cases.

Here are other ways VipeCloud can support you:

• CRM ideas based on industry (Marketing Agency, SaaS, etc.)
• VipeCloud’s CRM success blog 
• Free CRM migration
• Free demos where an expert walks you through how VipeCloud works 
• A help center with helpful “how-tos”
• A YouTube channel with helpful videos 

Pricing 

VipeCloud offers 4 pricing tiers based on your needs. 

Here’s how the pricing measures up when billed annually:

• Plus – $20 (or $25 monthly)
• Pro – $40 (or $50 per user monthly)
• Enterprise $60 (or $75 per user monthly)
• Custom – $255

Here’s what you get based on each tier:

Plus:

• Feature-rich CRM, one pipeline
• 2K contacts
• 10K monthly emails
• Email marketing
• Video email
• Texting 
• Stories
• Social sharing
• Sign up forms
• 1 user

Pro:

• Everything in Plus, along with:
• 10K contacts per user
• 30K monthly emails per user
• Sales & marketing automation
• Custom fields
• Account management
• Sales estimates & QuickBooks integration
• Inbox sync
• 1 scheduler
• 1 team
• Phone support
• Up to 10 users

Enterprise:

• Everything in Pro, along with:
• 60K contact per user
• 60K monthly emails per user
• One-email-per-minute mass email processing
• Multiple schedulers
• Website tracker
• Contact scoring
• 10K email verifications per month
• Multiple pipelines
• Multiple teams
• Unlimited users

Custom:

• Everything in Enterprise, along with:
• Custom contact count
• Custom email sending quantity
• Custom email verifications quantity
• Dedicated SMTP delivery account
• Dedicated IP addresses and rDNS support
• Custom implementation and training

If you’re interested in the custom plan, you can contact VipeCloud to get a more tailored experience.

2. HubSpot (CRM Suite)

Hubspot is known to be a versatile solution in the CRM industry. Startups can take advantage of key marketing and sales capabilities.

Keep in mind that this CRM is heavily billed based on your number of needed contacts, which can add up quite quickly.

Startups looking to remain as lean as possible should consider a CRM that allows you to maximize contacts while allowing a lower investment.

Let’s take a look at some of the features Hubspot’s CRM suite has to offer for startups:

CRM Features 

• Forms
• Email marketing 
• Landing pages
• Live chat
• Tasks
• Sales pipeline 
• Multichannel marketing 

Pricing – (Billed Monthly)

• $50 – $5,000

3. Agile CRM

Agile CRM provides a suite with a wide range of tools for marketing campaigns and sales automation workflows. 

However, customer feedback has shown that email marketing can leave some things to be desired. 

Agile CRM’s support may also lag regarding inquiries from end-users. 

Nevertheless, it doesn’t require a hefty investment and has the things startups need to grow their companies.

Here’s what Agile CRM has to offer:

CRM Features 

• Email campaigns 
• Lead scoring 
• Social monitoring 
• 50+ integrations
• Chrome extension 
• Landing page builder 

Pricing – (Billed Monthly)

• $0 – $47.99

4. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM gets its share of praise thanks to its ease of use.

But there also comes a lack of features for its lower price tiers. 

There may also be a need to rely on integrations to set your business up with the right tools, rather than them being natively available.

Here’s some of what Zoho CRM has to offer:

CRM Features 

• Multiple pipelines 
• Multichannel marketing 
• Forms
• Mobile app
• Custom journey creation 
• Inventory management 

Pricing – (Billed Annually):

• $0 – $52

5. Insightly

Insightly offers fantastic project management capabilities for startups to manage their internal workflows. There is also access to the features you’d expect in an all-in-one CRM.

But a big roadblock is that the bulk of the marketing tools are separate from their base CRM and are included in their Insightly marketing CRM. 

This means you’ll have to invest more in those tools along with up to 10,000 contacts.

(VipeCloud’s Enterprise tier gives you up to 60,000 contacts for a lot less.)

With that said, here’s what you can gain access to with Insightly: 

CRM Features 

• Lead management 
• Project management tools 
• Report configuration 
• Email marketing 
• Forms
• Lead scoring 
• Integrations 

Pricing

• $29-$99 per month 
• (Insightly Marketing) $299-$1299 per month 

6. Salesforce Essentials 

Salesforce Essentials offers smaller-scale Salesforce solutions to startups and small businesses.

It provides a well-made user interface allowing you to track deals.

There’s also a mobile app for on-the-go CRM management. 

With Salesforce Essentials, many of the tools may come with a steep learning curve, especially when it comes to automation.

Which may mean team members will need more time to get up to speed based on their previous CRM experience. 

Salesforce Essentials starts with a free trial where you get access to:

CRM Features 

• Reports and dashboard
• Multichannel marketing 
• Mobile app
• Integrations 
• Sound user interface 

Pricing

• $35 monthly per user ($25 annually for user)

7. EngageBay (All-In-One)

EngageBay is another CRM tool with a wide range of functionality. It’s an adequate solution for startups from a product level and even to a support level, where you can gain access to an account manager (for the higher tier solutions).

Keep in mind that the investment can pile up as you add more seat members:

When we directly compare VipeCloud’s Enterprise tier, you gain unlimited seats with VipeCloud, whereas EngageBay charges you per seat.

Here are some noteworthy EngageBay features.

CRM Features 

• Email marketing 
• Lead scoring 
• Autoresponders 
• Text message marketing 
• Landing pages 
• Web analytics
• Proposals 

Pricing

• $0-$79.99 per user, per month (0-$71.99 yearly)

How Startups Should Handle The CRM Implementation Process 

Here are some final tips and steps to start your startup CRM implementation

1. Pinpoint your ideal features 
2. Learn about different software through resources and tutorials 
3. Speak with CRM experts (booking demos is a great way to do so)
4. Implement your CRM in parts (helps not to overwhelm your team)
5. Have a timeline for implementation milestones 
6. Tailor and customize it to your business 
7. Officially begin using it with your startup and track how it’s helping the company thrive

VipeCloud’s Sales & Marketing Suite is the #1 CRM for startups thanks to its affordability, wide range of tools, and simple learning curve. 

Try it today on a 15-day free trial!

Lastly, we always like to show you more than tell you.

So feel free to request a demo, where we walk you through the features and answer your questions.