What is the Insightly Partner Program?

The Insightly Partner Program is a community of businesses that offer CRM implementation and management services, marketing automation implementation and management services, and more to businesses of all sizes in all types of industries.

The types of businesses that may be Insightly Partners include:

• CRM consultants
• Digital marketing agencies
• Training and enablement consultants
• System integrators
• IT consultants
• Value added resellers

Why would a business work with an Insightly partner?

If your organization is ready to maximize the power of Insightly CRM but is lacking the people, bandwidth and skills necessary to effectively manage a CRM platform, an Insightly partner might be ideal. It is pretty common for a business to outsource this type of work so the business and its best people can continue working in their roles to build and grow. This is why Insightly created the partner program: to provide a network of trusted resources for businesses like yours. 

While the program has existed informally for years with businesses offering services, Insightly officially launched its Partner Program in the fall of 2023. Out of the gate, the number of partners has exceeded expectations and the community has grown rapidly. 

How do firms and agencies benefit from a CRM partner program?

Creating long-term, sticky relationships is the key to success for integration firms, marketing agencies, IT services providers and the like. Retainer-based relationships are ideal in that it allows businesses to plan and budget for staffing needs over time. Being an Insightly partner allows you to operate the platform that is central to your clients – their CRM. They’ll rely on your business year in and year out to sustain their operation, putting you in a position to cultivate long-term client relationships. 

Providing services to operate a marketing automation platform for your clients is similar in that it is a vital tool for the growth and long-term success of your clients. 

How do Insightly partners help their clients?

Insightly partners provide services to businesses of all sizes and in all types of industries. These services can include:

Insightly CRM support – A partner can help your organization onboard with Insightly CRM, teach your team about the tool, and walk each team member through the CRM step-by-step. A partner agency will help optimize your CRM, assess the customizations you will need to create them, and also assess and set up integrations. A CRM is a powerful tool, and it can take some time to master. Your partner is your first call when you have issues or problems with the system that require a helping hand.

Insightly Marketing support – Using a marketing automation platform multiplies your marketing efforts. With automations for lead nurtures, forms, landing pages, and more, your marketing efforts are ‘always on’ and always working to warm up leads for your sales team. An Insightly partner can help set up onboard and implement Insightly Marketing, and may offer services to provide content, creative, and operations services to maximize your investment. 

Should you work with an Insightly partner?

A frequently asked question is about whether or not a business should work directly with Insightly, or start a relationship with an Insightly partner. The question is a matter of personal choice for every business. A partner is typically an agency, services firm, consulting firm, integration firm, or IT firm. If your business is working with a firm like this, they will typically be providing you with multiple services and therefore having them run your Insightly CRM and/or Insightly Marketing Automation instance would be a natural extension of their services. It would be seen as a convenience to have these services bundled for you. 

Additionally, if your business doesn’t have any technical resources on board, it may be much more cost effective to have an Insightly partner run your CRM. The alternative is having to hire, train and maintain someone in that type of role on your own payroll. 

Another use case is to have one person on your team in a technical role, and to use the relationship you have with an Insightly partner as that person’s back-up, sounding board and helper in times of need. 

How can I find and select an Insightly partner?

Just like when you are hiring a new team member, finding the right person or group of people to be your Insightly partner is vital. The Insightly partner you pick could seem like an ideal fit on paper, but a full interview process is important. These are people you will work with on a daily basis. They will be close to all your data and your employees. You’ll work side by side on countless projects. In short, you are looking for someone or a group that is a good cultural fit with your business.

Your Insightly partner is a group that you will build with and should feel like an extension of your in-house team. In short order, they should understand your business, your operations, your leads /prospects /customers, and the challenges your business faces.  An alignment on core values is ideal, and a genuine good rapport will go a long way. 

One question we often field is about geography: Should your chosen Insightly partner be geographically nearby? This often depends on your business. If your workforce is distributed and your team is used to using remote-enablement tools for communication (e.g. Zoom, Slack, Teams) you’ll likely find that the location of your partner is irrelevant. (That said, being within a few time zones can be convenient.) If your employees are in-person each day in a single location, face-to-face culture may dominate in your organization. As such, you might want to find a partner that can be in person frequently. 

Contact Insightly to discuss the best partner for your business needs.

How do I become an Insightly Partner?

The first step to becoming an Insightly Partner is to be an Insightly customer. You and your team should be expert users of all apps in the platform for which you would like to provide services. Further you should understand the value each supported app in the platform provides to businesses and the end-users. From there, the application process starts with a visit to the Insightly Partner Program information page; for ease of use by potential partners, the application process is managed via PartnerStack. 

Where can I get more information about the Insightly Partner Program?

You can find out more details about the program on the Insightly Partner Program information page. For ease of use by potential partners, the application process is managed via PartnerStack. 

According to Statista, Salesforce spent 13.5 billion U.S. dollars on marketing and sales in the fiscal year 2023.

I won’t bore you with the specifics, but Insighty’s marketing budget does not start with a ‘B.’ Not even close. 

We’re small, and we’re scrappy, trying to get the good word out about a modern CRM that’s affordable, flexible and scalable. We also talk a lot about how switching from Salesforce to Insightly is really quite easy. 

So when an outside third party firm publishes data showing that Insightly stacks up pretty well against the pricer alternative, you take notice. 

Software Reviews – CRM category

Software Reviews is a division of Info Tech Research Group. Its mission is to “improve the B2B software experience for both buyers and providers.” 

To do so, they provide an experience-focused review platform helping businesses through the software selection process as it becomes increasingly complex. The firm gathers and disseminates data from actual software users with a mission of ensuring everyone has access to the right information to make better decisions.

Software Reviews recently published its Best CRM Software report and divides its findings among enterprise, mid-market, and small business. It includes a data quadrant for the category where it shows an axis for innovation, leadership, service and challengers. 

Software Reviews defines CRM as software that “enables an organization to manage the complete customer lifecycle and capture, integrate and analyze data across all customer touchpoints.”

In its 2024 report, Software Reviews shows data where Insightly outscores Salesforce for small businesses, and defines small businesses as having between $10 and $50 million in revenue.

The data shows that service experience, features, and capability are three areas where software users indicate that Insightly edges out Salesforce. 

Vendor Capabilities: Insightly wins over Salesforce

To measure vendor capability, Software Reviews examines 11 core vendor capabilities common across all Software Vendors. These capabilities represent table-stakes expectations for any software vendor, and are critical to driving a strong, long-term relationship between a vendor and a customer. The 11 core vendor capabilities that have been measured are quality of features, product strategy and rate of improvement, vendor support, ease of data integration, ease of administration, ease of customization, and ease of implementation.

Net Score: Insightly 83%, Salesforce: 82%

Why Insightly wins: All of these capabilities can be achieved within both Insightly and Salesforce, however, with Salesforce, complexity rears its ugly head. You’ll likely need to hire an integration firm, hire a dedicated Salesforce Administrator, or work with a pricey consultant in order to accomplish anything. Insightly is a highly customizable CRM, is easy to manage, and using AppConnect, is easy to integrate all with your existing team.  

When shopping for a CRM, be sure to speak to other clients who have successfully implemented the CRM solution you are purchasing, and ask specific questions about costs around administration, customization, and implementation. The responses will be enlightening.

Product Feature Summary: Insightly wins over Salesforce

To measure vendor capability, Software Reviews examines product features that have been chosen based on market relevancy and typical use within the category. Viewers can use this data to compare their primary use case and identify relative strengths and weaknesses across shortlisted vendors. The features that are examined by Software Advice include account and contact management, activity and workflow management, analytics and reporting, collaboration, customer service management, lead management, marketing management, mobile, quote contract and proposal, sales management, and telephony and call center management.

Net Score: Insightly 85%, Salesforce: 82%

Why Insightly wins: While all CRMs have similar features, Insightly’s ease of use helps it stand out. This means that not only do you have access to world class features, you’ll actually use them because Insightly is intuitive. Managing pipelines, tracking opportunities, creating proposals and quotes, and automating workflows are all table stakes in CRM, and Insightly puts them at your fingertips. Insightly’s mobile capabilities also shine in this report, since the Insightly mobile app (available for Android and Apple devices) is robust and convenient. 

Service Experience: Insightly wins over Salesforce

Software buyers know that good service matters. The last thing you need is to be disrespected by your software vendor or to get bogged down by their ineptitude or neglect. This section displays data related to quality and effectiveness of service, so buyers can know whether they’ll be treated well before and after they’ve made the purchase. Service is rated on the software provider being respectful, effective, caring, efficient and whether the team saves you time. 

Net Score: Insightly 90%, Salesforce: 87%

Why Insightly wins: Sometimes smaller is better. While there are likely hundreds of employees at Salesforce that provide support, they may not all be aligned. The team behind the software at Insightly is a tight-knit group of service professionals. They collaborate internally, consistently train and retrain, and drive each other to provide the best possible customer experience. Whether you choose to work on your own with periodic support, or choose a more hands-on support plan (e.g. Premier Support and Success), you’ll never feel alone when you need help with your Insightly instance. Insightly is also known for its guided onboarding program to ensure that CRM buyers are empowered from the beginning of the CRM implementation. 

Visit the Insightly website to read the full report and to see the data. 

