CRM and email marketing work perfectly together. If you want to generate more sales and improve the overall customer experience, this strategy is for you. It’s almost as if CRM (Customer Relationship Management) was created specifically to allow email marketing to shine. Let us explain.
In the early stages of digital, there was a common problem among businesses. When developing email marketing strategies, it was impossible to personalise and automate the process. Then, CRM software came along. Now it is one of the fastest growing industries, projected to grow by 14% between 2021 and 2027 as more and more businesses adopt the technology.
In this article, we will take a look at the benefits of integrating CRM and email marketing. By the end of this read, you’ll know how to combine these two marketing strategies to take advantage of this powerful partnership.
How can CRM Improve your Email Marketing Strategies?
Email marketing enables businesses to efficiently interact and communicate with their customers electronically. And you can now optimise email marketing with tools like CRM software.
But what exactly is CRM? Well, that is two-fold.
Firstly, CRM is a marketing term known as Customer Relationship Management. This is a relationship marketing strategy businesses can use to build and maintain relationships with prospective and existing customers.
On the other hand, CRM also refers to the technology that enables businesses to nurture and analyse customer relationships. A CRM streamlines business operations, such as sales, marketing, customer service and accounting. Essentially it is a centralised database that allows you to manage and analyse customer information and intelligence.
Nothing is left out of CRM systems from sales and contact management to productivity and customer support. So, it is obvious that CRM and email marketing, when combined, become very powerful for businesses. By integrating CRM with email marketing, you can:
- Optimise your sales opportunities based on specific customer data
- Optimise your marketing communications by using specific customer data
- Create personalised customer journeys
- Automate email workflows with pre-built templates
The great thing about CRM in email marketing is that it can be used for pre-transaction and post-transaction emails.
| Email Type | Timeframe | Common Uses |
| Pre-transaction email | Inform the customer (prior to the purchase) | Reminder emails, storytelling, sponsorship emails, lead nurturing emails |
| Post-transaction email | Create loyal customers (after the purchase) | Follow-up emails (welcome emails, transactional emails, newsletters, re-engagement emails, product/subscription extensions) |
Pre-transaction vs post-transaction emails
6 Ways to Integrate CRM With Email Marketing
Now that we have figured out why businesses integrate CRM with email marketing, let us take a look at how to actually do it. There are 6 key ways to use CRM to enhance your email marketing strategies.
1. Utilise Third-party Software
There are many CRM-based tools on the market. Most CRM software has pre-made email templates and allows you to create detailed user personas, as well as fully automate your email marketing campaigns. Best of all, you do not need any programming skills to use this type of CRM software.
Although there are many CRM systems on the market, we have found that the most reliable and powerful ones are:
Of course, you do need the right personnel to fully exploit the possibilities of such CRM software and we don’t recommend setting it up in-house without the right IT resources. Most businesses need to outsource the set-up of their CRM, as well as engage a professional marketing consultant to devise the most effective email marketing strategies and tactics.
2. Personalise your Email Marketing
If you use any of the above tools, you will be able to personalise emails. Personalisation is one of the reasons why email marketing is considered more efficient than social media, especially when it comes to ROI. It allows you to deliver targeted marketing messages that appear one-to-one.
With CRM, you have the ability to collect customer data from multiple channels and create individualised content. Data and analytics provide useful insights into the needs, interests and preferences of customers, so messages remain relevant. This is simply the best way to convert sales, but also to engage customers and build their trust.
3. Boost Lead Nurturing
Let us first define what Lead Nurturing is. Simply put, lead nurturing is a tactic that marketers use to help customers move from thinking about buying a product or service to actually buying it.
In the buyer journey, the customer moves from the awareness phase to the consideration phase to the decision phase. Email marketing can be used to help customers make a purchasing decision. It can also be used in the post-purchase phase to increase customer satisfaction.
4. Automate your Email Campaigns
Marketing automation is another way CRM and email marketing work together. With a CRM system, you can use pre-built email templates and data to organise customer interactions and communication. It makes setting up reminder emails, email sequences and newsletters very easy.
Communications can now be based on data collected from previous customer interactions, such as product inquiries, previous purchases and more. Not only can CRMs personalise the emails you send, but they can also send trigger-based email flows automatically based on customer behaviour.
By taking the manual work out of setting up and sending emails, CRM has dramatically improved the efficiency of marketing communications, thus saving businesses time and money.
5. Use CRM Data and Analytics
The power of analytics cannot be underestimated. With the right CRM software, you have access to valuable data that can improve operations.
Data and analytics can help inform management decision-making. For a start, you can determine which communications approaches are working and which are not. And the right adjustments to customer service can improve customer retention measurably.
Also, analysing customer data can help identify the best sales opportunities and improve business productivity.
6. Detect Upsell Opportunities
Last but not least, combining email marketing and CRM helps you nurture existing customers. Although generating new leads is important, repeat purchasing is the best way to increase revenue.
Focusing on customer lifetime value is a smart way to grow your business. This is because acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining one. Increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profitability by 25-95%.
In addition, word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to generate new sales. But to do this you must turn loyal customers into advocates that will recommend your products or services to others. Combining email marketing, CRM and referral marketing is the best way to encourage and incentivise such referrals.
Wrap Up
This article explored how important it is for businesses to use CRM and email marketing strategies. If you want to improve your customer management systems, automate and personalise your emails, and find new upsell opportunities, this is the best way to do it.
In summary, combining CRM and email marketing has a host of benefits that include:
- Stronger business-customer relationships
- Increased sales and revenue
- Improved customer lifetime value
- Meaningful data and analytics
- Greater productivity and efficiency
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from CRM and email marketing. Hiring a professional consultant who has the essential marketing skills will help you combine these strategies to your advantage.