Session 32: The Power of a CRM in Marketing

In session 32 of A Marketing Podcast I talk about the power of a CRM tool in your marketing. I cover what a CRM is and how to sue it help develop marketing insight and even how to use it as part of your marketing automation process.

As with almost every session of the show I touch on the importance of knowing your target audience in marketing, and the CRM is a great tool for helping you do just that.

Session 32: The power of a CRM in Marketing

What is a CRM?

The acronym CRM stands for “Customer Relationship Management”, or “Client Relationship Management”.

The core functionalities of a CRM system, is to allow you the ability to record specific information about your customers. As well as information about purchases and history with your business.

Types of customer data to gather

Make sure that we have at least one piece of contact information for each customer. That means gathering an email, or phone number, of even postal address.

Second to contact information, is gathering additional information to help us develop our target audiences. So things like geographic, demographic, likes/dislikes etc. Collection information about purchases is a great way to gather additional information. Depending on your products/service different audiences may buy different products, so keeping track of those purchases and any related information.

Developing Target audiences from your CRM Data

Most CRM tools provide reporting features to help identify quick insights and information about your customer base.

Make use of surveys to build better information about your customers. Now that we have customers and their contact details sending surveys, and the number of response you get, will increase.

Once you get your survey information, or just from basic questioning of your customers, get it into your CRM tool. The cross reference, or combine your CRM with your survey data and see what you get.

Integrating your CRM in marketing processes – or marketing automation

Gather the information and insights from your CRM and base your marketing strategies, and even specific tactics, on that data.

[Related: Session 27: Getting Started in Marketing Automation]

Most CRM tools integrate directly into marketing automation processes. And those that don’t still allow you the ability to get the contact details out of the CRM and into your email marketing program.

CRM tools

These CRM tools demonstrate the different levels of CRM in marketing, and the range of tools that are available.

PipeDrive

* Focuses on marketing/sales funnels and integrates contacts in that process

* Find out more about PipeDrive

Hubspot CRM

* A free CRM tool that keeps track of customers and contacts and integrates into the Hubspot world of inbound marketing tools.

* Find out more about Hubspot CRM

SalesForce

* An enterprise level CRM and integration into LinkedIn and provides tools for marketing/sales funnels.

* Find out more about Salesforce CRM

InfusionSoft

* Great option for small business, and plays nicely with InfusionSoft’s marketing automation products. Still a very complex tool, but easy to understand and begin using.

* Find out more about InfusionSoft

Highrise

* A great place to start in your CRM implementation.