Methodology and Data

Software Reviews is part of Info Tech Research Group. With practical advisory services and a data-driven approach, SoftwareReviews’ mission is to improve the B2B software experience for all software buyers and providers. Our pragmatic tools and detailed customer insights help software buyers maximize success with their technology decisions. We collect the most in-depth customer review data from both business and IT professionals to shorten the time to decision and action for software purchasers and improve overall buyer satisfaction. Combining deep buyer knowledge and experience, SoftwareReviews’ go-to-market practice helps technology providers better understand customer needs and accelerates planning and execution of go-to-market and product strategy. SoftwareReviews is a division of Info-Tech Research Group with over two decades of research-based IT advice and technology implementation.

Methodology for the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) head to head report

SoftwareReviews collects in-depth, first-party feedback from verified end users about their customer experience with their top enterprise software providers. Quantitative and qualitative feedback data is collected via SoftwareReviews’ proprietary online survey platform. The survey gathers over 130 data points on each product, allowing the end user to thoroughly evaluate their experiences over their full lifecycle using the software – from their selection experience through their purchase and service experience. Every review is meticulously checked through a robust quality assurance process to ensure it is submitted by a real person with valid credentials for using the software. End user experience and sentiment measures revealing product feature fit, perceived vendor capabilities, business value drivers, and the quality of the vendor relationship are accessible at both a high level roll up and a more detailed drill down. SoftwareReviews reports are available to download at SoftwareReviews.com/categories.

Considering a CRM? 

If a new CRM is in your future and Salesforce is on your list, you should also check out Insightly CRM. Start a free trial, watch a demo on demand, or get a personalized walk through of the platform from a team member. See what users and experts already know – that Insightly is a great alternative to Salesforce. 

If you’re looking for a highly customizable CRM with project management features built in, Insightly is a great fit and is a strong contender. Insightly scores high on a wide range of security measures with SOC2, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance. It is also known for a slick and quick user interface with a popular blade view which means data drill-down doesn’t load a whole new page. It’s a convenient and powerful tool to manage customer relationships.

Insightly bills itself as a modern CRM, characterized by fast implementations, affordable and predictable pricing, low administration costs, a high number of integrations, and a free mobile app that packs power. When businesses choose Insightly Marketing for their marketing automation platform, and Insightly Service for customer service ticketing, they get teams that are aligned and a single view of the customer.

Key features of Insightly CRM

• Super-fast, intuitive interface: Insightly was developed as a modern, cloud-based CRM, it is fast to load and use. Its convenient blade view lets you drill-down to view data without loading pages, making it a fast application.
• Sales pipeline and lead management: Capture leads, prioritize and distribute leads, and get a real-time view of all deals in your pipeline. Put all of your contacts into the system and experience the convenience of contact management.
• Lead tracking and opportunity management: Improve deal velocity by managing opportunities in customizable pipelines and tracking deal progress
• Business workflow and process automation: Automate tasks that take up time, reduce human error, and free up your team for more important work
• Validation rules and advanced permissions: Ensure data accuracy, integrity and compliance while giving appropriate access to team members
• Products, price books and quotes: Make it easy to close the deal when you configure price quotes from opportunities. Generate and email quotes right from Insightly.
• Project and task management: Convert opportunities to projects seamlessly and manage them with a familiar, intuitive interface.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Create a comprehensive record of each customer interaction and improve overall business processes
• Customizations: Configure the CRM to your organization’s unique needs. Save on outside integrators and consultants with simple customization and configuration options.
• Email management: Stay in the CRM and send one-off emails or templated emails to dozens of contacts. Use convenient email templates and email tracking features.
• Performance dashboards and reporting: Customize dashboards and reports to get real-time insights and make informed decisions.

Advantages of using Insightly CRM

• Free plan: To help new business owners and start-ups, Insightly offers a plan that is free forever for up to 2 users. The free plan is comprehensive. You get up to 2,500 records, 5 email templates and can send up to 10 emails per day. You can also customize the CRM with up to 2 custom fields and custom page layouts. To get started on the free plan, first you’ll start a Free Trial of Insightly. For 14 days, you’ll get to experience the platform and you’ll receive a series of emails that will walk you through the major features. When you first login, you’ll see some sample data in the platform as you look around. When you’re ready to start using the platform, delete the sample data and start entering your data. At the end of the 14 day trial, you’ll be asked to move to a paid plan. If you do not move to a paid plan, your account will be converted to the Free CRM plan.
• Project management features: Many CRMs offer project management features as an add-on or an extra application, but Insightly builds in robust project management features in its CRM offering. Best of all, the project management features use the same intuitive interface that is used in the lead and opportunity management phases, so it’s already familiar to users. The kanban style that is so easy to visualize is in play here, and project managers will delight in how easy it is to move won opportunities into projects. All of the data from the sale carries over, so PMs can see exactly what led to this customer choosing your solution. 
• Customizations: Most CRMs are customizable…that’s true. However, most also require a lot of help. You’ll need help from the platform’s customer service team. Or worse, you’ll need to hire an outside integration or service company to do the customizations for you. This can add up quickly. This is especially true for legacy CRMs (looking at you, Salesforce). 
• HIPAA compliance: If you are in the healthcare industry and need to be assured of data security under HIPAA, Insightly is a clear choice. Few CRMs are HIPAA compliant. 
• Features of a Modern CRM, including speedy implementations, affordable and predictable pricing, low overhead and administration costs, ease of integration, and a free, powerful mobile app for teams on the go.

User reviews of Insightly CRM from G2

• “Helps you to improve efficiency, and is easy to use.”
  This is a very user friendly software that makes your work easier. – Kratika C., Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “Easy to use and efficient”
  The application is a user friendly app that helps fulfill all the needs. Their customer support is amazing. Vanshika G. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “Insightly for improved efficiency in association management”
  Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
• “Amazing support, easy to use and so much still to explore” – Dawn R. Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “A modern customizable CRM with on the clock support” – Kati G., Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

When is Insightly a good choice?

• Customizations: Insightly is an excellent option for enterprises that need CRM that’s tailored to their needs. Insightly is easy to customize without the need for an outside firm or agency.
• Workflow automation: Insightly has powerful features that can shorten your sales cycle by automating sales processes and business processes via workflow automation.
• Integrations: Using the AppConnect middleware tool, it’s easy to connect Insightly to thousands of popular business applications without the need to write code.
• Project management: If your business wants to manage projects right in the CRM, Insightly’s project management features will impress you. You won’t need to buy and implement a separate app to manage projects post-sale.
• Your team likes to ‘tinker:’ Insightly is a highly flexible tool that businesses can use in a myriad of ways. The possibilities are endless and the guardrails are down – you can truly make Insightly perform in countless ways if you want.
• You’re not quite ready to buy: Insightly’s Free CRM plan is robust. It is free forever for up to 2 users and includes up to 2,500 records, 5 email templates and you can send up to 10 emails per day. You can make customizations on the free plan as well with up to 2 custom fields and custom page layouts. 
• You want one, modern, single platform for your Go-to-Market teams: In addition to a robust CRM for sales teams and sales automation, Insightly offers Insightly Marketing for marketing automation and to manage your marketing campaigns, and Insightly Service for customer support and ticketing. Your GTM teams gain visibility into each other’s work with one platform, one data set, and one login. It’s team collaboration that leads to improved customer engagement.

Insightly Pricing

Insightly’s pricing model includes a completely free CRM plan for up to two users – a practical choice for startups and small businesses. As such, Insightly is a completely free Insightly alternative for businesses seeking a comprehensive CRM without high costs. The Plus, Professional and Enterprise plans offer a variety of features and limits so you can customize your CRM to the needs of your business at different price points. You can watch a demo on demand at your convenience to see all of the Insightly platform options.

For detailed pricing information, visit Insightly’s website.

Best alternatives to Insightly CRM

Copper CRM – an Insightly alternative

Copper is a CRM with useful features for small businesses. It scores well on the essential functions of a CRM. Copper CRM is a favorite among businesses using Google Workspace since it easily integrates with Google products.

Key features of Copper CRM

• Google Workspace integration: Easily interacts with all Google apps
• Customization: Easy to add fields, drop downs, etc. to perfectly set up the CRM for your business.
• Advanced reporting: Powerful, pre-built reports for sales teams
• Integrations: Supports app connections at higher plan levels
• Automate workflows: Take tasks off your plate when you automate calls, meetings, and follow-ups.

Advantages of using Copper CRM

• Keep reps organized with inbox integration so they can record emails in the CRM without leaving their inbox. 
• Simple pipeline views using a kanban format provides visibility across your sales team.
• Copper makes it easy to automate repetitive tasks, keeping your sales team focused on selling.
• Built-in native integrations with commonly used apps like MailChimp and Slack.

Challenges of Copper CRM

• Compared to other CRMs targeting small businesses, pricing is on the high end. 
• If you have a lot of contacts, this is not the CRM for you. Contact limits are lower than most other CRMs at each price point.
• The lowest level plan does not include workflow automation, which is included in most other CRM plans at that pricing tier.
• Copper is known to have a bit of a steep learning curve. There are more intuitive CRMs on the market.

User reviews of Copper CRM from G2

• “Intuitive product, excellent service and great service” – Lydia. F Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “The ease of finding a contact’s information” – Traci N. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Maximize Efficiency : a deep dive into Copper CRM’s seamless workflow solution.” Varun D. Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

When is Copper CRM a good choice?

