How to Add a CRM to Your WordPress Site & Optimize it for More Leads

Adding a customer relationship management (CRM) system to your WordPress site is one of the best investments you can make for managing leads and growing your business. CRMs integrate directly with your website to capture visitor information, track interactions, and enable personalized follow-up at scale.

According to CRM statistics from Salesforce, businesses see a 29% increase in leads by adding a CRM. That‘s because CRMs give you the tools and organization to properly nurture each lead.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explore how to:

• Set up a CRM on WordPress
• Strategically capture leads across your site
• Organize and segment leads for follow-up
• Create automation workflows to convert leads
• Optimize your CRM strategy over time

Let‘s dive in and explore how to supercharge your WordPress website with an integrated CRM system.

Choosing the Best CRM for WordPress

The first step is selecting a CRM platform designed to work seamlessly with WordPress. There are both free and paid solutions available.

Some of the most popular CRM options include:

• HubSpot – Offers a robust free CRM plan with basic contact management, email marketing, chatbots, meetings, and more. HubSpot is one of the easiest CRMs to set up on WordPress.

• Salesforce – The most fully-featured CRM but requires a paid subscription. Ideal for managing complex sales processes.

• Zoho CRM – Offers a free plan for up to 2 users with contact management, workflow automation, and reporting.

• Pipedrive – Built for smaller sales teams. Very affordable paid plans starting at $12.50/user/month.

My recommendation for most small businesses is to start with HubSpot‘s free CRM plan. It has all the core features you need and the WordPress integration is seamless.

HubSpot also scales with your business over time. You can always upgrade to unlock more advanced tools down the road.

Installing the HubSpot CRM Plugin on WordPress

Once you‘ve signed up for a HubSpot account, it‘s time to install their CRM plugin on your WordPress site.

Here are the quick steps:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New

2. Search for "HubSpot CRM" and install the official plugin

3. Click Activate to enable the plugin

That‘s all it takes to install the plugin. After activation, you‘ll see a new HubSpot menu appear in your WordPress sidebar.

Connecting Your HubSpot Account to WordPress

Now we need to connect your HubSpot account to WordPress.

Go to the new HubSpot menu and click it to launch the setup wizard:

Click on Sign in here and a popup will prompt you to enter your HubSpot login credentials:

Enter your email and password, and then click Allow to connect your HubSpot account to WordPress.

And that‘s it – your CRM is now integrated directly with your website!

Capturing Leads by Adding Forms

Now that your HubSpot CRM is connected, you can start capturing leads on your WordPress site.

The #1 way to capture leads is by adding contact forms – like email opt-in forms, contact forms, surveys, and more.

HubSpot comes with its own form builder that makes it easy to create:

Some tips for creating effective lead capturing forms:

• Keep forms short and only ask for essential info like name, email, and phone number

• Offer something in exchange for completing the form like a discount code or free ebook

• Use yes/no or multiple choice questions instead of long open-ended ones

• Add the form to high-traffic pages like your homepage, pricing pages, blog posts, etc.

Any form submissions will automatically be added to your CRM as new contacts.

You can also embed HubSpot forms on your WordPress pages and posts using their WordPress block or shortcode [hubspot type=form portal=12345 form=67890]

Replacing 12345 and 67890 with your portal and form IDs.

Integrating Existing Form Plugins

Chances are you already have forms on your WordPress site from another plugin like Contact Form 7 or WPForms.

The good news is HubSpot will automatically integrate with these existing forms.

Under the Forms tab in your HubSpot dashboard, turn on the toggle for "Forms on your website":

HubSpot will now detect form submissions from your other plugins and add them as contacts in your CRM.

This integration allows you to keep using your existing forms while still capturing those leads in HubSpot.

Collecting Leads Through Live Chat

Another great way to capture leads on your WordPress site is with live chat.

Prospects can ask questions and engage in real-time, giving you the opportunity to convert them.

In your HubSpot dashboard, go to Live Chat and click Create chatflow:

This will walk you through creating a customized live chat experience:

• Chatbot – Build automated conversational chat flows to engage visitors.

• Chat Routing – Set up rules to route chats to the right agents or teams.

• Event Groups – Customize the chat widget to trigger during specific events like exiting site or scrolling past a section.

Add the live chat widget to your WordPress pages, posts, or sidebar. Now your agents can have real-time conversations to engage, answer questions, and convert leads.

An MIT study found adding chatbots leads to a 70% conversion rate from website visitors to leads.

Make sure to enable lead capture in your chatflows. This will automatically save new contacts from chat conversations into your CRM.

Importing Existing Contacts Into Your CRM

If you have an existing email list or contact database, you‘ll want to import those into your new CRM.

This ensures all past leads and customers are now tracked in your HubSpot dashboard.

To import contacts:

1. Go to Contacts > Import Contacts in HubSpot

2. Select whether to import a CSV file or connect to another app like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc.

