CRM Marketing Automation: The Ultimate Cheat Code for Marketing Domination

Almost 60% of marketers use automation tools daily to boost email marketing. In a recent survey, 41% of marketers described their customer journeys as either mostly or fully automated, whereas the remaining 50% classified them as only partially automated.

It’s natural that most decision-makers want to make their campaigns as effective as possible. That’s where the best CRM and marketing automation platforms come into play. They can create closed-loop systems that use behavioral data from the CRM to boost marketing productivity.

In this article, you’ll delve into automation services and how they benefit your business. You’ll also discover four proven marketing automation campaign examples to use for your business.

What is CRM in Marketing Automation?

Source: Vtiger

CRM helps you centralize and manage customer data. Those platforms can store customer information, track interactions, manage sales opportunities, and generate analytics. In 2018, SAP’s revenue from CRM was 9.42 billion U.S. dollars, and this number grows year by year.

CRM and marketing automation systems can give you a complete view of each customer profile and what to do to boost sales. While CRM stores preferences, behavioral data, and purchase history, automation tools can use this data to provide tailored campaigns.

In most cases, CRM and sales automation tools are not on the same platform. Although they are two different services combined, they can provide your team with a complete view of each customer’s history to grow your business.

Why CRM and Marketing Automation Platforms Need Each Other

Source: Capterra

A CRM platform provides the data and insights that marketing automation uses to deliver targeted, effective campaigns. By working together, CRM with marketing automation services creates a smoother customer journey from initial contact to conversion:

• Unified data management: CRM stores valuable customer data, including interactions and purchase history. Marketing automation tools track customers’ journeys through your marketing funnel. Integrating both systems into the CRM automation duo unlocks a broader understanding of clients’ needs.
• Targeted marketing: CRM data empowers you to segment your audience into distinct groups. Marketing automation services leverage this segmentation to deliver highly targeted campaigns that resonate more with the recipients.
• Seamless lead nurturing: Automation tools help you create catchy, personalized content and targeted email sequences. Meanwhile, CRMs provide you with in-depth insights to achieve this precision.

CRM and marketing automation software can develop a comprehensive closed-loop reporting system. The sales team will see the marketing touchpoints influencing a lead. Meanwhile, marketers will have access to users’ behavioral data, which helps them to customize campaigns even more.

How CRM Improves the Sales Process

A CRM with automation can streamline the whole marketing process, resulting in higher conversions and sales. In brief, the mix of automation and CRM platforms enhances all customer-related processes. Here are more details about each case:

• Lead management and qualification: Automated marketing CRMs can capture leads from various sources (website forms, email marketing, events) into a single, organized system. They also automate lead scoring and qualification. This eliminates scattered spreadsheets and ensures no lead falls through the cracks in a CRM system.
• Improved segmentation: CRM data enables you to segment the email list by demographics, purchase history, and other behavioral factors. It allows marketers to send targeted campaigns that resonate more with the recipients.
• Streamlined communication: Forget about flipping through emails or searching for contact details. Automation in CRM helps you keep track of all interactions with leads and customers. Sales reps can access previous conversations, emails, and notes to ensure a smooth, personalized communication flow.
• Data-driven sales decisions: Properly chosen marketing automation and CRM tools can provide comprehensive sales reports and analytics. Sales reps and managers can gain insights into sales performance and identify potential trends among the first to convert leads.

Using Multiple Data Sources to Improve Campaign Messaging

CRM vs. Marketing Automation: Key Differences

While both platforms play vital roles in driving sales and customer growth, they serve distinct purposes. To save you time, we’ve gathered key differences between marketing automation and CRM in a comprehensive table.

CRM tools primarily cater to the sales team. Those services help them manage interactions and relationships with current and potential customers. On the other hand, marketing automation services aim to help the marketing team manage leads. Those platforms automate tasks and workflows to attract, engage, and nurture leads.

9 Main Factors to Consider When Choosing CRM and Sales Automation Platforms

While you choose a CRM for marketing, look for integrations with your favorite automation tools to maximize productivity in your new system. We also recommend you consider the next nine factors while you are choosing CRM for marketers:

• Business goals: Determine your main aims, then review a list of features for the chosen automated CRM tool.
• Scalability: There is no need to pay for services that you won’t use. Look for a scalable platform so that you can tailor it to your needs.
• User-friendliness: Ensure the chosen automated CRM system aligns with your team’s digital literacy levels.
• Functionality: Ensure that CRM automation software includes at least the basic functions of contact management, lead scoring, sales pipeline management, reporting, and analytics. It would be great if the chosen CRM marketing automation software had customer service tools so you could ask clients questions on your website.
• Budget: While choosing tools, consider the total cost of ownership. It’s not only the platform’s monthly subscription fee but also implementation costs and potential maintenance.
• Mobile accessibility: If remote work or mobile access is crucial for your team, ensure the CRM automation tools offer mobile apps.
• Evaluate your current processes: Determine how your team currently manages customer data and interactions. CRM automations should integrate seamlessly with your existing workflows.
• Deployment options: Some businesses are fine with cloud-based tools, while others require on-premise solutions hosted on your servers. Find out which option suits you more.
• Customer support: Choose an online CRM marketing automation platform with extensive self-help tools. It would be great if it had reliable support.