• When your business uses Google Workspace
• When you have a small amount of contacts in your database
• When you don’t need a free option to get started. Beyond the Free Trial, you’ll need to pay to use the system as there is no free tier. 
• You need multi-lingual support

Copper Pricing

With just 3 tiers to choose from, Copper makes pricing simple. Their Basic plan is $29 per user per month, Professional is a bug jump to $69 per user per month, and Business, the full-featured offering, is $134 per user per month. These are comparatively high for a CRM targeted at small businesses. However, you don’t need to worry about add-ons like Insightly CRM and others…everything is included in these price points. 

For detailed pricing information, visit Copper’s website.

HubSpot CRM – an Insightly alternative

HubSpot CRM is part of a larger system of products. HubSpot started as a marketing automation platform and then added a CRM later, so its main focus is on the marketing buyer. However, the CRM has matured over the years to become a viable option for small businesses and a realistic alternative to Insightly. 

Key features of HubSpot CRM

• Marketing automation: HubSpot CRM is most powerful when used with HubSpot’s marketing automation software. 
• Contact management: HubSpot’s robust contact tracking helps businesses have a single source of truth for all customers and prospects.
• Deal tracking: It’s easy to see where deals are in HubSpot CRM
• Reporting dashboards: HubSpot gives users a great way to visualize data with robust reports and real-time dashboards.
• Easy UI: HubSpot CRM has a clean and intuitive interface that is very popular with users. 

Advantages of using HubSpot CRM

• A popular system: It’s not difficult to find new team members with experience using HubSpot since it is a popular software application.
• Easy to learn: HubSpot’s intuitive interface means that the learning curve isn’t steep. Your users will be up and running on HubSpot quickly. Plus, the robust HubSpot Academy has tons of resources for new users, 
• It’s a closed system: If you stay within the HubSpot platform for CRM, Marketing and Service, you’ll find efficiencies. 

Challenges of HubSpot

• Pricing concerns: HubSpot can quickly get really expensive for many businesses. You may qualify for an introductory rate, but beware. Once that rate expires, you’ll be on the hook for a big monthly fee. While it has a free plan, it does not include many necessary features. The Professional plan is robust, but it will run you $1,600/month – a high cost for smaller operations.
• Leaving the ‘ecosystem:’ HubSpot works best when you use all of the tools they offer. For example, should you decide to use a more robust, separate social publishing tool vs. the basic one included in HubSpot, you lose all of the benefits of comprehensive reporting. 

User reviews of HubSpot CRM from G2

• “Easy to use – way better than the FrankenSalesForce” it’s easy to use, intuitive, and we finally managed to crack the code with it. Valentin R. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “Comprehensive and User-Friendly CRM for Streamlined Sales Processes” Raj K.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Great for basics” Or A.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Most preferred tools for Sales Team” Shyam S. Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)

When is HubSpot CRM a good choice?

• When you are committed to using HubSpot Marketing Hub
• If you have a users who have used it before 
• When budget is not a concern
• When you plan on using and staying in the HubSpot ecosystem for an extended period of time

HubSpot Pricing

Within the free plan, HubSpot offers CRM features that are suitable for simple startups and micro businesses. Higher-tier plans such as the Professional plan can cost as much as $1,600 per month and can quickly become even more expensive with various add-ons. Keep in mind that HubSpot’s most robust offering is its marketing automation platform, so without the use of that piece, the value diminishes. Beware of low-level introductory pricing. These contracts will be as much as 90% off year one, but are difficult to get out of once that first year passes and your costs increase dramatically. HubSpot’s pricing is confusing and highly detailed, so read carefully to make the best decision for your business. 

For detailed pricing information, visit HubSpot’s website.

Monday – an Insightly alternative

Monday started out as a project management application. It has since added a software development tracking tool and a CRM.  Monday.com’s main focus is on the project manager buyer. However, the CRM features have matured over the years to become a viable option for some small businesses. The CRM features make some consider it an alternative to HubSpot.

Key features of Monday

• Also offers a popular project management application: Monday is known as a project management company. If your business uses the Monday project management system, you may want to consider getting your CRM from them as well. These products are priced separately.
• Contact management: Manages your contacts in one place. No limits on contacts.
• Sales forecasting: Uses data to predict future sales
• Task organization: Track tasks in the platform
• Automate workflows: automate repetitive processes to save time
• Dashboards: Easy data visualization

Challenges for Monday CRM

• No free version: There is no Monday free plan at the time of this writing. It is indicated that a free plan with limited features is coming soon.
• Integrations: If integrations are vital to your business, Monday’s Basic plan won’t work. It excludes integrations so you will not be able to connect the CRM with their other tools.
• You’ll need to pay up to access basic CRM features: Since Monday is more focused on its project management business, some basic CRM functions are missing from lower tiers. You’ll find many more CRM-specific features on other apps at a lower cost. 

User reviews of Monday from G2

Note that these reviews are all of Monday.com as a Project Management Tool, since that is its primary purpose. 

• “Good and Advanced project management tool” – Jacquelynne H., Small Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Project management made easy” – Viktoriia k. Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
• “Best tool for project management tool” – Aman S., Project Development Manager, Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)

When is Monday CRM a good choice?

• When you are already using it as a Project Management Tool and don’t want to add more applications to your tech stack.
• If your CRM needs are simple then Monday’s lower plans may be a fit at a relatively low cost.

Monday Pricing

Monday.com CRM pricing is on the low end for CRMs. This is because Monday’s main business is primarily a project management tool designed for project management teams with a simple CRM as a side business. There is no free plan at the time of this writing, so you’ll need to commit to paying after the 14-day trial period. Most features that are common in lower tiers for other CRMs can only be found in the Enterprise tier for Monday.

For detailed pricing information, visit Monday.com’s website.

Nutshell CRM – an Insightly alternative

Nutshell CRM is a CRM for small businesses and small teams. For small businesses with a more simple set of needs, it can be a viable option and an alternative to Insightly. 

Key features of Nutshell CRM

• Simple interface: Uses drag-and-drop functions to simplify use
• Sales management: Streamlines sales operations 
• Hands-on service: Get a dedicated account manager with their higher plans
• Foundation level pricing: a low-cost entry point to get started

Advantages of using Nutshell CRM

• Choose from 4 pricing tiers to get exactly what you need. Then, select add-ons to customize it for your business. 
• No contact limits. Some platforms have limits on the number of contacts you can store in your database. Nutshell frees you from this constraint.
• Easy to implement. You won’t need to hire an integration firm or consultant to implement Nutshell.
• Zoom meetings transcribed. In higher level plans, you can have your Zoom meetings automatically transcribed in Nutshell.

Challenges of Nutshell

• Pricing can be tricky. The monthly licensing fee per user per month isn’t where it ends. You’ll need to choose some add-ons to get what is essentially basic functionality in other CRMs. This can add up quickly.

• No free plan. While you can start a trial of Nutshell, there is no low-level free plan. So after your trial, you’ll need to commit to a paid plan. 
• Out of the box. There is a limit to how much users can customize the front end look and feel. This could be a benefit for small companies looking for an out-of-the-box solution, but businesses looking to make changes will struggle with Nutshell.
• You may outgrow it. While Nutshell offers Enterprise pricing, nearly all of its customers are small businesses. It’s easy to outgrow over time.

User reviews of Nutshell CRM from G2

• “Nutshell keeps adding awesome capabilities…” Richard S.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Very customer oriented” – Peggy B.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Exactly what we were looking for!” Mariah B.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

When is Nutshell CRM a good choice?

• When you are a sole proprietor or micro business
• When you know you need a CRM and are ready to pay for it out of the gate.
• When you are looking to store and manage contacts but don’t necessarily need a full-blown CRM
• When you will be using a marketing tool and want it integrated with your CRM
• If you’re not looking for AI features. Foundation and Pro levels don’t offer the help of AI. You’ll need to be in the highest pricing tiers for those functions. 

Nutshell Pricing

With 4 tiers to choose from plus add-ons, Nutshell pricing can feel overwhelming. Foundation pricing starts at $14/mo with Enterprise running $67/mo. However, these prices don’t include any add-ons that some may say are essential to your CRM experience. For instance, email campaigns and the ability to send emails from your inbox are included in Insightly CRM. With Nutshell, you’ll need to pay an additional $37/mo. for each. For a small company, that’s literally tripling your monthly fee. 

For detailed pricing information, visit Nutshell’s website.

Pipedrive CRM – an Insightly alternative

Pipedrive is a CRM with useful features for small businesses. It scores well on the essential functions of a CRM. 

Key features of Pipedrive CRM

• Automation – Pipedrive enables automation to eliminate redundant tasks and make your team more efficient. 
• Customization – You can customize your pipeline and you processes to match your organization’s needs.
• Email and communication – Keep all of your sales team communication in one place with email features in Pipedrive.
• Reports – Make custom sales reports to keep your team informed.
• Integrations – Connect Pipedrive with the other tools your business uses every day.
• Lead management – Generate, qualify and prioritize leads.
• Security – Your data is protected in Pipedrive
• Manage activities – Use features like goal setting, insights, and activity tracking

Advantages of Pipedrive CRM

• Pipedrive is account-centric vs. contact-centric, so if you are working on large accounts, it could be a good fit.
• No charge for onboarding. Pipedrive sets you up for success in using their platform.
• Customizations are fairly easy to make. For instance, custom fields are a great way to classify deals and customer types.
• Integrations are easy to set up.
• Ease of use – most teams are up and running on Pipedrive in under 3 months.

