With Insightly CRM, Brooklyn Outdoor aligns its teams and builds lasting relationships with customers Candice Simons, the founder and CEO of Brooklyn Outdoor, is reimagining out-of-home media and customer relations in the advertising industry. Founded in 2013, Brooklyn Outdoor is now a regional and national advertising force. The predominately female powerhouse team uses a grassroots method, working with the artists and creatives in the community to provide unique, attention-grabbing advertisements and experiences for local and national businesses. Before starting her business, Candice thought the gap between consumers and their experiences with brands was rather obvious. “The same new technologies that enable businesses to connect with more people online are also the ones creating a distance: businesses are not in front of their customers as much as they used to be,” she said. Candice, who encourages her employees to be “authentically themselves and not apologetic about it,” saw an opportunity to build a different kind of business—a business where employees took time to get to know individual customers, their needs, and goals. “To create hyper-personalized experiences for Brooklyn Outdoor customers, we needed to spend more time in the neighborhoods where the ads will go up and learn more about the people and culture,” she says. In order to meet the demands of her growing business and better connect independent billboard operators with Fortune 500 clients, Candice knew she needed a new way to manage customer relationships and run her business. “If we wanted Brooklyn Outdoor to scale and elevate the experiences we deliver, it wasn’t going to happen with Excel spreadsheets,” Candice said. Challenge As the business grew, Brooklyn Outdoor needed a scalable CRM solution with real-time data to align their teams and enhance information sharing. Solution Insightly’s customizable CRM with an intuitive workflow and process automation functionality allowed Brooklyn Outdoor to grow their business faster than ever. Outcome By Implementing Insightly, Brooklyn Outdoor can automate repetitive tasks, streamline business processes, and spend more time on what matters most to their business – building lasting relationships with customers. Candice Simons Founder and CEO, Brooklyn Outdoor Aligning teams around a single source of data As technology evolves, so does Brooklyn Outdoor. They are always listening and watching what their vendors and competitors are doing so that they can set themselves apart. “My team and I stay on the lookout for fresh, outside-the-box ideas and solutions for our customers,” says Candice. “But as we’ve started to grow our customer base and scale the business, we started facing an operational challenge.” Prior to Insightly, Brooklyn Outdoor used Excel spreadsheets to manage and run their customer relationships. “All of a sudden we’re at a completely different level and in a different game, in terms of how we operate. If you have one Excel spreadsheet with ten people touching it—that can be disastrous,” says Candice. Instead of waiting for a disaster, Candice organized Brooklyn Outdoor’s internal systems with Insightly CRM. With a single source of truth and real-time insights into how her business operates, Candice can make more informed decisions about her business and rest assured that her teams are aligned around the same data set. Streamlining processes with workflow automation Workflows bring order and scalability to growing businesses by breaking processes into bite-size, repeatable chunks of value. Brooklyn Outdoor’s disorganized and manual system was not only prone to human error but also impacted the team’s productivity. “Our time is better spent in the community, networking, and building key partnerships and customer relations than on monotonous, operational tasks,” says Candice. “I knew there was an opportunity for us to streamline these processes with workflow automation.” To find the best solution, Candice spent time evaluating different systems and determining the workflow at Brooklyn Outdoor. She wanted a system “you can run and not have it run you.” With Insightly’s built-in workflow automation functionality, Brooklyn Outdoor improved their data integrity, leading to better decision-making, richer insights for continuous improvement, and a more efficient sales process. “Our systems and processes have changed over the years, and we worked with other companies, and nothing worked the way we wanted it to until Insightly,” Candice says. “The system allowed us to make all these workflow automations ourselves, and when we needed help, there was always someone on the Insightly team to help us.” Building lasting customer relationships Small businesses like Brooklyn Outdoor offer a personalized touch to build solid and lasting client relationships, but oftentimes they need software systems to help facilitate personalization at scale. For Candice, building lasting customer relationships starts with paying attention to clients’ needs, what they say, and understanding their short and long-term goals. “We can create the best ad and the best campaign in the world, but if it’s not resonating with what our clients are looking to do and who they are looking to target, then what’s the point,” she says. Choosing a CRM for agencies and a creating a CRM strategy for agencies has been a game changer. Adopting Insightly has empowered Candice and her team to laser-focus on improving every interaction with clients and delivering great experiences. “It’s about strategy, and you have to be able to put in the time to get to know your clients as people,” says Candice. “Relationships with each other and within our organization are critical—I believe that is something that really sets us apart from the competition.” View All Customer Stories