IMAGINE BEING ABLE TO SEND CUSTOMERS PERSON- alized marketing messages they want to receive— about products they genuinely care about. Market- ing automation captures interactions; tracks and re- sponds to customers’ activities, actions, or page views as they happen; and deliv- ers customized content. But its real power is seg- menting audiences, leveraging data, and personalizing content to move customers toward a purchase. The best part? Once it’s set up, it’s automatic. Customer relations management (CRM) software creates, man- ages, organizes, tracks, and stores all customer interactions. The data- base can include cus- tomer data, customer interactions, purchases, payments, credits, notes from sales calls, and more. What does it do? • It helps marketing create targeted promo- tional material that increases the likelihood of a sale and builds goodwill. • It tracks a cus- tomer’s journey with the company to cus- tomize and personalize conversations. • It shows salespeo- ple where a customer is in the sales process. • It syncs with social media to track which platforms generate the most traffic and what people say about the company. • It sends alerts to salespeople when a customer places an order, visits the website, or otherwise interacts with the company. Marketing automa- tion uses the same in- formation or interacts with a company’s CRM, ERP, or other software to streamline, auto- mate, and measure email campaigns. What does it do? • It segments prospects by their past interactions, interests, or preferences. • It schedules and tracks marketing campaigns. • It scores data to deliver sales-ready leads to the sales team. • It automatically sends personalized, trackable emails when a prospect is interested. • It generates analyt- ics to measure a cam- paign’s success. • It keeps the com- pany top of mind through scheduled “drip” campaigns. Although CRM and marketing automation look similar, they per- form different roles. Many marketing auto- mation systems sync
MULTIPLY MARKETING EFFORTS
Customer relations management combined with marketing automation helps marketers
identify, target, acquire, and retain the best mix of customers. by Katrina Olson
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