Challenges of Pipedrive CRM

• Pricing – Look through the pricing carefully – some functions you may consider essential can be part of their flexible ‘add-on’ model. With 5 options, there is a lot of research to do here to make sure you select the right plan. Be sure to scroll down to their add-ons section. Here, you’ll find some features that are included in other CRMs like email templates. This is part of Pipedrives ‘campaigns add on’ but is standard in CRMs like Insightly. 
• Project Management – Many CRMs include project management features as part of the CRM licensing fee. For example, Insightly has project management features built in for no extra cost. Pipedrive calls this the “Projects” add=on and it will cost you per user per month, bringing all of Pipedrives plans to a higher price point than many other CRMs.
• User Interface – The interface can be complex until you’ve mastered it, so allow time for adoption. Also keep in mind that the essential plan does not include chat or phone support, so you’ll be on your own when you choose their most basic plan level. 
• No Free Plan – There is no free option with Pipedrive, so you’ll need to commit to the lowest pricing level to use it beyond the 2-week trial.

User reviews of Pipedrive CRM from G2

• “Really smooth and easy to use. The onboarding session was unreal.” – Nathan M. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Does just what you need” – Tom S. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “So far so good. So far the automation is fantastic – it syncs up with my email outreach strategy very well.” – Sam T. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

When is Pipedrive CRM a good choice?

• When you need a robust CRM at a reasonable price point.
• When you want to customize your CRM without the need for expensive consultants.
• When you work larger accounts.
• When you are sure you need a CRM and are ready to pay (no free plan available.)

Pipedrive Pricing

With five tiers from which to choose, Pipedrive gives you a lot of options to find the right plan for your business. Plans start at $14 per user, per month and go up to $99 per user, per month for Enterprise. This is significantly less expensive than Salesforce.

For detailed pricing information, visit the Pipedrive website.

Salesforce CRM – an Insightly alternative

Salesforce is a CRM investment suited for large scale enterprises like Fortune 500 companies. It requires expensive third party partners to implement, and will often require multiple dedicated team members to operate it day to day. Once in place however, it is a powerful CRM that integrates with a plethora of tools via its marketplace to deliver a full and robust business management system.

Key features of Salesforce CRM

• Contact management
• Dashboard views
• Task and event management
• Opportunity and pipeline management
• Account management
• Automation
• Integration with other tools
• Powerful analytics driven by AI

Advantages of Salesforce CRM

• Robust marketplace for app integrations
• Supported by an ecosystem of developers, integrators, resellers and consultants
• Considered the grandfather of CRMs – the first cloud-based CRM on the market
• Widely used by businesses of all kinds

Challenges of Salesforce CRM

• Interface is clunky and slow to load
• Implementations take 6-9 months
• An integration or consulting firm is almost always required to implement the platform
• Integrations are costly to develop and maintain since they often break
• It’s complex and therefore requires extensive employee training
• Adoption can be difficult as its complexity makes it difficult to use
• Each implementation is unique – therefore the skills in using it rarely transfer from one business to another
• Can be cost prohibitive to small businesses

User reviews of Salesforce CRM from G2

• “CRM for time saving and easy to use” – Divy M. Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• Flexibility: Salesforce Sales Cloud can be highly customized to fit the specific needs of any business. – Jolyma Jem M.Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “Easy to use and track the leads” I like the interface of the CRM tracking the accurate customer interface – Devyani G.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

When is Salesforce CRM a good choice?

• When budgets are not a consideration
• When you have a strong IT team to support it and can hire multiple CRM administrators for day-to-day operation
• For a Fortune 1000 enterprise
• When you have a 6-9 month runway of time to implement it and train your workforce

Salesforce Pricing

With four pricing tiers for Salesforce Sales Cloud (AKA CRM), you have choices. At $25 per user per month, the starter edition is aimed at small businesses and is designed to compete with other value CRMs. However, it still has a considerable amount of complexity that will be a struggle for many companies. The Professional edition ($80 per user per month) has many more features, but most companies choose Enterprise ($165 per user per month) or Unlimited ($330 per user per month). These prices are clearly out of range for a lot of companies and therefore show how Salesforce is designed for large scale enterprises.

For detailed pricing information, visit the Salesforce website.

SugarCRM – an Insightly alternative

SugarCRM (Sugar Sell) is a comprehensive CRM platform. It is very configurable so it can be adapted to a wide variety of use cases. In addition to Sugar Sell, the platform includes Sugar Serve for customer service and Sugar Market for email marketing. 

Key features of SugarCRM (Sugar Sell)

• Easy to use: Sugar has an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate.
• Lead and contact management: Sugar helps you manage leads and contacts with features such as list segmentation and lead scoring
• Reporting and analytics: Sugar has a robust analytics function to track lead and opportunity performance 
• Customization: IT teams can tailor SugarCRM to meet your team’s needs
• Security and compliance: Sugar uses encryption measures and complies with customer data protection regulations

Advantages of SugarCRM

• Sugar works best when your team uses all of the apps on the platform, including CRM, Sugar Market and Sugar Serve.
• Sugar supports a wide range of languages, which can be helpful for global businesses.
• Sugar is easy to customize without the need of a developer or IT professional. 

Challenges of SugarCRM

• You will likely need an integrator to get you up and running on SugarCRM. You’ll need to be well versed in business processes to get the system configured, and this level of sophistication is not likely to be in house.
• Project management functions in Sugar are limited. You’ll likely need a separate project management tool to manage even simple projects. 
• The lowest pricing tier doesn’t offer much functionality; be sure you find the exact needs you have in the tier you select, or you risk having to bump up to the next level.
• There are more cost-effective options on the market.
• If you have more than 5 seats, you will need to bump up into the Advanced tier which is 4x more expensive than Essentials. It feels like a penalty for growth.

User reviews of SugarCRM from G2

• “It is convenient when using as a group.” – Sean Ching S.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “An excellent, customizable experience” – Jessica F.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “Great product and service!” – Mark B.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

When is SugarCRM a good choice?

• When budgets are not a consideration
• When you have a strong IT team to support it and can a multiple CRM integrator for implementation
• When you only need 5 seats or fewer
• When you want to use a CRM, marketing platform, and customer service tool from one vendor

SugarCRM Pricing

It appears that you have 3 tiers from which to choose, but the Essentials tier (at $19 per user, per month) is only for teams of 5 or fewer. This means that teams of 6 or more will pay a minimum of $85 per user, per month. This is much higher than many other CRMs on the market. The Premier level is at $135 per user, per month, which is also unusually high for the market. 

For detailed pricing information, visit the SugarCRM website.

ZohoCRM – an Insightly alternative

Zoho is a cloud-based CRM. Rather than focus on one size of company, Zoho caters to the needs of businesses of all sizes. Zoho has the key features of most CRMs even though out-of-the-box customizations are limited. Once you learn the interface, the tool is powerful. No direct support is available, so one person in your organization will likely need to become an expert quickly or you’ll need an outside consultant. Although the integration process is complex, once integrated, it is a good tool for cross company communication.

Key features of Zoho

• Dashboard: It’s easy to monitor team performance with Zoho’s dashboards.
• Workflow automation: Improve efficiency and eliminate repetitive tasks with automation.
• Lead management: Nurture leads effectively within the platform
• Marketing automation platform available: Zoho’s marketing automation platform is available to license, keeping your marketing and sales teams in the same platform.

Advantages of Zoho

• Zoho has a free version for up to three users.
• Zoho offers ‘lite’ licenses so team members from other departments can get access to data but not be billed as full users. (Note: limited to Enterprise and Ultimate plans)
• CRM Plus is 8 Zoho apps bundled together. Should you need these apps, this could be a good value. 
• Zoho supports 28 languages.

Challenges of Zoho

• Zoho has the key features of most CRMs even though out-of-the-box customizations are limited. 
• Once you learn the interface, the tool is powerful. However, the learning curve is steep. The interface appears to be quite dated.
• No direct support is available, so one person in your organization will likely need to become an expert quickly or you’ll need an outside consultant. 
• Although the integration process is complex, once integrated, Zoho can be a good tool for inter-departmental communication.

User reviews of Zoho CRM from G2

• “Maximizing Business Efficiency with Zoho CRM” – Rushikesh P., Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
• “Zoho CRM: A Powerful and Affordable CRM for Businesses of All Sizes” – Somdeb K., Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
• “We constantly refer Zoho One to clients to use.” – Mark T. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

When is Zoho CRM a good choice?

• When you can use all eight of the apps included in Zoho Plus, you’ll get good value.
• When you can hire an integrator who can also support your team in day-to-day questions, since customer support from Zoho can be unreliable.
• When a mobile app is not a high priority; Zoho’s mobile app lags behind the desktop version significantly. 

Zoho CRM Pricing

With four tiers available, Zoho provides options for businesses of all sizes. The Standard license is the entry point at $14 per user, per month. The highest price option is Ultimate at $52 per user, per month. These price points are lower than most other CRMs.

For detailed pricing information, visit the Zoho CRM website.

Frequently asked questions about Insightly

Question: What is Insightly used for? 

Answer: Insightly is a Customer Relationship Management platform (also known as CRM). A CRM is the single source of truth for a business by managing all of the contact information for current and prospective customers. CRMs help businesses manage their leads and sales pipelines. Insightly also offers dashboards and reports for helping communicate status to all departments of a company. 

Question: Is Insightly a good CRM?

Answer: Insightly is a powerful, modern CRM that teams love to use. It helps businesses grow faster. 

Question: Is Insightly CRM expensive?

Answer: Insightly is priced well for the features it provides. It is much less expensive that Salesforce in terms of license fees and total cost of ownership. 

