Most companies understand, or somewhat understand, that customer relationship management (CRM) is a way of archiving and organizing customer data to make it accessible and thereby increase customer satisfaction. Most marketers understand marketing automation as a way to make marketing tasks easier and more effective, or as HubSpot defines it:

“Marketing automation refers to software that exists for the purpose of automating marketing actions. Many marketing departments have to automate repetitive tasks like emails, social media, and other website actions. Marketing automation technology facilitates these chores”.

CRM Plus Marketing Automation: A Powerful Combination

What many companies, and the marketers who represent them, don’t understand are the benefits of integrating CRM with automation. Those benefits can be a game changer for small, medium and large businesses. Consider, for example, these metrics from Salesforce:

• Over 77% of marketers say they have integrated marketing automation primarily to increase revenue

• Businesses using marketing automation for lead nurturing increase qualified leads by more than 450%

• Marketing automation increases sales productivity by an average of 14.5%.

• By 2020, customers will handle 85% of their business relationships without even speaking to a human being.

How can combining CRM with marketing automation help your company?

There are several reasons why 3 out of 4 companies that have combined CRM and marketing automation see a positive return on investment in 1 year. Here are 5:

1. You will improve lead nurturing– For many marketers, lead generation takes precedence over lead nurturing, but you need to nurture your leads to effectively move them through the sales pipeline and close more sales. When you join CRM with marketing automation, you can automatically send relevant content (for example, through email marketing) in response to the actions your prospects take. This dramatically increases qualified leads, conversions, and sales.

2. You will increase business intelligence– The automation tools you use will capture key customer data, data that you can use to further personalize your messages. For example, an automated CRM program will tell you what pages customers viewed, how long they stayed there, what content they downloaded, and what forms they filled out. You will collect similar data about the emails you send. Simply put, the more you know about your customers, the more relevant and personalized your communications with them will be.

3. You can more effectively prioritize your leads– The best marketing automation software can score your leads based on their online behavior, thus telling you which leads are most likely to make purchases. That means you’ll be able to focus your sales team’s efforts on the most qualified leads, and therefore close more sales.

Four. You will shorten the sales cycle– The longer it takes your business to move leads from storefront shoppers to loyal customers, the less money you’ll make, and given the increased skepticism of today’s consumer, the average sales cycle has increased by more than 20% in the last 5 years . When you integrate automation with your CRM, you’ll be able to deliver content that’s more relevant and more effectively answer customer questions and remove barriers to sales, so you’ll close sales faster and increase your revenue.

5. More effectively measure results for continuous improvement: By itself, CRM software cannot accurately measure which of your marketing actions were most effective. When you add marketing automation, you can dig deeper into your marketing data to learn which strategies are working, which ones need tweaking, and which ones you need to abandon. That means your marketing program will become more effective over time, and you’ll be able to close more sales.

Conclution

As noted above, combining strong CRM software with state-of-the-art marketing automation can be a game changer for your business, but it’s not the only one. To learn more about the ways our marketing, web development, and web improvement services will help you increase qualified leads, drive sales, and grow your business, contact us today.