Many experts claim that marketing automation and CRM are inseparable strategies. Each of them is very complete and being united the result is very interesting. Therefore, you should combine them in your future brand strategies.
Currently many companies have opted to offer good content, make use of social networks and even send mass emails. All this is included within what is known as digital marketing. Automating these actions will make it easier for you to increase the performance of your brand.
On the other hand, the CRM, known in English as ‘Customer Relationship Management’ and in Spanish as ‘Customer Relationship Management’, is the strategy that will allow you to centralize in a single database all the interactions that exist between your company and customers.
The ultimate goal is that you can improve the service and relationships you have with your customers and potential customers.
Marketing automation and CRM: are they opposites?
Marketing automation, or automated marketing, is defined as a set of techniques. These allow digital marketing campaigns to be implemented without having any “manual” intervention by the people who make up the marketing team.
It is aimed at helping marketing teams to automate, streamline and measure all their campaign flows and actions taken. Among them are key factors such as segmentation, lead generation, ROI measurement, and lead nurturing.
On the other hand, CRM refers to a set of tools and processes that are focused on optimizing the relationships that organizations have with their customers.
Its main objective is to offer your company the opportunity to have a quick response. This must be adapted to the expectations that the client or prospects have, either in the right channel or at the right time.
Benefits of the relationship between marketing automation and CRM
The automatic synchronization between the two techniques will make it easier for you to offer incredible campaigns. It will also provide you with comprehensive data of great use to the marketing department and the commercial department.
In this way, it is necessary that you take advantage of all the benefits that both concepts have:
- You can segment your audience according to their preferences or the behaviors they have within your online ecosystem.
- You will understand the use of your sales funnel in order to know when a lead is ready to make a purchase.
- You will improve the ROI of your mailing campaigns.
- You will be able to integrate functionalities in a single moment, while saving time and costs.
- You will manage more number of emails and SEM ads simultaneously.
- You can ensure that no lead is left unattended due to lack of resources.
- You will configure permanent processes that are within your general strategy.
- You will create the profile of your buyer persona. In this way, you will offer them added value through your content while they go through all the online activities you have.
- Workflows will be streamlined, while delivering personalized and dynamic content aimed at your next goals.
- Analyze what is the lead scoring to provide promotions according to the life cycle of each client.
1.- CRM without automated marketing
A CRM without automated marketing is a database where customer data is stored, as well as potential customers, to later manage the sales process.
As it will be in an independent process, since it will not have the marketing automation accompanying it, it will do it in a light way and without any rush. You will store the contacts and you will have a follow-up of the sales funnel but with a vision that will be more limited to the customer journey.
2.- Marketing automatizado sin CRM
The need to integrate marketing automation and CRM is going to be most noticeable when you try to implement an automated marketing system without effective CRM.
You will be able to run campaigns to generate many more leads, but you will have to export those leads to a .csv file. This file can be imported manually into your sales database. For this reason, you will not be able to analyze what is the conversion rate, closing, clicks or other important action.
The integration of marketing automation and CRM
There are many ways to link CRM with automated marketing. However, it is recommended that you opt for an All In One tool. In it, you will be able to have the CRM and powerful automation solutions on the same platform.
On the contrary, if you buy tools that are individual and come from different providers, you will have to configure them manually through an API (application program interface).
Once the systems are configured, you will notice how your business changes and improves significantly, thus obtaining more leads and income. When you already apply both systems, you will incorporate potential customers who will be better qualified in the sales funnel.
Performing this strategy will provide you visibility and strategic alignment. Best of all, you will have a lot of optimization in terms of time and resources.