Question: What is a CRM used for?

Answer: A CRM is used by sales team members every day to track their work, automate tasks, send emails, and record interactions with customers and prospects. 

But what kind of impact can martech have on mid-size businesses? Also, how can marketers overcome challenges by harnessing the power of martech?

To help you answer this question, Ascend2 and Insightly fielded The Future of Martech 2024 survey in September, 2023.

This report, titled The Future of Martech 2024, represents the opinions of the 310 marketing professionals responding to the survey who represent companies with fewer than 500 employees.

One figure was quite an eye-opener. The martech stack investment is significant for all of these companies; most spend greater than 10%, and many spend over 20% of their budget on the stack investment. A few are even over 40%!

So, with all of those dollars going towards technology, it’s a good time to look at what 2024 will bring. 

Insightly hosted a webinar on this topic and CMO Chip House invited two go-to-market luminaries to join him and provide their insights. 

The first guest is Lindsay Cordell, helps businesses make go-to-market simple as an industry analyst and founding partner at GTM Partners. She has expertise in all areas of go-to-market, sales operations, CRM, product development, and digital advertising. 

Chip’s second guest is Jay Baer, a business growth and customer experience strategist and researcher, and author. He is a 7th-generation entrepreneur, author of 7 best-selling business books, and founder of 5 multi-million dollar companies. He’s also the 2nd more popular tequila influencer in the world. Jay has advised hundreds of major brands world-wide on how to acquire more customers, and how to maintain the customer relationships they’ve already earned.

The webinar was a spirited conversation among these exceptional professionals. 

You can learn more about the full event, watch the video below, or skim this blog post to catch the main points of discussion.

2024 change #1: Apps will incorporate more AI for you

The first takeaway for 2023 is about, of course, AI. AI caused a panic in 2023, but we’ll see a change in 2024. Two data points about AI emerged from the research. 

The first is about the role of AI in martech and the leading responses were:

• Improved content personalization
• Content generation
• Greater automation of routine tasks

When asked which 2023 trend will have the most impact in 2024, 50% of respondents answered AI.

Jay made it clear that he believes that AI is “an ingredient, not an entree,” meaning that it needs to be in service of something to be effective. It can help you make more, and help you make things faster, but on its own, it’s not a change maker, according to Jay. He suggests you’ll see more evidence of AI within the apps you already use.

Jay also points out that some companies are banning the use of AI right now, wary of errors and omissions that are common when businesses rely on this technology without human oversight. 

Lindsay agreed that AI certainly helps marketing and sales professionals, but AI can’t “run the show.” You’ll still need humans for that, she says. Investors are taking bets on companies focusing on AI, but they’ll need the human element to truly see ROI. 

2024 change #2: Are businesses done ‘shedding’ SaaS?

2023 was coined ‘The Great App Layoff,’ by SaaSter where 10% or more of many orgs’ app stack was cut with the panic of a threat of a recession.

SaaSter reported, “Everyone around the table just cut apps from each department. Not all of them. But in many cases, the number of apps shrunk by 10% or so. For the rest, the IT or finance departments tried to manage costs down.”

The question is, is this period over and what does 2024 look like in terms of SaaS purchasing? 

Lindsay shared a report from G2 validating that buyer behavior in the SaaS space has shifted. She feels that the knee-jerk reaction to make a 20% budget cut was ‘quick and dirty’ based on renewal cycle and was not a result of intentional decision making. 

She envisions 2023 will show a new push towards efficiency, a focus on risk reduction, user experience, and ROI. Longer implementations that are risky are not selling, she says. Apps that provide instant impact are showing strength, along with apps that are ubiquitous across SMB through enterprise. 

Jay shared that, aligned with the previous point, there may be some shedding of SaaS that continues because businesses won’t need as many apps/resources. This is because AI will be built into many of them, creating efficiencies. He states that AI is forcing new calculations where businesses do more with the same investment vs. the same with less investment.

Chip highlighted a recent ROI study of Insightly CRM where it showed a faster go live time and, therefore a faster time to ROI vs. main competitors. This is an example of the efficiencies companies are looking for in order to retain their SaaS investment. 

2024 change #3: Pressure to have fewer vendors

In the coming year, CFOs will continue to assert pressure to have fewer vendors. For example, can you get your CRM and marketing automation platform from one vendor? This removes complexity from the tech stack and gives more leverage to your organization to negotiate payment terms and even discounts.

Some businesses are willing to give up functionality to have one platform across functions and save money. Others are not.

If you are willing to have one platform for multiple uses, it has to be effective, meaning that an app roll-up via acquisition (all with different data sets) is not the same as a modern platform designed to work together from the ground up with the same database.

Jay shared that he has seen the pendulum that swings back and forth over the years between finance/IT and the people who are hands on. He says that one super app isn’t always the answer. Lindsay added that this type of influence from Finance/IT often ends in solving insufficient software with humans who are way more expensive in reality. Both agree that some diversity is necessary and that the single vendor dream is why competitors exist.

2024 change #4: Winning apps will impact multiple teams

According to G2, the size of the average buying committee is growing. In 2021, it  was 6.8 people; in 2022, it was 7.1.

The panel predicts that those dreaded buying committees that popped up with a vengeance in 2023 are here to stay in 2024. As indicated by the research, rising costs and staying within budget will continue to be a top concern of mid-sized companies (59%).

Therefore, in 2024, a good way to ensure your app makes it into the budget is to show value for multiple teams. Companies are looking to de-risk buying with a larger buying committee that include both org-level sales and team-level sales. To make a purchase in 2024, multiple teams need to use the app and/or benefit from the app in a way that derives real value. Another trend here is that vendors will look at moving from per-seat to unlimited seats for apps that serve across departments.

Lindsay adds that the complexity of the buying committee means that they are looking for tools that support multiple functional disciplines, and that multiple teams must commit to buying and using it together. She sees the death of the ‘owned budget,’ meaning that single team sales are harder and companies want to see multiple teams using the app – all of it – on day one.  The days of buying an app just to use 20% of the functionality are over as well. The value must resonate.

2024 change #5: Apps that improve the customer experience will win

Jay’s book,  Hug your Haters, featured an old Gartner study that showed that 80 percent of companies say they deliver outstanding customer service, but only 8 percent of their customers agree.

Sadly, this has not improved. Jay shared more recent data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) showing that, in that last quarter, satisfaction was at a 20 year low. It’s rebounded a bit, but it leads us to wonder are expectations higher or are companies doing it wrong?

What does this mean for the tech stack? Jay points to ensuring integrations are prioritized so that teams and apps seamlessly pass information that elevates the customer experience. 

Lindsay notes that tech can’t solve the ‘people problem’ – we still need humans for that. 

Another issue companies will have difficulty recovering from is layoffs of customer success representatives. Businesses may struggle to replicate the relationships they had with their dedicated reps who may have been impacted by a layoff, and layoffs overall result in less trust in brands. 

2024 change #6: Growth of the post-sales funnel

The final 2024 prediction that Chip and his guests talk over is the importance of the growth of the post-sales funnel. Often called the ‘Refer’ part of the funnel, this is fed by creative brand advocates and brand champions. It also fuels repeat purchases from job movers who leave a role and ‘bring’ their software with them.

Chip noted that a partner program is a great example of this. In fact, Insightly just launched a partner program wherein Insightly customers who are integrators, agencies, resellers, etc., can refer the platform and provide associated services. 

Lindsay talks about partner-led growth as the go-to-market motion with the highest potential in 2024. She sees anecdotally that referral deals like these close 50% faster on average.  Therefore a partner referral results in major reduction in cost of acquisition

Jay suggests businesses create a tag or field in their CRM to measure this word of mouth process. He says it is still #1 – yes, in B2B, and he calls partner programs ‘word of mouth with paperwork.’ He adds that AI can’t disrupt actual human recommendations. Still, only 1% of companies have a word of mouth strategy. “It makes financial sense to invest here,” he says.

Resolve to love your CRM in 2024

Now that you’ve got your resolutions in place, it’s time to think about a new CRM. Insightly CRM was designed to help teams build lasting customer relationships through a simple, scalable platform. Insightly’s unified solution aligns cross-functional teams like sales, marketing, and customer service on a single, shared data platform with a single customer view. The result? Unprecedented transparency, better decision-making, and a seamless end-to-end customer experience.

Get started with a free trial of Insightly CRM today, watch a demo on demand, or request a personalized demo to see how it can help your company achieve its business goals. 

I love underdog stories, and one of my favorites is now on FX and Hulu. The series, Welcome to Wrexham, is a documentary of sorts set around the small town in the north of Wales, Wrexham and their local soccer (English Football) club. The town has a history of economic set-backs, a coal mining disaster, but also many glory years of football. The storied past successes on the football pitch helped buoy spirits in this town, which like much of the UK, reveres football as even more than just a beloved sport, often having an outsized impact on the psyche of a community. In Wrexham, unfortunately, that psyche was significantly damaged 15 years back when the town’s football team fell out of the professional league, and hasn’t been able to put together a team good enough to make it back ever since. 

That is until Hollywood stars Ryan Renolds and Rob McElhenny bought the soccer team in 2020. They had a lofty goal to buy the team in Wrexham to see if they could improve the team enough to win back a spot in the English football league. In season 1 of the series, we saw them take second place, failing their goal despite significant new investment in the team. However, in season 2 they achieved their goal of being promoted back in the professional league – much to the joy of the entire community, and even much of Wales. It was an emotional and very satisfying triumph to watch, though it took lots of the stars’ money, a new coach, a pro manager, many new players, hard decisions, and a lot of creativity…but they did it.

