CRM and inbound marketing are critical to overall operational success. And when combined in the right manner, they can greatly maximize your marketing and customer service efforts. This is especially true for companies that are already recognizing success from the use of a CRM system. Here's a closer look at CRM and inbound marketing and how you can mix the two to take your company to the next level.
Can I Use Inbound Marketing Without a CRM?
Of course. You can implement a variety of inbound marketing tactics -- SEO, social media, email, etc. -- without the use of a CRM. All of these efforts can greatly increase your brand awareness as well as help you establish a positive brand identity.
Can I Use a CRM System Without Inbound Marketing?
Just the same as you can use inbound marketing without a CRM, you can easily use a CRM without inbound marketing, as well. The entire purpose behind using a CRM is to better manage your customer relationships; there is no requirement for inbound marketing.
The Unique Combination of CRM and Inbound Marketing
When inbound marketing is combined with a CRM, you essentially create a closed-loop marketing system. This leads to a better overview of what is and is not working. It also allows you to better target your ads toward the appropriate customer segments. The reports that can be developed from combining the two will provide detailed data, allowing you to pinpoint which channels are making you money and which ones aren't. In relation to your inbound marketing efforts, you can identify which methods to invest more money in.
To put it simply, you gain a holistic view of your marketing and customer relationship efforts when combining CRM with inbound marketing. It becomes possible to not only provide content to your customers via an assortment of outlets, but you can also see which pieces of content are performing the best. This allows you to create content that converts prospective customers into real customers.
Now that you know what the benefits are, here's a look at how these benefits are gained:
For starters, when you combine CRM with inbound marketing, you are provided with a centralized database that can be customized to meet your company's specific needs. Unlike storing customer information across a variety of platforms -- spreadsheets, Word programs, notepads, etc. -- a centralized database ensures that no customer falls through the cracks. Even better is that you can easily share information between pertinent staff members, which helps everyone to have access to the right content at the right time.
At Marketing Essentials we use HubSpot as our CRM, which gives us the ability to have all interactions logged automatically. By integrating email and browser information with the CRM, it tracks every interaction that staff members and online content has with prospects. It's also through HubSpot that the Marketing Essentials team is able to reduce the time spent on researching prospects. Instead, the HubSpot CRM does the research itself. In fact, this CRM crawls the Internet and keeps a live database of information on more than 13M companies.
