CRM and marketing automation are part of this new reality, managing web marketing and simplifying business work. The internet sales process is an entirely different world from physical stores.
With more advanced instruments that dispense with spreadsheets and excess paper, it is possible to centralize all information about your company and consumers within one system.
What Are Marketing Automation And CRM?
If you work in the sales and marketing area of a company, chances are these two names are often mentioned. These are two fundamental strategies for any business, considering that they complement each other in their functioning and help develop a company.
If you don’t know the distinction between CRM and marketing automation, we’ll explain them separately, so you understand the importance of always going together.
Marketing Automation
First, marketing automation refers to the procedures performed by the team that manages this department. This work methodology includes sending email marketing, SMS and even automatic messages on WhatsApp.
It is a standard process in a company’s sales strategies. Imagine that you created a landing page to promote a webinar. When the user registers for this event, the entrepreneur automatically uses the information to send communications through the various available channels.
CRM
CRM is often confused with marketing automation, as it uses user information in its work process. However, his role is different. Instead of the sales team, which works with the CRM strategy, doing the marketing management (as many people associate), it just uses the users’ information to maintain the relationship with them.
In the example we gave above, the CRM only uses this data to survey what this consumer is looking for, what their intentions are with the webinar offered, and other surveys that can help in the relationship between customer and company.
Why Integrate CRM And Marketing Automation?
So far, we understand that CRM and marketing automation are two different processes. However, it is essential to note that both work with the same audience and can come together to simplify the company’s internal process. Therefore, we have separated the main reasons to integrate these two areas, given the optimizations that can occur within a business.
Easier Access To Data
Since both teams work with the same audience, data access becomes more accessible. While CRM has the information necessary to maintain the relationship directly with the user, if these two areas are integrated, marketing automation takes advantage of this data, and better understands the persona it is dealing with. This is a way to optimize processes and plan with more effective strategies that go through both teams and are approved by all parties.
Improved Customer Relationship
With the union of this duo, it becomes easier to build a successful relationship with the customer and complete the sale. CRM can pass on user information, helping marketing managers understand the target audience and vice versa.
This communication between areas, in addition to facilitating the marketing automation process (since it can see even better the personality of its audience), helps the CRM better understand what a lead’s preferences are and what they are looking for in the company.
Greater Sync Between Teams
Undoubtedly, this is the most crucial point: even though teams perform different services, they use standard information about consumers. The CRM and marketing automation teams must be in sync to obtain expressive results.
The whole business will undoubtedly be affected if any service is out of tune and breaks this fluidity. Therefore, maintaining a healthy relationship with this union facilitates the management process and even increases the number of sales of a company.
Greater Visibility Into Customer Behavior
Finally, and as a consequence of these optimizations, both teams will have greater visibility into customer behavior and will create effective strategies based on this monitoring.
This union is essential mainly for the marketing area, given that it will absorb even more consumer information through CRM and improve this relationship with the other team.
What Are The Advantages Of Integrating CRM And Marketing Automation?
Now that we understand the primary motivations for integrating CRM software with marketing automation, we need to take advantage of this relationship for a company. Grab a pen and paper, as the information below will make you want to join these two teams today and not waste more time on outdated strategies.
Increase In Sales
The first advantage a company acquires by combining CRM and marketing automation is increased sales. As teams delve even deeper into user relationships and information, each area can create more effective strategies that bring results.
Imagine that you sell men’s clothing. CRM found that the largest audience is young people between 25 and 35 years old and that they like extreme sports. Marketing automation uses this data to create a persona and study what other likes complement this information.
From this, you can create more personalized communication, which usually makes the lead feel even more represented by the product and is likely to make the purchase.
Reduction Of Duplicate Actions
The union between the two areas reduces the occurrence of duplicate actions. Often, due to the distance between teams within the company, there were errors in communication and consequent repetition of services.
A typical situation, for example, is the creation of the persona by the marketing team and the one that works with CRM management. This process is often performed twice, giving employees more work and causing them to develop unnecessary projects.
Greater Productivity
In short, this combination generates what the entrepreneur wants most for his company: productivity. With the partnership between CRM and marketing automation, in addition to simplifying several processes previously performed manually, teams are more willing (since it reduces work and errors), generating an increase in participation.
Therefore, adopting measures that unite teams and integrate systems is not just a way to update yourself in the face of new technologies but to invest so that your employees produce more and bring positive results to the business.