Now, however, they have 72 stronger foes to face as part of the five divisions of the English Football league. They will now have to get even more creative to stand out in this more competitive crowd of talented teams.

The challenge

And so it is for us at Insightly in the CRM space, as it also is for many companies in competitive industries. 

Here’s why: It’s hard to find a more crowded field than CRM. According to IBISWorld, there are 1,787 CRM providers globally as of 2023. So, come on this journey with me as we talk about 5 key strategies that I’ve used to try to stand out in a competitive market.

Here’s the G2 data, of just the pure-play CRM platform providers…and you can see there are still a lot of brands vying for attention. It’s a pretty crowded screen, and you can just make out Insightly there. Well, at least we’re in the upper quadrant as a leader!

The world of SaaS has gotten a lot more crowded and complex in the last 23 years, and Scott Brinker from Chiefmartec.com has been tracking the expansion of SaaS for over a decade. He shows that in 2011 there were only 150 vendors in Martech, which as of 2020 had grown to over 8,000. 

So how do you stand out in a crowded space? 

Our challenge in CRM is to find the white space, or underserved portion of the market where we can carve out a unique spot, leveraging a combination of messaging and platform capabilities to grow. 

That white space may not be where you think it is. 

We all recall how Netflix aimed  to unseat top, $9 billion rival Blockbuster back in the early 2000s. Netflix’s early success in adding subscribers hinged on luring away Blockbuster customers who were tired of being charged a dollar a day for late returns. Yet, despite a tough initial battle, Blockbuster decided they couldn’t part ways with the $800 million they made each year from late fees. Netflix, now one of the biggest content creators in the world, had done it…the white space wasn’t about video at all, it was about late fees!

5 strategies to stand out

So, the problem isn’t just mine, it is likely many of you reading this are struggling with the same competitive challenge, and are trying to figure out how to topple one or several competitors that may have a bigger market share, a better known brand, or significantly more money and resources than you have. 

Not to fear, I’ve summarized my top 5 (scrappy) ways to stand out among the competition without breaking the bank:

1. Your customer experience is your unique value proposition
2. Try humor in your advertising 
3. Create ‘Remarkable’ content that stands out from competitors 
4. Borrow some clout by working with influencers in your field 
5. Keep a ‘sandbox’ budget, so you can test new marketing initiatives each quarter

While there are several other potential strategies we take beyond these, I think these are the top ones to consider putting into action first.

1. Customer Experience (CX) as your unique value proposition

Here’s one thing many smaller industry underdogs forget: If you’re small, you can leverage that size as a differentiator. One of your unique value propositions should be that you can provide a better, and more personalized customer experience than your larger competitors can. Your smaller size should translate into the ability to better know and understand your customers, allowing you to provide a significantly better, higher-touch, customer experience than your competitors.

Many organizations struggle with providing a strong customer experience. We conducted a study in 2022 where we surveyed >500 sales, marketing, ops and CS leaders and we asked them about the quality of their customer experience, and we also asked them about their company’s growth. 

The results were fascinating. 59% report to provide good or exceptional customer service. However, 6% say they need improvement and 35% say they just “meet expectations” – so not really a differentiated experience provided.

But here’s what’s really interesting from this research: Those with the best customer experiences were 2.5X more likely to report significant growth than all others. So, in other words, the data heavily backs the approach to differentiate on CX, as it is aligned with growth and better outcomes, such as higher recurring revenue, upsells, and repeat purchases.

2. Try humor in your advertising 

This is hiding in plain sight, yet rarely gets discovered by most brands, especially those in B2B. The research heavily supports that being approachable, and funny. This is a great potential differentiator to attract people to your brand and away from competitors.

As Marketing Dive reported, “Ninety-one percent of people globally prefer brands to be funny, yet 95% of business leaders fear using humor in consumer interactions, according to a June ‘22 report from Oracle and author-podcaster Gretchin Rubin. The report found that 45% of people globally had not felt true happiness for more than two years.”

The “Happiness Report” found that 90% of people are more likely to remember ads that are funny and 72% of people would choose a humorous brand over the competition. Again, as a smaller org, you can be more nimble and take more risks that larger orgs won’t. Digital is all 1’s and 0’s anyway so you can pivot at any time back to boring & predictable B2B marketing. 

Using humor also likely improves response rates in B2B too. From the study, 69% percent of respondents said they would open an email from a brand if the subject line was funnier, yet only 24% of business leaders report using humor in email marketing campaigns.

Here’s why humor works: People are people. So, of course this works in B2B, not just when marketing to consumers.

It worked for Insightly. We engaged an agency for a series of campy-funny video ads, and they worked well with our target audience, achieving over 1.2% click through on YouTube pre-roll ads, and also on LinkedIn. We utilized a weather theme pointing at the forecast being rainy for your legacy (big blue cloud) CRM, vs. sunny for Insightly. Speaking of the big blue cloud, I wonder who that could be? 

3. Create ‘Remarkable’ content

In Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow he compares good marketing to seeing a purple cow in a sea of brown cows. Nobody stops to gaze at a brown cow, but if you saw a purple one you’d stop the car, get out and photograph it, then tell all of your friends. I think the corollary to this is what I heard Rand Fishkin say, “If you want to create really great content you’re going to have to be comfortable with pissing some people off…but appealing to others…those are your customers.”

So how do you put the recommendations of Purple Cow into action?

It starts by thinking about what is differentiated. In doing so, you might have brainstorms that you discard as silly or too aggressive. What we have found is that It’s okay to be edgy. Yes, also in B2B. 

Going against a competitor? Find and exploit a competitiveness weakness. In our case, legacy CRMs, such as Salesforce, often have a much higher total cost of ownership than modern competitors like Insightly. Also, the customer data from G2 shows that legacy CRMs are notoriously slow to implement and incorporate into a business.

So, we used a “Snails-force” ad to highlight the slowness, featuring a snail whose ‘favorite speed is slow.’ Also, we did an ad showing how the heavy blue cloud is weighing down a business due to the high cost. Similarly, we did a successful video ad with the key call-to-action being…”lose the blue cloud and save some green” – with money growing on trees.

All were targeted to current salesforce users and achieved >1.0% click-through rates, more than twice the 0.4% average on LinkedIn.

4. Borrow some clout

I personally have a little over 4,000 followers on LinkedIn. So, I’m doing okay, but I’m not a social media powerhouse. But some other folks are. Insightly has a podcast/YouTube show called Closing Time. It’s unique in that the episodes are about 15-20 minutes meant for bite-sized consumption. Through the show, we’ve been able to associate our brand with heavy hitters who have 100K+ followers. 

Overall our content initiative with category “influencers” is to deliver content that appeals, and influences our ICP audience based on their current pain points and challenges. The goal is to “create demand” and awareness (some would call this ‘branding’) even though many of these companies aren’t currently in the market for CRM. 

The research now supports the value of branding in B2B. Harvard Business Review’s study  “What B2Bs Need to Know About Their Buyers” shows that “80% of B2B buyers have a set of vendors
in mind before they do ANY research.”  80% of the time, the buy will already have a “day-one” consideration set before they begin ANY research. This will be based on brands they are already familiar with.

Most of these will be 2-3 of the brands within the top-5 market share leaders plus possibly 1-2 smaller “challenger brands” that are already known to the buying group.

That means that only 20% of brands that are discovered after the buyer begins to research the category will eventually be added to the consideration set!

So 90% of buyers who purchase (i.e. do not fall into a “no decision”) will choose one of the brands they already knew about BEFORE beginning their research of the category!

• ~40% Result in No Decision
• ~55% Chosen from the Day-One Consideration Set (90% of the 60% who buy)
• ~5% Chosen from brands discovered AFTER the buyer begins to research the category

This shows the value of branding as a way to be in the consideration set from the beginning.

5. Keep a Sandbox Budget

The two most important words in marketing are “What if…” Marketers are creative, so give your team space to think of the next big idea. And put some budget behind it. Here at Insightly, our marketing team holds a creative ideation meeting twice a month where we dedicate time to collaborating and coming up with new ideas. 

Here’s why this works: As a marketer, you want to always be trying 1-2 new things. What’s working now may not work in 1 or 2 quarters so you have to have innovative ideas that you are incubating. 

Here are just a few options:

1. Try a new demand gen channel or more aggressive web site A/B testing.
2. Develop some new creative or video test 
3. Enhance your go-to-market with some new tools for targeting, personalization, etc.
4. Maybe direct mail will help you reach your audience in a new, differentiated way?
5. In-person events are back. What about in-market events, and dinners with customers and potential customers?

The point is to always be testing.

As the underdog, you have lots of things your larger competitors don’t have. You have the chance to provide better service, provide new benefits they won’t, create funny and differentiated content, and aggressively test. Don’t get discouraged!

With over 1.5 million users worldwide, Insightly delivers a platform that empowers companies to build lasting relationships with their customers and take their businesses to the next level with a powerful CRM, marketing automation, a customer service app, and an integration tool.

Our internal teams utilize Insightly CRM, Insightly Marketing, Insightly Service, and AppConnect every single day. That commitment to using our own product is a testament to our belief in the value, power, and overall capabilities of Insightly.

