What do you think of when you see the term “CRM” (Customer Relationship Management)? Most people associate these three letters with sales and sales processes. While CRM applications certainly are related to improving sales efforts, they are not beholden to only benefiting sales teams. Often overlooked is how a CRM application drives the growth and success of other departments, specifically marketing.
When implemented with marketing in mind, a CRM has the potential to improve all aspects of the customer journey. From lead prospecting and qualification, to customer follow up and improving customer satisfaction, MyCustomer defines five ways a CRM can improve your marketing functions.
1. It Strengthens the Relationship with Sales
When marketing and sales teams have a good relationship and understand their processes, it boosts the confidence of not only the teams, but the confidence sales have in their leads. If both marketing and sales can see the prospect pipeline and sales knows marketing is qualifying their leads accurately, sales reps tend to follow up more confidently and more swiftly.
A CRM application gives both teams full vision into the sales pipeline. Sales can see when leads have been qualified so they can begin their outreach and marketing can see when deals have been closed so they begin customer cross-sell or up-sell efforts. Not only does a CRM help marketing view the entire customer journey, but it makes it easier to allocate tasks specifically when it comes to email campaigning. A CRM can strengthen sales and marketing alignment by clearly showing which efforts belong to which team or team member.
2. It Allows You to Profile Customers Based on Value
A CRM will typically enable you to segment your leads or customers based on demographics you define. For example, you can segment to a specific region, industry, or company size. However, there is much more you can do than just your basic demographic segmenting.
A CRM application feeds you information about your customers including the value of each account in terms of how much revenue you have made from one customer. By looking at the value of each account and determining the cost that went into each deal, marketers have a much better understanding of the expenses that go into establishing and maintaining customer relationships. This information can be used help revise processes that go into earning new business and those that go into satisfying your existing customer base.
3. It Integrates with and Enhances Your Email Marketing
If you are looking for ways to increase your email marketing returns, look no further than a CRM application. CRM applications give you the data, tools, and capabilities to personalize your email messaging making them more relevant to your audience. Being able to send relevant emails is crucial as “relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails”, according to Jupiter Research.
A CRM application will help you deliver relevant messaging to the appropriate people which will increase the return of your marketing investment.
4. It Allows You to Automate Part of Your Marketing
CRMs are full of automation capabilities that improve workflow efficiencies and eliminate manual efforts. While most may think automation is only meant to improve sales processes, these features can be used to assist marketing efforts as well. For example, leads can be sent an email as soon as they are marked as qualified. Or, follow-up activities can be scheduled for sales reps automatically, helping streamline communication and making sure leads are being contacted appropriately. These are only two examples, but it is pivotal to include marketing when implementing automation in your CRM.
5. It Allows You to Track Performance
Being able to personalize your email content and perform your email campaign efforts from a CRM really would not mean much if you did not know or understand the results of your efforts. That is where the CRM just keeps getting better. Not only can you execute your email campaigning efforts directly from a CRM, but it gives you the metrics and insights needed to understand how well your efforts are performing.
A CRM will give you campaign metrics including ROI for a given campaign and email statistics showing the number of emails delivered and the number of emails opened. These sort of email metrics will help in the short-term by assisting you to determine where to begin your follow-up efforts. Likewise, the campaign metrics like ROI will help you in the long-term. You can see which efforts are proving to be successful so you can replicate that success and stop wasting resources on efforts proving to be unsuccessful.
CRM applications are surely made with sales top-of-mind but that does not mean other aspects of your business, specifically marketing, should be left out when it comes to implementing your CRM. A CRM will help boost the relationships, not only of your customers, but of your marketing and sales teams too by making the entire customer journey available to both departments. There are features built into CRM applications designed to benefit marketing like email personalization and the ability to track and report on your marketing efforts. CRM for sales? Not exactly, don’t forget your marketers!
AMEPD is a CRM application designed to improve all aspects of the selling cycle including marketing. With features like custom email templates with personalization, to robust campaign and email metrics, AMPED has the tools you need for marketing and sales success. Try AMPED for free today!