It’s crucial to find a platform that fits your current and potential marketing automation strategy needs. If you are a small business, try HubSpot, Zoho, and Freshsales CRM. Use Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and ActiveCampaign automation services, as they have limited free and affordable basic plans.

Mid-sized businesses should try Keap, SharpSpring, or Salesforce Essentials CRM. They can use HubSpot Marketing Hub, Omnisend, or Marketo Engage for marketing automation. Enterprises should use advanced platforms such as Salesforce Sales Cloud, Oracle CRM, and Microsoft Dynamics. They may also like CleverTap, Braze, or IBM Marketing Cloud.

How CRM & Marketing Automation Work Better Together

Marketing automation and CRM services focus on different stages of the client’s journey. Meanwhile, they share the same aim to boost your customer-related business processes.

Marketing automation CRM integration can help your business foster better collaboration between your teams. Marketers can see which campaigns resulted in deals, and sales reps can see the marketing touchpoints influencing a lead’s decisions. This valuable data allows both teams to measure success more effectively, optimize campaigns, and drive better ROI.

Aligning the Goals of Marketing & Sales Teams

Marketing automation integration with CRM platforms allows you to create shared goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). This approach can benefit your business in many ways:

• Improved lead quality: Shared goals can help you ensure marketing attracts the right leads with buying intent.
• Increased revenue: A unified approach streamlines the marketing funnel.
• Enhanced communication: Shared KPIs foster internal collaboration.

To make your campaigns even more effective, set clear goals to measure your marketing efforts. Ensure constant open communication between teams, as even the slightest miscommunication can lead to poor results. Add these eight vital metrics to your marketing & sales automation campaign:

• Overall revenue: It shows the campaign’s profit.
• Marketing qualified leads (MQLs): It demonstrates the overall amount of potential customers attracted by your marketing campaign.
• Sales-qualified leads (SQLs): It’s the approximate number of leads progressing further down the sales funnel and are highly likely to convert into customers.
• MQL-to-SQL conversion rate: The percentage of MQLs that become SQLs reflects the campaign’s effectiveness.
• Sales cycle length: The average time for a lead to move through your marketing funnel.
• Cost per Lead (CPL): It indicates the average price to gain a new lead.
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): It shows the average price of acquiring a customer.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): This metric forecasts the total revenue you can expect from a customer throughout its entire relationship with the company.

Agreeing on Lead Qualification Criteria

A well-made lead qualification can ensure well-coordinated work between your sales and marketing teams. Properly chosen CRM and marketing software lets you define the MQL and SQL profiles, preventing your team from wasting time on unqualified leads.

Understanding the characteristics of qualified leads allows your teams to tailor their efforts, nurturing only relevant leads with compelling content and communication. Here are five main lead qualification criteria that you can use in your customer automation management campaigns:

• Buyer persona: Define your perfect customer profile, including their demographics, needs, and pain points
• Budget: Determine whether leads can afford your product. If not, consider their financing options and create multiple lead personas for each case.
• Decision-making authority: Identify whether your lead makes the purchase decision
• Timeline: Figure out whether your current buyer persona has an immediate need or is just browsing

Share the lead qualification criteria with everyone in your sales and marketing teams. Remember that it’s an ongoing process that requires continuous communication and adaptation for optimal results.

Establishing Data Governance Policies

CRM marketing automation tools are vital for establishing and enforcing data governance policies within your organization. They automate data entry processes, minimizing manual input errors and ensuring consistent formatting within the system.

You can set desired validation rules to prevent irrelevant or nonsensical data entry. CRM marketing platforms also identify and remove duplicate records and cleanse inaccurate or incomplete data. Those tiny yet crucial actions improve data quality and reliability for better analysis and decision-making.

Advanced CRM automation marketing services offer granular user access controls that limit access to sensitive customer data based on job roles and responsibilities. It ensures data privacy and compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Many marketing automation CRM services provide audit trails that track user activity within the CRM. It allows you to monitor data access and changes, improving data security and accountability. Some systems can even automate workflows for future data approval processes, ensuring additional manual data quality control.