By using our own tools, we are able to gain firsthand insights into the user experience, identify pain points, and uncover potential areas for improvement. Our teams actively test and validate new features, functionalities, and integrations, ensuring they align with customer needs as well as our own internal needs as a fast-growing SaaS business.

To put it simply, we practice what we preach, and yes, we drink our own champagne.

Running our sales operation with Insightly CRM

Insightly CRM is at the heart of everything we do. It plays a pivotal role in streamlining operations, not just for the sales team but across the company. Our flagship product helps our team make data-driven decisions and provide exceptional customer service at every stage of their journey.

Some of the team’s most-used features include:

• Lead Management: Our Sales Ops team collects leads in multiple ways, including website forms, email inquiries, and paid and organic social media interactions. We then track and categorize leads, ensuring each lead is assigned to the right person and nurtured throughout the sales process.
• Opportunity Management: When a lead signals intent for a conversion, it is converted into an opportunity. From there, our Sales team is assigned tasks and sent reminders to follow up with open opportunities, ensuring no potential deal slips through the cracks.
• Dashboards/Reporting: The Insightly team relies on custom dashboards and reporting features to monitor and measure performance across many business areas. Our Marketing and Sales teams use these features daily for a real-time look at their combined efforts.
• Mobile Access: Our team can always stay connected with mobile access to Insightly CRM. This feature has been extremely helpful since our team is fully remote and always on the go.

Our use case provides real-life examples of how other teams can harness a modern CRM‘s power for business success. Our team has helped businesses across different industries successfully implement their CRM system to meet their unique needs based on how we use the very same system.

Driving leads with Insightly Marketing

Every marketer dreams of having a set of marketing automation tools that can drive leads, convert them into sales, and optimize spend. When that platform shares data with the CRM, marketing and sales teams see vast improvements in communication. Insightly Marketing is the perfect pairing with Insightly CRM, creating next-level alignment between our Marketing and Sales teams and giving us the tools to achieve our goals. 

With Insightly Marketing, our team can create impactful campaigns that engage and convert prospects into customers. Some of our favorite features include:

• Email Marketing: With a library of pre-built email templates, our team designs and sends multiple weekly emails to targeted and segmented audiences. We also have the option to customize templates with an easy-to-use, intuitive drag-and-drop functionality.
• Landing Pages: We utilize high-quality, visually appealing landing pages designed to convert visitors to leads from our marketing efforts and campaigns. Our marketing team captures interest and engagement with embedded forms on those landing pages for lead and demand generation efforts.
• Journey Builder: Our Marketing Ops team creates customer journeys that allow us to automate recurring marketing workflows, like sending emails, updating a Prospect’s contact data, and more.

Delivering excellent customer experience with Insightly Service

One of Insightly’s core values is that we strive to make customers happy, so we know the importance of delivering superior customer service. The best way for us to do that was to offer a service and support application built natively within Insightly.

Insightly Service is a key part of our unified suite. This service and support ticketing product was built to bring together all customer touch points. From customer service to marketing, CRM, and project management, our team has a unified customer view to guide customer success and strengthen long-term relationships proactively. When marketers and salespeople are exposed to pending support tickets and issues, it helps them better understand the customer experience and use that knowledge to inform the early stages of the customer journey.

Our team uses Insightly Service to manage customer issues effectively and efficiently with help from:

• Automated Macros: Personal and shared macros make it easy for our team to close tickets faster than ever. The Support & Success teams use macros for common issues and questions, allowing them to resolve issues quickly.
• SLA Countdowns: Our team utilizes highly-visible SLA countdown and automated, custom reminders within the platform to help manage customer issues. This feature allows our team to meet and exceed performance standards set by leadership.
• Customizable Dashboard Cards: Like many of the teams at Insightly, customized data dashboards are integral to team success. These cards allow the Support & Success Teams to analyze tickets by channel and team member and track real-time performance against KPIs. 

Integrating our business with Insightly AppConnect

Rounding out Insightly’s product offerings is AppConnect. We use AppConnect to create workflows across Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, and Support & Success to maximize the power of our Insightly CRM data.

Insightly AppConnect delivers hundreds of pre-built connectors to apps we and other businesses use most frequently. The best parts? Drag-and-drop simplicity, automated error handling, built-in versioning, and instant deployment allow our team to quickly build and run sophisticated integrations.

Automated data transfer eliminates the need to manually enter data or write complex code.

Our most-loved integrations include:

• Slack: The Insightly and Slack integration is used internally to celebrate wins with automatic alerts about closed/won deals. The automations send a notification to our team channel and allow for faster communication and collaboration.
• Drift: We use the Drift integration to convert conversations into Insightly tasks. When contacts have chats with one of our team members in Drift, tasks are automatically added to their matching Insightly record.
• Jira: With our Jira integration, our Engineering team can update and assign Jira issues directly from Insightly. This helps to minimize the time spent switching between platforms.

Putting it all together with Insightly All-in-One

While Insightly CRM, Marketing, and Service are powerful tools individually, together, they are even more powerful.

The true power of Insightly lies in our All-In-One solution, our newest product offering. We recently bundled the products together because of the immense benefits we found when using the full platform. With seamless data flow between different departments, Insightly teams can collaborate effectively and make informed decisions. 

Insightly All-in-One provides all of Insightly’s products, CRM, Marketing, Service, and AppConnect, packaged together at a discounted price. 

Practical examples from our team

What does this all look like in practice? Here are a few examples:

• A marketer is seeking a happy customer for a testimonial. With a shared platform, marketers can see which customers have started using newly released features of the platform and therefore would be primed for an interview.
• A salesperson wants to upsell a new feature to an existing customer, but notices in the shared platform that the customer has several open support tickets. Perhaps it’s best to wait for resolution on those issues before reaching out to a potentially frustrated customer. 
• A customer support team member sees that a customer is not using a feature or add-on that they paid for. They can see in the marketing platform that it was purchased as part of a bundle offering so the customer may not be aware of the potential of that add-on. 

If you’re ready to sell smarter, grow faster, and build lasting customer relationships, it’s a great time to check out Insightly. Get started with a free trial of Insightly CRM today, watch a demo-on-demand of all of the Insightly apps at your convenience, or request a personalized demo to see how your team can benefit from using all or part of the Insightly platform.

Today, the full platform from Insightly includes:

• Insightly CRM – a powerful, robust application to centralize customer data, communicate cross-functionally, and close more deals.
• Insightly Marketing – a feature-rich marketing automation platform to help teams create engaging customer journeys and grow pipeline.
• Insightly Service – a customer service ticketing platform designed to elevate the support experience and exceed customer expectations.
• AppConnect – a low-code/no-code integration application connecting Insightly to hundreds of applications used by businesses today.

While Insightly CRM, Marketing, and Service are powerful tools individually, customers can capture exceptional value when they use the entire platform to share information and create consistency in the experiences they deliver to their customers.

And there’s a good reason why a unified platform approach is so important. In a recent study of more than 500 go-to-marketing professionals, over one-third (36%) of companies with completely aligned technology and customer data across their marketing, sales, and customer success teams saw a significant increase in revenue last year, compared to just 14% of those with less alignment. The message is clear: alignment drives growth.

How do teams align around a single view of the customer? 

In practical terms, using a modern, unified data platform empowers teams to develop a shared understanding of the customer so that relationships can be nurtured and teams have higher standards of communication related to customer status and expectations. 

For example, a customer might be going through a renewal process, and as growth teams and CSMs develop strategic recommendations related to what the customer may need to build their business, they will want to gain a full picture of what interactions the customer has recently had with their organization. Has the customer recently viewed a webinar on dashboards and reporting to learn more about how to track and measure their business? How many open support tickets do they have, and what severity are those tickets? When was their last Quarterly Business Review (QBR)? What were they pitched in last year’s renewal? What marketing campaigns did they view and/or respond to? 

All of these individual data points add up to a much richer view of the interactions that cross-functional teams have had with that customer, and as account teams create a plan to help the customer grow, all of this information delivers a holistic view of how best to serve that customer and their needs. 

In non-aligned organizations, these data points would be across many platforms with different logins. With a unified platform, all teams would have access to this data.

Creating an even stronger, integrated customer view

With the addition of AppConnect, Insightly can integrate data with the hundreds of applications that companies use every single day. Because AppConnect is a low-code/no-code integration engine, it puts the power of integrating applications right into the hands of practitioners across the organization who understand exactly what they want to do to deliver even better experiences by capturing the right data and getting it into the CRM. Companies no longer have to get integrations prioritized into engineering queues and wait for lengthy approval processes; they are able to ideate and act on what’s best for customer much faster than even before. Connect Insightly with financial applications (QuickBooks, NetSuite), communication tools (Slack, Microsoft Teams), IT applications (JIRA), sales tools (SalesLoft, 6sense), and HR applications (Bamboo). By removing the complexity around creating and maintaining integrations, AppConnect empowers organizations to break down silos and harness shared information to improve customer experiences and drive revenue. 

Why Insightly All-in-One?

Up until now, customers could purchase one or more products from Insightly at the listed price. Insightly All-in-One is a new option that provides all of Insightly’s products, CRM, Marketing, Service, and AppConnect, packaged together at a discounted price. 

Customers can still choose the level that they want – Plus, Professional or Enterprise. Each option includes thresholds for the products as detailed below. 

