3 Reasons Why CRM Makes Your Customer a Smarter Marketer

​Dear Bob,
 
What is the best way my customers can use CRM to be better Marketers? 
 
- Jane
​

Dear Jane,
 
It’s not hard to see why CRM data, made up of customers, prospects and influencers is the most important marketing asset. After all, how can a marketer be successful without the right data? And how can a marketer discover or fine tune a message without insight into behaviors and their service needs? But, keeping this data organized, current, and easily accessible for every relevant team member, throughout an organization, can still be a massive challenge.
 
A versatile, robust CRM system is still the best way to store, manage, and use critical customer data for sales AND marketing. However, many marketers who invest in a CRM system fail to fully capitalize on its marketing value.

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​Why? Because, they fall into the same trap many others struggling with their CRM do - getting the most out of your CRM solution, regardless of your department, requires defining your expected business value from the platform, changing internal behaviors and processes to match that goal, and seeing the whole effort as an on-going journey, not only a one-time, investment.
 
So, why should marketers buy in and make such a strong investment in CRM?
 
Here are 3 of the 10 compelling benefits covered in our whitepaper Using Your CRM System for Smarter Marketing:
 
1. Customer Segmentation for Targeted Marketing
 
Streamlined data on your CRM system can help you classify customers into groups by many different criteria, such as title, industry, size, or location.
Once you’ve grouped customers into defined segments with shared characteristics, you can develop communications and marketing plans tailored to each segment and create customized communication and marketing queues. This enables you to deliver relevant, high-value content targeted to the interests of each segment.
 
2. Cross-selling and Upselling Opportunities
 
Create data-backed sales and marketing plans to upsell and cross-sell products and services to existing customers based on their profiles, behavior, or interests.
 
Segmented data that identifies your best customers using CLV and appended ERP sales data gives you the ability to know what products a customer is not purchasing and what their expected wallet share for a product should be. You can use your CRM system to determine and display the expected customer goal for each product. This information can empower your sales team to take action.
 
3. Behavior-based Marketing = High Conversion Rate
 
With an optimized CRM system in place, you can track customer behavior, such as opened emails or website visits, and send highly relevant marketing messages triggered by, or related to, an action, such as a whitepaper or invitation to a webinar.
 
This extremely focused, real-time approach often yields higher response. These behaviors can be scored and when a total score hits your desired interest level, a phone call activity can be created in CRM to let the account manager know it’s time to contact the customer.
 
When a CRM platform is optimized for marketing you have a stronger foundation for better ROI and a solid potential for growth. But, it all starts with a commitment to improving processes and better management of the data you start with.
 
To learn more, and to discover the 7 other benefits we identified for marketers when they invest in a CRM system, download the whitepaper below.