When it comes to marketing, successful business owners understand the importance of efficiency. Employees need to work productively, processes need to be streamlined, and everyday operations need to be effectively managed across the board. Unfortunately, making all that happen on your own can be a Herculean task – but with CRM software, it’s not only possible, but down right easy.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a business resource designed to make the customer experience easier from everyone’s perspective. Through automation and organization, this helpful tool can make everything from customer service to marketing faster, better, and more efficient.

If you aren’t familiar with CRM software, we understand that a little hesitation is normal, particularly when it comes to installing new software at your business. That’s why we’re going to walk you through exactly how you can use CRM software to improve your business, and why it’s important for your long-term success.

Why You Should Use CRM Software for Your Marketing

As any good marketer knows, one of the most important aspects of effectively marketing your business is knowing – and more importantly, understanding – your customers. Truthfully, that’s exactly what CRM software is designed to do. It creates a clear, actionable picture of what your customers are up to, tracking the sales journey from entry to purchase, from person to person. In doing so, it generates highly valuable data about your customers.

Speaking of concrete data, most CRM software providers offer some serious analytic tools that can help you notably improve your business. You’ll be able to see exactly what’s going wrong and make changes, and even better, what’s going right to solidify best practice down the road. After all, the more you know the better, and CRM software is designed to give you as much information as possible.

While information is important, you can’t underestimate the importance of following through with some action. CRM software is built to handle a wide range of marketing tasks, particularly when it comes to email marketing. Simply by installing CRM software, you’re taking a huge step towards improving your marketing efforts – and honestly, that’s half the battle. 

How to Use CRM Software for Your Marketing

Now that you’ve heard about all the grandiose ways in which CRM can transform your business, let’s go over a few specific functions that the software can perform, so you know we aren’t pulling your leg.

For starters, one of its main purposes is to comprehensively track customer interactions across your entire company history. It creates informative customer profiles that document conversions, bounce rates, customer support requests, abandoned carts, and everything in between. You’ll even be able to identify top purchasers, so you can nurture the relationship through special offers and deals.

Once you’ve got all this information locked and loaded, taking action is made even easier with CRM software – particularly when it comes to email marketing. Not only can you schedule campaigns through third party integrations, but you’ll also be able to personalize emails so customers feel appreciated. Plus, with segmentation features, CRM allows you to specifically divvy up your email list into sections, based on everything from age to geographic location. And considering some studies show an increase in revenue of up to 760% when segmentation is implemented, it’s safe to say it’s at least worth a try.

Great marketers know that email marketing isn’t just a one way street. While reaching out to your customers to provide them with information is certainly a valuable strategy, asking them to provide feedback on their experience is integral in appreciating your customers. 

Not only that, but customer feedback is the perfect information set when it comes to your customers, as you’re gaining actionable insights from your client base about what’s working and what’s not. Honestly, if you aren’t taking advantage of customer feedback as free research, you’re leaving an excellent resource on the table – one that your rivals could well be using.

Conclusion

Obviously you could run your business without CRM software, but why would you want to? With all the built-in features, the analytic tools, the reasonable pricing options, and the inherent improvements to customer experience, this resource could make a huge difference for your business, no matter how you’re doing right now. That’s why 91% of businesses today with more than 11 employees rely on CRM software to lighten the load. Now it’s your turn.

The first step towards giving CRM software a try is finding the right one. Many providers offer different features, functionalities, and integrations, so doing a bit of research ahead of time can save you a serious headache in the future. Because if you aren’t working towards an easier, cheaper, more efficient marketing strategy, then why are you in the business in the first place?