Marketing

Marketing Automation and CRM

December 2, 2010 By leighton Leave a Comment

Marketing Automation software is a potentially great way to extend your CRM product and strategy. Where a CRM allows you to gather information a Marketing Automation platform allows you to take action!

Marketing Automation allows you to track users through your website, send emails automatically based upon activity and to communicate with the end-user ‘at the right time’.

I read an article dubbed “CRM: Four Dirty Little Secrets of Marketing Automation“. In summary they are:

A Marketing Automation system is of no use without content
Marketing Automation joins Marketing with Sales
Integration is Effectiveness
Scoring needs tuning

These are all good points. Marketing Automation requires some thought, it needs you to work out when a survey question is asked, when a paper or email gets sent and when a telemarketing call is appropriate.

Leads and CRM

Marketing automation is a catalyst for sales and marketing folk to sit down and have a conversation about what is considered a lead and what is not. Its important that the leads system is integrated so that the sales staff can seamlessly pick up the conversation with the lead in a timely fashion.

Lead scoring is an important way to identify which leads to hand-over and which to continue to nurture. But its not set in stone, it needs to be adapted to events and circumstances eg a new sales team needs to ramp up opportunities, so leads that are fully qualified may be handed over.

PS – this website is run upon a Marketing Automation platform and happy to discuss with you which one(not hard to work out) and why content is so important.

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Filed Under: CRM News and Views, Marketing

How CRM Helps Marketing 2

November 24, 2010 By leighton Leave a Comment

In a recent post I noted how CRM could underpin and help a marketing department achieve its objectives. In this post I will look at where companies are intending to invest their budgets. It comes out of Marketing Sherpa and looks at 11 categories of spend.

In my opinion, 9 out of the 11 categories of spend would be enhanced by using a CRM( and possibly some Marketing Automation) system.

I don’t see a CRM really helping in PR and Print Advertising. I have split PR from Social Media as the following chart does, because the CRM can help you measure your Social Media performance.

Thoughts or comments?

Download our Social CRM Guidebook and discover how Social CRM can help you engage with your customers and know what they are saying about you.

How CRM helps Marketing

November 22, 2010 By leighton 1 Comment

Customer Relationship Systems(CRM) help three key groups in a business – Sales, Marketing and Service.

In a previous article we looked at the Sales Productivity Benefits of CRM. This article looks at the way Marketing can meet its objectives using a CRM.

A CRM system is a fundamental platform to help a company achieve their key objectives. Without a CRM most of these are a ‘pipe-dream’.

Download the CRM Checklist now and clarify the reasons you need CRM To ensure you find a successful solution that includes Marketing features you need.

In fact, only the second objective “Increasing Brand Awareness” does not fundamentally rely on a CRM.

Do you agree or disagree?

Filed Under: CRM News and Views, Marketing Tagged With: Marketing

Marketing CRM – Airline Loyalty Systems

November 2, 2010 By leighton Leave a Comment

Customer Relationship Management systems can be deployed in many ways – one that came to mind recently was in the example of an airline Loyalty Programme that we discussed with a CRM implementor. This is an example where the CRM system is used purely as a “User Interface”(UI) to a transaction system. Read our Do you Need CRM Guidebook for more examples of where CRM may be used.

The loyalty transaction system will track customer flight usage, calculate their air miles, manage the free flight allowance, the status(gold, solver, bronze etc) and the mailout of monthly activity reports. Too manage in and outbound phone calls at their service centre the company looked to buying an off the shelf CRM system, rather than trying to develop their own. So the CRM system just takes a data feed from the loyalty system and displays it – with call centre functionality being provided by the CRM.

A similar example was the Sales Key Account Management article- where the detailed strategy and processing was done elsewhere and the results were published in the CRM.

CRM systems are often used as a front-end to other systems, be they ERP, Supply Chain, Manufacturing or Logistics systems – in most cases what they are trying to do is provide information pulled from a number of systems together in one place.

Download our Do you Need CRM and our CRM buying guide and find the right CRM solution and vendor for your business now!

Filed Under: CRM News and Views, Marketing Tagged With: crm loyalty, loyalty, Marketing

June 7, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

CRM systems when used well can help marketing departments prove their value to the business. Some types of marketing such as advertising provide only vague returns, as its hard to measure who bought your product from a newspaper advert. However, by using a CRM and sending out an email or a brochure you are able to measure who bought products – and so measure how much revenue was generated.

CRM can simplify marketing processes and drive customer. CRM functionality enhances management of marketing resources, segments and lists, campaigns, leads, trade promotions, and marketing analytics.

The benefits