3. Map your import file to the HubSpot contact properties

4. Click Import Contacts to add them to your CRM

Your previous contacts will now appear alongside any new leads captured through your website.

Organizing Your Contacts with Segments

As leads start pouring into your CRM, you need a way to organize and segment them for targeted follow-up.

HubSpot lets you create both static and dynamic contact segments:

• Static – Manually add specific contacts to a list. Great for separate products, geographies, past customers, etc.

• Dynamic – Auto-updated based on criteria like form submitted, page visited, timestamp, etc.

Here are some example segments you could create:

• Leads from Instagram Ads
• Ebook Downloaders
• 90 Day Follow-up
• Trial Users
• NYC Contacts
• Past Customers

Now you can view, email, and track metrics for specific segments that make the most sense for your follow-up strategy.

Automating Lead Follow-Up with Workflows

Manually contacting and managing every new lead isn‘t scalable.

That‘s why you need to set up automation workflows in your CRM.

These workflows apply a pre-defined series of actions to specific segments of contacts.

For example, sending a drip campaign to "Ebook Downloaders":

• Day 1 – Download the ebook
• Day 3 – Review the ebook
• Day 7 – Offer a free trial
• Day 15 – Ask for product feedback

You can create unlimited workflows like this, assigning actions like:

• Emails
• SMS messages
• Meeting scheduling
• Contact status change
• Contact property update
• Wait periods
• If/then conditional logic

Workflows run on autopilot based on trigger events, like submitting a form, reaching a contact score threshold, entering a segment, etc.

This allows you to execute complex, personalized follow-up sequences without any manual effort.

According to Mailchimp, automating email follow-up leads to 300% more email opens and 152% more clicks compared to broadcast blasts.

Reporting on Your WordPress CRM Data

With your CRM capturing leads and workflows automating follow-up, you need reports to see what‘s working.

HubSpot offers powerful reporting to analyze:

• Contact activity – Page visits, form submissions, link clicks, emails opened
• Deal pipeline – Open deals, closed/won deals, deal value, sales cycle length
• Email performance – Opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam complaints
• Form performance – Submissions, conversion rate, drop-off
• Contact metrics – New leads, by source, by segment, by lifecycle stage

Tracking these metrics over time will reveal important insights around your most effective lead sources, conversions by segment, sales cycle bottlenecks, and more.

Make sure to regularly review reports and tweak your CRM strategy as needed. For example, you may find emails get 90% more clicks on Tuesdays so you adjust your workflows accordingly.

Getting More Value From Your WordPress CRM

Adding a CRM to your WordPress site lays the foundation for capturing and organizing leads. But there are additional tips and tools to maximize its impact.

1. Integrate with marketing and sales tools

HubSpot connects with thousands of apps through Zapier or PieSync. This allows you to combine tools like:

• Email marketing (Mailchimp, Constant Contact)
• Webinar software (GoToWebinar, EverWebinar)
• Chat platforms (Intercom, Drift, LiveChat)
• Sales engagement (Outreach, SalesLoft)
• …and many more!

Integrations give you more ways to capture, segment, and follow-up with leads across multiple touchpoints.

2. Incorporate popups and opt-ins

Using plugins like OptinMonster you can easily add popups, banners, and other conversions elements to your WordPress site.

This helps you grow your lead capture form conversions.

3. Tag key pages

Use HubSpot‘s WordPress integration to install tracking code across your site.

Then you can tag certain pages like Contact, Pricing, Blog, etc. This gives you visibility into the pages people visit during their user journey.

4. Build landing pages

Use HubSpot‘s landing page builder or plugins like SeedProd to create dedicated landing pages for offers, promotions, events, etc.

Send traffic to these from ads, email, or social campaigns. Landing pages combined with forms are perfect for capturing leads.

5. Add social tracking

HubSpot can integrate directly with your social media profiles on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This allows you to see social interactions right on a contact timeline.

6. Enable ecommerce tracking

If you have a WooCommerce store, add HubSpot‘s ecommerce tracking code to understand customer journeys from site visit to purchase. This helps identify your warmest leads.

Get More Leads Today with a WordPress CRM

Following the steps in this guide, you can start capturing more leads and driving growth with an integrated CRM system.

The key steps we covered include:

• Picking a WordPress CRM (like HubSpot)
• Installing the CRM plugin
• Capturing leads with forms, chat, and imports
• Organizing contacts with segments and properties
• Automating workflows for follow-up
• Reporting to analyze effectiveness

CRMs supercharge your ability to track prospective customer interactions and turn them into sales. In fact, 79% of first-time CRM users report seeing increased productivity.

So don‘t wait – go ahead and maximize your WordPress website‘s potential with a fully-featured CRM platform. Your future growth will thank you.

Have you added a CRM to your WordPress site? What impacts have you seen on capturing and converting leads? Let me know in the comments!