(Art credit: Kathryn Sheldon)

A few weeks ago, we discussed the importance of knowing what a CRM system is and how you can pair it with your email marketing to make the best of both functions.

Today, we'll do a deep dive into the benefits and features of CRM email marketing, and inspire you to get started on optimizing your email and CRM function. Keep reading to find out more!

Benefits of integrating CRM and email

Let’s take a look at some of the main benefits that come with integrating CRM and email. Some of these might be more helpful depending on what kind of small business you run and whether you have a dedicated sales and marketing team.

Centralized Database

With CRM software, all relevant customer data is stored in a single location. This makes it much easier for anyone in your organization to access it whenever they require it. Important trends and patterns also become more evident when large amounts of data are stored and viewed holistically.

Integration with Marketing Channels

A good CRM software is usually integrated with marketing channels and tools, allowing you to use the stored data and customer insights in actual tasks.

See the Big Picture

When all the data is in one place, it’s easier to see what’s working, why it works, and what needs improvement. You can also try out new strategies and see how they work in a more holistic view.

Targeted Campaigns

No more generic blanket campaigns. Now that you have customer information and contact details, coupled neatly with the individual customer data, you can begin focusing your campaigns on specific audiences for better results. This is one of the main benefits of small businesses coupling a CRM software with an email marketing tool.

Important features of CRM email marketing

There are several important features that CRM email marketing presents. Some of these are:

Lead Nurturing

To nurture a lead essentially means you develop and work on your relationship with your customer through their journey, at every stage in the sales funnel. No matter where you source your leads, this ensures you develop an actual relationship with your customer base and generates loyalty down the line.

Automation

A good CRM software will allow you to automate things like lead scoring as well as several other tasks that involve customer data. A good sales management tool with powerful marketing automation allows you to free up your time to do more important work. You no longer have to manually complete tasks.

Bulk Email

A good email marketing tool will allow you to send out mass emails with a single click. This saves you hours of time.

Note, however, that this is only for emails that have information that everyone needs to see, like a seasonal sale or discount. You don’t want to be sending out mass emails all the time, instead, you want to be personalizing and picking specific customers from your target audience.

Engagement Tracking

Don't waste your time on a strategy that isn’t working. By tracking engagement, you can see how many people are clicking your links and opening your mails, and decide accordingly if your strategy is working.

Drip Campaigns

You ideally want to set up automated emails that get sent out to your customers based on certain triggers, which can be actions they perform. For example, if they were about to buy something but left the store, you can remind them that their cart is waiting for them via email.

Analytics

You want a steady stream of customer data coming in at all times. Your marketing channels or campaigns should be decided on customer information. As small businesses have smaller budgets, you need to ensure that you’re making more data-driven decisions and focusing on the right marketing channels.

How to combine CRM and email marketing

The oldest and most tried-and-tested way of combining CRM and email marketing is by importing all the data you have on your customers and then setting up an automated email marketing campaign based on the data and information you have collected.

After this, you can segment and optimize your emails with more personalization added in for better results. When you’re collecting high volumes of data, you need to be categorizing and storing it efficiently and segmenting.

By combining CRM with email marketing, you essentially are giving yourself a recipe for success because you’re boosting your chances of making a serious impact on your customers with your emails.

It’s worth considering taking the time to integrate third-party apps into your emails so that you can embed email forms and other social media features into the already personalized emails you’re sending out to your clients.

Create and Nurture Lifelong Customer Relationships

By now, you know all the benefits of combining CRM tools with email marketing. To put into perspective why you want to be building and maintaining lifelong relationships with customers, remember one little statistic.

It’s about 5 to 25 times more expensive - depending on your industry - to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.

When you look at things from this point of view, it’s a no-brainer. You want to be doing everything in your power to retain the existing customers you have and make them lifelong loyal customers.

Combining an email marketing tool with your CRM tool is a great way to make the process easier. Not only will it allow for marketing automation, optimization, and using your email as a CRM repository, it will also save huge amounts of time for you as a business that you can use to double down on areas that help you stay ahead of the competition.

At the end of the day, you need to be doing everything in your power to grow and add value, and this is the first and most important step.