I have never used a crm before. I can see the potential, but having a lot of trouble getting out of the starting blocks.
I run a vintage show, with several events every year. Vendors purchase space from me so they can set up at the event. During the event, we charge admission for people to come into the show and shop the vendors. So I send email campaigns to both vendors and shoppers.
I want to use the CRM primarily to track my vendor recruitment & sales process, but also for email campaigns. This is how my sales process goes: I have two entry points for vendors: 1. They can subscribe to the vendor call newsletter so they know when events are coming up. When they subscribe I capture their personal & business names and their email. 2. A vendor applies to an event. I capture their personal & business name, what event they want to apply for, what they sell, and their social channel. I understand these are leads, and I have a "Lead" layout for each form.
If a vendor is accepted to the event, I send them a link to the vendor registration form. I think this is point where I would convert them to a "Deal"- when they are accepted but they have not yet registered and paid & put the stage at "Qualification."
The vendor registration form captures a ton of information, photo & document uploads, and their payment. If they pay in full, I am done with their record, and I stage it as "closed". If they do not, I generate an invoice for the balance, which is due two weeks prior to the event, and I stage them as "pending" until the invoice pays.
Vendors may submit multiple applications through the course of the year for different events.
SO THESE ARE MY QUESTIONS:
1. If I convert a "Lead" to a "Deal," how do I then get the "Deal" Record to update when the vendor registers and sends all the additional information?
2. If a vendor who had a "Deal" applies to another event, they will then show up again as a new lead. Once I convert that new lead to a deal, will it update the previous Deal record, or create another one? I think it needs to overwrite, so I don't have a bunch of duplicate records, but not sure if it will, or if it should.
3. Finally, is there a way to segment "Deal" records for the purpose of email campaigns? I could do this in mailchimp; need to be able to do it in zoho.
THANK YOU for any help or advice you can offer!