The Importance of CRMs for Marketing Organizations

How can your digital marketing team fulfill client needs and wants? You can foresee potential challenges and foster mutually-beneficially relationships by utilizing the right customer relationship management (CRM) software.

A powerful CRM software provides what every organization needs to manage all their company’s relationships. “The best CRM software helps streamline, simplify and improve your business processes to create better experiences for the one thing your business revolves around — your customers,” says top marketing influencer Neil Patel.

How can a CRM platform be beneficial to your organization? Here are some tips for choosing a CRM that can build and maintain relationships, nurture leads and manage projects.

What to Consider When Choosing a CRM

Are you upgrading your current CRM or purchasing the software solution for the first time? “Ask your team, what bottlenecks are you experiencing as an agency, what data are you collecting in spreadsheets and databases to help determine your priorities in a CRM?” says Karen Vance, Director of Digital & Content Marketing for The Deciding Factor. Consider challenges such as:

• What are my current workflow points of pain and bottlenecks?
• How much time is spent on managing leads?
• Will the CRM be used internally, for clients or both?
• What processes can be automated?
• Who will be using the CRM and how often?
• Will other software — such as sales and product ordering, social media, communication platforms, or project and work management softwares — be integrated with the CRM?

There are many high-performing CRMs across the industry. What are the best softwares? According to Forbes, “Gurus in CRM technology such as Salesforce and HubSpot have led the way in making data-driven customer relationship management accessible to companies in virtually every industry.”

“But not everyone needs the biggest, the most complex or the most expensive CRM,” Karen says. “There are some excellent solutions available for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, start-ups and medium-sized businesses. We’ve worked with customers using Salesforce, Marketo, Hubspot, Keap and others.”

You’ll want to search around and try demos before committing to any one software.

9 Benefits from Using a CRM

Have you found a CRM with the right functionalities for your agency? You’ll start to see immediate benefits.

Store Important Information. A CRM can store customer engagement, client and prospect contact information. You can also record service issues — all in one centralized hub.

Customization and Real-Time Access. Team members can access stored information they need through customizable dashboards. Project management tools also enable team members to track, edit and manage projects in real-time.

Marketing Automation. CRMs can help you connect to your customers through automatic email campaigns. Automatically collect and aggregate data within the system and deliver relevant messages with on-target timing.

Track Your Sales Pipeline. CRMs can help you manage leads, track their progression through the pipeline, and tie in email marketing and other business inputs so potential clients automatically get moved through the funnel. Marketing doesn’t have to hand off customers to sales when you can integrate the customer journey as managed by both sales and marketing.

Relationship and Reputation Management. You can immediately provide clients pertinent details based on their unique requirements. A CRM can also help you track social media perception and online reviews and inquiries in real-time.

Enhanced Productivity. Use a CRM to bridge the gap between the different departments and suites of your business by removing communication silos, immediately seeing what needs to be accelerated and scheduling reminders. “With a CRM, you can automate tasks like call and activity logging, reporting, deal creation, and more,” says Hubspot. “The less time reps are spending on administrative work, the greater number of hours they have to get in front of prospects.”

Increase Client Retention. Data gives you critical knowledge about client problems and wins. You’ll be able to anticipate their questions and offer quick answers. A satisfied client will re-up their contract or continue buying. Sales may be focused on the immediate sale, but marketing can use data to promote repeat buying.

Analytics and Reporting. Your leadership team will love reports that provide comprehensive views of your marketing strategies and insights into the overall business performance. You’ll also be able to evaluate team members to optimize their and your overall business’s performance.

Seamless Segmentation. How can you target the right demographics? According to Vance, “A robust CRM can help you target with precision — location, demographics, customer persona building — and design data-driven customer journeys.”

Let Us Help You Choose a CRM

What are the everyday digital marketing tasks that really matter? The right CRM can focus your agency and make you better, more efficient and profitable.

Contact us to learn more about your choices, and how you can excel with a CRM platform that’s the right fit for your goals and objectives.