Believe it or not, there is a distinct difference in CRM marketing and automation. Surprised? That’s ok. While they appear to be similar, they actually serve different purposes.
A marketing campaign generates leads, while CRM turns those leads into customers. The reason the two often get confused as the same thing is that they both work to increase conversion rates.
When choosing the best tools for your company, understanding this difference is critical. Read on to learn the ins and outs of CRM marketing and automation marketing to make the right choice.
CRM Marketing
The sales and services team use CRM software to cultivate leads into customers. They do this by using data about the leads and customers stored in the software program.
The data stored includes how long a customer has been with your company, their sale history, and their birthday.
CRM helps with bad customer reviews and keeping track of current customers. The sales team can use CRM to create personalized emails targeting current customers.
A big benefit to CRM is the ability to see where in the sales process the customer is. This allows the sales team to close the deal with a full picture of the customer and where the hangup might be for them.
And there’s the all-important analytics. CRM provides information for forecasting sales and can sync with social media outlets. This shows where most of your traffic is coming from as well as what people are saying.
It’s no surprise when seeing it this way that CRM has increased to a $39.5 billion market in 2017.
Automation Marketing
Automation marketing is currently used by 42% of all companies, not trailing that far behind CRM’s at 54%.
The purpose of automation marketing is to generate leads to transfer to your sales teams. It’s all about outbound marketing.
Marketing automation software is also concerned with the amount spent on marketing. It allows you to see which campaigns are most effective at bringing in traffic and being cost effective. When a campaign ends the program generates analytics showing the effectiveness of that campaign.
With marketing automation, you can place prospective customers into mailing lists based on interests or preferences. This helps in fostering leads and getting them ready to transfer to your sales team for closing.
Integrated CRM Marketing
While the two serve different purposes, you can integrate them together. Integrating CRM with marketing automation creates a personalized customer experience. Plus, it connects your sales and management teams.
The marketing automation software allows for generating and attracting leads. Transfer those leads into the CRM marketing software and they’re now ready for the sales team. The sales team can use the information gathered and input into the CRM to close the sale and update the data. Using that information will help your sales team win new business and turn those contacts into a repeat customer.
And the best yet, it doesn’t increase cost, only benefit and ability to bring in more customers and clients. For a free demo of the benefits of integrated CRM and CRM software contact us today!