Leveraging AI/Machine Learning Capabilities

In 2021, the market for AI-based marketing services was estimated at nearly $16 billion, with projections of $107.5 billion by 2028. Many marketing CRM automation platforms have AI and ML tools to take your promo to new heights. Smart algorithms can analyze vast amounts of customer data to identify behavioral patterns and predict which leads are most likely to convert.

AI services also enable hyper-personalized marketing, as they can generate personalized content recommendations, emails, and even social media posts based on individual customer profiles and preferences. AI-based tools can analyze real-time customer data to segment audiences into highly specific groups.

Combined, marketing automation with CRM services can automate lead nurturing workflows based on lead scores. High-scoring leads can be nurtured with targeted content and offers, while lower-scoring leads can be directed towards more general brand awareness campaigns.

CRM Marketing Automation Examples

Many businesses use CRM marketing automation combo in their customer communication. The most common usage case is to provide highly tailored emails. We’ve gathered four typical examples of marketing automation that you can use in your campaigns.

Welcome/Onboarding Email Series

Integrating marketing automation with CRM platforms can benefit businesses even at the first steps of their sales funnel. You can use the information a user has already given you to start the onboarding process and gently ask them to provide more data.

Source: StreetEasy

The StreetEasy team is a great example of automation in their welcoming mail. The system tracks that a user signs up on their website, but doesn’t provide enough data to get customized recommendations. So, the automated welcome email greets the user and politely asks them to update their profile.

Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Another way to use automation in sales and marketing is to nurture your leads. This process requires time but will pay off in the long run. If done correctly, you will see a stable stream of clients.

Source: Jobot

Even job search platforms use CRM and email automation. Jobot is a great example of non-intrusive, gentle nurturing. They use the information provided by users to send them open positions and suitable blog articles. This easy automated email acts as a vital part of a lead nurturing campaign.

Cross-Sell/Upsell Campaigns

You can use CRM sales and marketing automation to cross-sell your products. While CRM holds customers’ behavioral data, marketing tools analyze it to provide the most suitable additional goods. That way, you boost your chances of upselling and increase check.

Source: Sephora

Source: Sephora

Sephora uses CRM for marketing automation to upsell its beauty products. The system analyzes user behavior on the website and app to provide more personalized deals.

Win-Back Campaigns for Lapsed Customers

According to the Service Institute, acquiring new clients can be 5x more expensive than keeping existing ones. That’s why win-back campaigns are crucial for every business, regardless of industry.

Source: Puma

Here is how Puma leverages the CRM and marketing automation integration in its campaigns. They use CRM to identify customer preferences, so once a user stops purchasing in their online shop, they can launch win-back campaigns with personalized recommendations and lucrative discounts.

Future Trends and Developments

The future of CRM and sales automation looks bright. We will see deeper adoption of AI tools, allowing businesses to predict customer needs and suggest relevant actions for sales and marketing teams.

CRMs will leverage data to predict customer churn and identify at-risk customers beforehand. Marketing automation will trigger personalized campaigns to re-engage these customers with targeted offers and incentives.

We will see AI-powered chatbots as an integral part of CRM and marketing automation platforms. It will enable real-time conversations with customers on websites and messaging apps. Chatbots can answer customer questions, provide support, and even qualify leads.

It will become more common to see CRM and marketing automation integrated with other business systems, such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and e-commerce platforms. This collaboration ensures customers see accurate product availability and prevents frustrating out-of-stock situations.

Integrating all these systems will create a central hub for business customer data, so businesses gain a holistic view of their customer journeys. That way, they will identify trends even more efficiently.

Conclusion

CRM and marketing automation platforms complement each other, providing businesses with a robust system for managing the customer journey, from attracting leads to nurturing them and converting them into loyal customers. This integrated approach fosters customer relationships, improves sales and marketing efficiency, and drives business growth.

We will see even more advanced automated CRM systems with AI services. By leveraging the latest tools, you’ll create a personalized, data-driven approach to customer engagement, leading to a more prosperous, profitable business.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is CRM automation?

CRM platforms are used as part of the marketing automation procedure. They eliminate manual data entry, increase campaign efficiency, and automate many repetitive tasks. The most common examples of CRM automation are lead scoring, automated email workflows, sales pipeline management, and advanced reporting.

What is marketing automation in CRM?

It’s a concept of CRM software integrating with marketing automation tools to create a more robust system. Combined into a single system, both CRM and automation platforms provide businesses with advanced data sharing, segmentation, closed-loop reporting, and improved lead nurturing.

What is the difference between CRM and marketing automation?

CRM platforms primarily serve the sales team. They manage the customer lifecycle and collect insights into customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history. Automation tools are marketing-focused. They help generate qualified leads and nurture them via email marketing and landing page creation. They also analyze marketing campaigns.