Customer Relationship Management and Its Role In Marketing

Marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) go hand in hand.

An important metric for success within the digital marketing industry is how well a business can manage its relationships with its customers. Most companies tend to accomplish CRM by implementing IT systems that address the problems of dealing with customers through day-to-day follow-ups.

CRM is applying technology, web services, web marketing and other tools to learn more about what customers need and their behaviours to develop deeper, more meaningful relationships.

This blog will focus on how customer relationship management is necessary for optimal marketing strategies and how companies can implement them successfully.

Importance and benefits of Customer Relationship Management

In the business world, the importance of retaining customers and expanding your current consumer base is invaluable. There tends to be costs associated with finding new customers, turning every single customer a business obtains into a valuable asset.

The more instances your customers interact with a brand, the better. A way to achieve this is to open channels of communication and sales channels—online sales, agents, franchises, etc.

However, the more you expand your channels, the greater your need for customer relationship management.

CRM helps businesses to gain valuable insight into their customers’ behaviour and tendencies, allowing them to modify their operations to ensure their clientele is satisfied. In short, CRM helps a business capitalize on improving its relationship with its clients.

The more responsive you appear to your customers, the more responsive you’ll be to their needs, which in turn will make them more responsive to your brand.

Good CRM consists of finding out about your customers’ habits, opinions and preferences and separating and profiling your customers into groups to market your products more effectively. You also need to become more responsive to them by changing the way you operate.

CRM is not just using the right tools and software but also adapting your business to the customer’s needs.

How to Implement CRM in your marketing strategies

Implementing CRM solutions is best when viewed as a step-by-step approach. Going from collecting information about customers to improving marketing and CRM can all be accomplished in a couple of easy steps.

Step 1: Collecting and storing client information
Capturing the information needed to identify customers and categorize them by behaviour and preferences is vital. Businesses with a website and online customer services can do this easily as customers that go into their sites enter their details when they buy, subscribe to a newsletter, or create an account.

To store information correctly, a business must establish a centralized customer database that will allow it to operate all of its systems from a single information source. This will ensure that all customer information across all of your platforms is up to date.

Step 2: Accessing information to evaluate customer behaviour
Here’s where businesses dive into their collected information and make it available to their staff in an easy-to-understand format.

Using spreadsheet programs to identify patterns, a business can profile its customers to develop accurate marketing strategies.

Many businesses usually find out that a small percentage of their customers generate a high percentage of their income. Using CRM information to better understand their needs will allow companies to reorient their strategies to target and reward their most valuable customers.

However, there is an opposite trend when it comes to customer experience. Just as there is a small group of profitable customers, a small number of clients who complain can snatch away a significant amount of time. If their problems or concerns can be easily identified and resolved using data, that means more time to attend to other customers.

Step 3: Enhance your strategies and market more effectively
Once all the information is gathered, companies implement different strategies to boost their CRM.

Let’s look at two of the most common strategies companies use to implement CRM into their marketing strategies. These could be a whole other blog topic by themselves, so the information here will be brief.

1) Targeted Ads
Target advertising is a form of advertising targeted towards an audience with specific traits. Here, companies use their information to segment their key audiences and craft ad campaigns that speak to their customers’ needs.

Their segmentation can go from general traits like age or gender to specific attributes like lifestyle, profession or interest.

For example, a general clothing store may target their ads depending on the article of clothing they want to promote. They would target general sportswear to all their customers but aim for their female-centred audience when selling leggings.

2) Email Marketing
Email in a company’s marketing strategies is mostly used to promote a business’s products or services while incentivizing customer loyalty. Here’s where customer behaviour trends come into play.

Do customers leave the website right before buying? Crafting a follow-up email campaign that uses their cart information with special one-time promotions or client discounts might ensure they complete their purchases.

Do customers inquire about the same types of products not being available? Sending an email blast to let them know it’s back in stock will prove beneficial to a company’s sales.

While many consider emails to be an old-school method of client communication, it is still one of the most effective strategies available.

Contact Mrkt360 discuss Customer Relationship Management (CRM) requirements, targeted ads, web services, web marketing, email marketing, or any other effective strategies. We offer complete SEO services for businesses to grow and thrive online.