Plus includes:

• Two Insightly CRM users 
• Insightly Marketing with 2k contacts
• Email volumes of 5X total contacts
• Two Insightly Service users
• 25K AppConnect tasks a month

Professional includes:

• Five Insightly CRM users 
• Insightly Marketing with 10k contacts
• Email volumes of 10X total contacts
• Five Insightly Service users
• 25K AppConnect tasks a month

Enterprise includes :

• Ten Insightly CRM users 
• Insightly Marketing with 20k contacts
• Email volumes of 15X total contacts
• Ten Insightly Service users
• 100K AppConnect tasks a month

Use of the Insightly mobile apps for Insightly CRM (for Apple or Android) and Insightly Service (for Apple or Android) is included at all plan levels.

Ensuring success with Insightly All-in-One

Whether you’re coming off spreadsheets, a home-grown system, or other sales, marketing and service applications, implementing four applications may seem daunting. Regardless of your path, the Insightly team is here to help. When you choose Insightly All-in-One, the purchase of a guided onboarding plan and a premier success plan is required. This is so that Insightly can ensure that customers are set up for success and growth. It has been widely reported that nearly 70% of CRM implementations fail. To ensure yours is not one of these, Insightly gives you the help you need. 

While the purchase of individual applications from Insightly will continue to be available, viewing the platform as a suite of applications designed to work together and using it as the source of truth for all customer-facing interactions has driven growth for Insightly customers. Insightly All-in-One can do the same for your business.

How to get started with Insightly All-in-One

To view pricing, visit the CRM pricing page and select the tab for Insightly All-in-One. If you’re ready to test drive just Insightly CRM, you can start with a free trial. To see a personalized tour of all four products in action, request a live demo with an Insightly team member.

With this in mind, Insightly polled manufacturing customers to learn about their experience and changes observed as a result of implementing Insightly CRM. Questions covered common operational and business areas in manufacturing, from planning and forecasting through production, inventory management, sales, distribution, and customer service.

Below are the key takeaways from 115 manufacturers who completed our anonymous email survey. These insights can help decision-makers and CRM administrators in manufacturing companies to evaluate their own CRM needs and select the right solution.

Questions fell into the following categories:

• User adoption
• Productivity
• Customer insights
• Return on investment (ROI) and revenue growth

CRM adoption for manufacturers

User adoption, or a process of adopting and using a new CRM by its intended users, is one of the top concerns of any company that’s introducing a CRM to the team for the first time or is switching to a new one. After all, it doesn’t matter how sophisticated and powerful a CRM is if your team finds it hard to adopt and incorporate in their daily work.

Not surprisingly, when asked why they chose Insightly CRM, 57% of survey respondents cited “adoption and ease of use” as one of the most important factors in their decision-making.

But adoption is only the first step in ensuring ROI in any new technology —consistent, frequent, and as-intended usage is what determines its long-term benefits. To that end, 77% of manufacturers reported using Insightly CRM on a daily basis.

CRM productivity for manufacturers

Automating repeatable processes to minimize human error and save time across different workflows and departments is critical to increasing productivity.

In the survey, 42% of respondents reported improvement in “implementing repeatable business processes” and 39% reported overall improvement in employee productivity as a result of using Insightly CRM. 

This is a reflection of workflow automation capabilities of Insightly. It’s how manufacturers can automate complex, multi-step business processes. For example, if you have a standard practice to send email alerts or create/update records once a trigger event happens, Insightly can automate that. It can also generate tasks for others when opportunities are won, and even execute custom business logic to sync external systems from SAP, Oracle, and others.

With this in mind, it’s no wonder why users also reported slashing weekly hours spent on administrative and routine tasks. 

Customer insights from CRM

Since implementing Insightly, 44% of manufacturers surveyed reported having deeper customer insight. The soundness of your business decisions depends on the accuracy, relevance, and timeliness of your customer data analytics. With Insightly CRM, manufacturers have access to a ‘single source of truth’ of all customer data and can see a 360-degree view of each relationship. This results in deeper insights that allow your team to make improvements in customer experience and make solid business decisions.

In the survey, 69% of respondents reported having a more accurate source of information on their customers, sales, and projects as a result of implementing Insightly CRM and 47% reported improvements in both understanding and reporting sales performance. 

CRM ROI and revenue growth for manufacturers

Many organizations fear that a CRM is too expensive and won’t pay for itself over time. If you choose a legacy CRM platform like Salesforce and then need mountains of customizations that require a full-time consultant, that may be true. 

However, Insightly is built to be flexible and is easy to customize and integrate. Manufacturers are typically up and running in just a few weeks. Hear from the team at Sigma about how quickly they got started with Insightly.

Survey respondents also reported 18% annual revenue growth as a result of using Insightly CRM.

The degree to which manufacturers are able to streamline their operations and improve productivity has a direct impact on the quality of their customer and business relationships, ability to scale and, ultimately, grow business.

For more insights and data charts from this survey, download the ebook.

Try Insightly CRM today

If your manufacturing business is growing and spreadsheets are no longer cutting it, it’s a great time to check out Insightly. Insightly is free for two users, so it’s easy to give it a try. Start a free trial. Then, choose a plan as you grow. Want a guided tour? Request a personalized demo today.

What is the Closing Time podcast?

The Closing Time podcast is a weekly video series from Insightly. Insightly hosts will be joined by an industry leader on a weekly basis to discuss a variety of topics for go-to-market teams ranging from revenue targets to tech stacks to hiring tips. Topics include creating BDR/SDR teams, retaining sales team members, appointment setting tips that work, promoting sales and marketing team harmony, mastering the LinkedIn profile, and more. 

The initial line-up includes: 

• Todd Caponi, author of The Transparency Sale and The Transparent Sales Leader, founder of Sales Melon and host of The Sales History podcast
• Jay Baer, marketing and customer experience expert, serial entrepreneur, six-time author, live and virtual events speaker and host
• Sam McKenna, Founder of #samsales, LinkedIn expert, early stage advisor, sales trainer l sales messaging expert, SKO Keynote Speaker
• Amy Volas, LP Stage 2 Capital Startup Strategic Advisor. SaaS startups hiring expert, founder 
• Doug Landis, Growth Partner, Emergence Capital, growth company advisor, and former Chief Storyteller at Box 

Watch this overview of the series:

Episodes that are actionable

Go-to-market leaders are short on time, so each episode of the Closing Time podcast ranges from just 8 to 15 minutes long. With a micro-learning on a specific topic, you get laser-carved insight and actionable takeaways to enhance your professional prowess. Here are some examples:

• Sam McKenna provides insight into why prospects might ghost you and steps you can take to get that deal back on track.

• Jay Baer explains how sales people must transcend the transaction and create value in order to win deals and retain customers.

• Todd Caponi shares how to avoid a bloated revtech stack by asking the right questions before adding yet another platform.

With high quality video shot in 1080p, explanatory graphics, and a lively soundtrack, the Closing Time podcast delivers learning that is as effective as it is entertaining. Similar to enjoying a talk show, you’ll watch and learn with the best in the industry. 

How to watch the Closing Time podcast

Visit the Closing Time home page to get information about the full series. If YouTube is one of your favorite sites, subscribe to the Insightly YouTube channel and ring the bell for notifications so you don’t miss an episode. 

Closing Time is brought to you by Insightly – the modern CRM to help you sell smarter, grow faster and build lasting customer relationships. Get started with a free trial of Insightly CRM today, watch a demo-on-demand, or request a personalized demo to see how it can help you grow your business.

What is Pride Month? Why June?

According to the US Library of Congress, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall Uprising was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. In the United States the last Sunday in June was initially celebrated as “Gay Pride Day,” but the actual day was flexible. In major cities across the nation the “day” soon grew to encompass a month-long series of events.”

At Insightly, it is our goal to celebrate Pride, not only in June, but in day to day life. For Pride Month 2022, there is a specific line-up of activities and engagements to honor and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, with the intention of carrying that sentiment with us throughout the rest of the year. 

Voices of Pride at Insightly

This is what Pride looks like at Insightly:

“Pride month is a great opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the progress that’s been made by the LGBTQ+ community and our allies. I’ve been out for over 20 years. Sharing your unique worldview at work is a powerful way to live with authenticity and integrity. Insightly is incredibly supportive of everyone bringing their whole self to work and celebrates the importance of diverse perspectives.” – Melinda, Director of Product Marketing

“Insightly is the most welcoming and accepting company I’ve ever worked for. Insightly doesn’t just tell me it’s okay to be different, they empower me to be my truest self.” – Christian, Account Executive

“I’m new to Insightly, but I’ve had a blast so far. As an out queer man in 2022, it’s more important than ever to feel both accepted and celebrated at home and at work. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many people here that have shown me all that and more. So far so good!” – Harryson, Customer Marketing Manager

How Insightly is celebrating

Here are the initiatives we have planned for Pride Month and beyond. During Pride Month, we will: 

• Disseminate information to our team that will include brief history & facts, LGBTQIA+ TV shows, movies, books, playlists, etc.
• Share ways for our global workforce to show support within their local communities, charities to donate to, and some other educational tips/resources
• Host a free virtual community event called Ask Me Anything: Allyship in the Workplace, led by expert advocate Tiq Milan
• Dedicate the June issue of our company newsletter to Pride month information and resources
• Provide resources and promote use of gender-neutral language
• Provide a variety of Zoom background options celebrating Pride month
• Share the voices of our LGBTQIA+ team members and allies in social media posts
• Host a Pride trivia event

Most importantly, during this month we will listen to the LGBTQIA+ community to learn how to provide support year round. 

What is your company doing for Pride month? Tell us how we can get better!