CRM and Marketing Automation to grow your business
Staying ahead in this competitive business world requires more smart work than hard work. To drive a suitable business growth two powerful weapon in modern business scenario are Marketing Automation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Using both of these tools effectively will result in not only increasing productivity but also attracting new customers, increasing customer engagement of customers in your business, and helping to retain customers.
What is CRM?
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is basically a centralized platform for engaging and managing the interactions with your customers. Some of the vital and essential information is stored in CRM, like contact details of current or potential customers, their needs and preferences, the place where they belong, and much more. This storage house of data helps empower the sales of your business by providing the necessary insights to your marketing and sales representatives.
What are the key features of CRM?
- It stores the contact details of the customers in an organized form.
- The status of the leads can be defined very clearly in each stage throughout the pipeline.
- Helps in lead follow-ups and tracks the lead status.
- Provides detailed insight into customer behavior.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is software that is used by the marketing team of a company to automate the process of lead generation and lead nurturing and increase customer engagement. Various types of daily jobs can be automated, like sending email newsletters to customers. You can schedule your emails to be sent automatically to the right person at the right time. The resulting factor is that it not only saves the valuable time of the sales team but also ensures the consistency and professionalism of your sales reps.
What are the key features of Marketing Automation?
- Automates the repetitive tasks of the marketing team and enhances the process of marketing.
- Manage campaigns by analyzing them in detail.
- Provides analytical reports that are helpful in the data-driven decision-making of the marketing team.
- Manages the leads within the pipeline.
There are some basic differences between CRM and Marketing Automation
While studying the features and benefits of CRM and Marketing Automation, you might get confused because both have nearly the same functionalities. But wait! There is a thin line of differences that you might have overlooked.
From the name CRM (Customer Relationship Management), it can be easily understood that CRM deals with and manages customer relationships, while Marketing Automation helps in automating the marketing tasks and the campaigns of the sales department. The other difference is that CRM focuses on the sales pipeline by defining the stages of sales operations, whereas Marketing Automation focuses on lead nurturing by managing the leads within the pipeline. It helps in attracting the leads and ensures that the lead gets qualified.
Can CRM and Marketing Automation work together?
Yes, absolutely! CRM and Marketing Automation strategies can be integrated to streamline the process of lead generation. Let’s see how implementing both CRM and Marketing Automation can help the sales department.
- The leads are collected from the forms on the website or social media by the tools of Marketing Automation. These leads can be nurtured automatically with personalized emails at proper intervals in a sequential flow.
- Each and all interactions of the customers are tracked and recorded by CRM and can be used to target and retarget to increase the rate of conversion.
- An insight into the ROI and effectiveness of a campaign is provided by the Marketing Automation tools.
- The performances can be tracked, and the data can be optimized by introducing the strategies of Marketing Automation and CRM.
Let's wrap it up
Analyzing the aspects of CRM and Marketing Automation, it can be concluded that you can manage the relationships with your clients or customers through CRM more effectively. It will help you in closing your deals more smoothly. Marketing Automation, on the other hand, deals with generating leads and nurturing them. Implementing both these strategies will create a seamless experience for the sales department of any company. Both these initiatives can convert your connections from the very first touch to a loyal customer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Marketing Automation help retain customers?
Yes, Marketing Automation will provide you the insights of customer behavior, ensuring better customer engagement, automated follow-ups, and improved customer loyalty.
Is it important to integrate CRM with Marketing Automation?
Yes, integrating CRM with Marketing Automation improves lead nurturing and proper alignment between the sales and marketing teams and helps automate the repetitive tasks.
Which are the popular platforms for integration?
Some of the popular integration platforms are:
- HubSpot CRM
- Zoho CRM
- Salesforce
