Marketing automation is one of the core functions that form the very basis of CRM. By itself, marketing automation has been one of the foremost technologies that have pretty taken over and shaped the way the world responds to brands online.
When you look at the digital scheme of things today, there is probably not a single brand or business that is not conducting aggressive measures to ensure that the brand has a standing and an engaging presence online. But if you are a business owner – especially a small business owner – you must have tried manually engaging in marketing campaigns, and you must have found that it is almost next to impossible to show consistent efforts in keeping yourself visible on all platforms like social media and blogs. So how are companies and even small businesses doing this with limited resources and even more limited bandwidth?
The answer is marketing automation. There are a number of marketing automation softwares in the market that hold the answer to all your marketing problems – and then some. With these marketing automation softwares and systems, you can evenly spread your efforts and rely on automated tasks that will do the trick when it comes to publishing posts, generating leads, nurturing them, and finally engaging with your core audience enough to close a sale and make a conversion.
Before we get into a discussion about what marketing automation is and how it can help businesses, there is something known as CRM or customer relationship management which has been closely associated with marketing automation. This also holds the key for marketing automation efficiency in many ways.
To understand CRM, what we must understand is that marketing in general and its automation in particular, depend largely on the way information is stored, collected, called up and used in order to drive the brand message home and get a precious conversion with a seamless ride along the sales pipeline.
A CRM system or a CRM software is one that helps you set the sales pipeline for your team so that you can be hands-free and concentrate on engaging with your core audience with all the right information in the right place, established within a framework that helps you make the most of it as the functions are called up. No wonder it has been seen that in recent times, CRM and marketing automation has been closely involved for business success.
Hence, as you can see, there are many sides to the marketing automation software. And CRM is one of the most important sides which is why the newly evolved CRM Softwares come with a generous side of marketing automation as well. One major example of marketing automation within CRM software would be email marketing automation which is major revenue generating vertical that can benefit both the CRM company as well as the customers and the businesses too. So how exactly can CRM take marketing automation to the next level? Here are our seven tips that can help you understand.
Gain Productivity:
One of the biggest benefits of marrying CRM with your marketing automation software would be increased productivity. Imagine having the time to actually concentrate on all the tasks that take up a massive share of your time. Imagine these tasks to be mundane and monotonous, filled with an utter lack of creativity.
This is something that sucks out the productivity from a lot of teams and their members. Yet, when you combine email marketing automation with CRM or even bring in a CRM platform that has marketing automation features, you are investing in a measure that will free up your bandwidth and allow you to actually concentrate on core tasks like engaging your core audience.
Cost Efficiency:
With a CRM platform that also has marketing automation, you can be sure that you will see a drastic cut in costs due to the fact that the small team that you have can now handle all the tasks thanks to automation and all the information on the CRM software. These two aspects will come together in a winning combination that eliminates the need for more manpower in these varied areas of functionality.
Time:
One of the best things that marketing automation combined with CRM can do for you is give you the gift of time. You will be awarded with a lot of time to do exactly what you need to do versus what you had to do manually before the information on the CRM platform was combined with the marketing automation software and its functions.
Unified Approach:
When you bring in a CRM system that also has marketing automation software to further power it, what you are doing is that you are putting all your tasks, functions, strategies, and processes in one place. This does not merely give you higher productivity and more time, but it also gives you a unified approach that can help you reach your audience and then pursue leads and service your customers – all in one neat and professional shot.
Sales and Service:
When you combine the marketing automation software with the CRM software, you can be assured that the sales and service will also get unified which essentially lowers your cost since you do not need to have two separate teams for these functions.
Email Marketing Automation:
This is an important function that also requires CRM so that it is completely effective and does the job of bringing information together with a marketing push. This is also one of the foremost ways of engaging people so that they sit up and take notice of your brand – and for your brand to remain in their inbox that much longer.
Greater Conversions:
A love all, with higher productivity and with greater engagement, as well as the better bandwidth, the sales and marketing teams will be able to get better conversions rates in a smoother and more seamless manner thanks to the combination of marketing automation and CRM.
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