4 Ways CRM Can Enable Your Marketing Campaigns' Success

Sales teams tend to be at the forefront when CRM strategies are discussed, and it is easy to see why: Salespeople are central to building relationships with customers. But do not make the mistake of assuming the benefits of CRM are all tied solely to one part of the business.

A CRM system is the single source of truth for all customer data, and as such should be seen as an essential part of the marketing toolkit that is used to engage and nurture long-term customers. Your marketing team can utilize CRM to strengthen customer relationships, improve communication, and generate new opportunities.

Here are four ways in which CRM solutions can help enable the success of your organization’s marketing campaigns:

1. They can help you get to know your audience. To succeed in marketing, you need to know your audience. The real challenge is dissecting and analyzing masses of existing customer and prospect data, which is essential for any effective campaign. Not using the proper tool can be time-consuming and directly impacts on the team’s workload. 

A CRM system provides a complete omnichannel, companywide view of your prospect and customer contacts. It gives direct access to the latest data available within the organization. No longer will you have to search silos for patterns in behavior, as the central repository is updated by all teams, providing a wealth of insights to utilize.

The cumbersome task of identifying and segmenting data becomes easier thanks to CRM, as these solutuions are designed to analyze and share large quantities of data. This equips every marketer with the essential tools needed to segment data by preferences or behavior. As data in the CRM changes, so could your segments, automatically updating in real time.

Better yet, you can integrate CRM with your self-service portals and landing pages. This means you can identify the needs and preferences of your prospects and customers firsthand. No longer will you need to manually export and import data. It will flow seamlessly straight into CRM.

2. They can help you send the right personalized message at the right time. Now you can utilize your segmented audience to deliver targeted messages. No need to waste marketing efforts sending the right message to the wrong customer. These can be altered to suit the preferences of the recipients and to those who will find value in the content. 

A CRM system will allow you to reach new heights in engaging with your contacts. Receiving marketing messaging only when appropriate will result in a more engaged contact base. Identifying trends in behavior will allow you to adapt your messaging and pre-empt future needs. Marketing teams will also be able to send the right offer to the right customer at the right time, feeding the sales funnel.

Once your marketing team has determined the target group for a campaign, personalized content can be written. The stronger the customer profile, the easier it is to segment and send these messages. Anything that screams “mass marketing” risks damaging your reputation, as it will be merely dismissed. The effort will be wasted if it lands in someone’s junk folder. Simple luxuries such as addressing the recipient by name in emails can make a big difference to your overall engagement rate.

3. They can help to keep the data clean. Do not risk reputational damage with poor data quality. Using a CRM system can help to easily manage your datasets, ensuring compliance is maintained with data protection regulations. By implementing automation, workflows can be utilized to clean data and reduce the probability of human error.

 CRM can centrally manage your customers’ marketing preferences. When a contact opts out from one part of the business, that preference can be centrally stored and communicated across all teams and channels. Furthermore, incorrect email addresses can be automatically removed from your segments.

4. They can help you monitor success and repeat. The success of your campaigns will continue to feed the CRM with more valuable insights. You can use the results achieved from previous campaigns to improve future ones. Marketing messages that your contacts engage with will be tracked and utilized to inform future segmentation. The system is continuously improving and making data-driven decisions.

This means new campaigns start from a solid foundation, enabling you to focusing on creating great content that your contacts engage with.

CRM systems are crucial in supporting an internal strategy, and marketing teams can support this endeavor. These systems are well known for their centralized database properties, but data extraction from your CRM is key to the success of your business. A marketing focus for CRM should therefore never be underestimated, as the ROI will be invaluable.

It is not only beneficial to know the basics regarding your customers, such as their job titles and age, but also to be aware of their personal preferences, such as the kinds of emails they open. This alongside their recent activity helps marketing teams create content that will appeal to them.

Dale Murray is CEO of U.K.-based SalesAgility. Murray has been with the company in various roles since 2011, becoming head of consultancy in 2015, where he built the firm’s consultancy team from one person to six full-time consultants operating globally. Murray is responsible for the company’s strategic growth plans and initiatives, creating and managing the road map for achieving SalesAgility’s goals and vision while ensuring the company’s culture reflects its core values of transparency, flexibility, and collaboration.