Why is CRM an Essential Part of Modern Marketing Strategy
As the customer purchasing process and the associated customer acquisition process become more digitalized, CRM is now increasingly being used in the marketing strategies of large corporations, small and medium-sized companies, and venture businesses. "What is CRM?" "What are the benefits of implementing CRM, and how does it relate to marketing?" These are just a few of the questions that may arise. This article will explain why CRM is essential to modern marketing strategies, including advantages and disadvantages.
Table of contents:
- The meaning and role of CRM systems and CRM strategies
- Advantages of implementing CRM for marketing
- Advantage 1: Integrated management of customer contacts
- Advantage 2: Able to accumulate customer data
- Advantage 3: Tasks can be automated and become more efficient
- Disadvantages of CRM
- Disadvantage 1: Security concerns due to centralization of data
- Disadvantage 2: Initial cost of implementation
- Disadvantage 3: Established sales process is required
- Summary
The meaning and role of CRM systems and CRM strategies
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.
With the CRM implementation, it has become indispensable for strengthening the relationships with customers and prospects that we have been doing so far and maintaining the environment we have built.
Until now, customer information used to be stored in a document-based format, but with the implementation of CRM, it is possible to view managed and organized data, allowing you to work more efficiently.
By visualizing and managing customer and prospect data, you will be able to respond appropriately to and sell to prospects so that you can achieve more results than ever before.
Also, I will explain the specific advantages and disadvantages below.
Marketing benefits of CRM implementation
The marketing benefits of implementing CRM are as follows:
- Manage customer contacts in an integrated way
- Accumulate customer data
- Automate tasks and become more efficient.
Let's start with the first one and explain it in detail.
Advantage 1: Integrated management of customer contacts
By implementing CRM, you can manage unorganized customer contacts in an integrated way.
Before implementation, we didn't have enough control over customer contact, so we provided the same service to all customers.
However, customer needs cannot be lumped together, and that there are multiple, the above methods cannot maintain a continuous relationship with the customer.
That is where we need to implement CRM to create a personalized customer experience for each customer.
Advantage 2: Accumulation of customer data
By implementing CRM, you can accumulate the customer data that you have been dealing with as a company as knowledge and achievements.
By accumulating customer data, anyone can access customer data without the need for employees to respond.
When anyone has access to customer data, they can reduce unnecessary tasks such as burdening and taking over each staff member.
Also, in today's world, where customer needs are becoming more diverse, it is necessary to conduct segmented marketing to increase revenue.
By enabling segmentation, you can reach out to customers you may have missed in the past.
Advantage 3: Tasks can be automated and become more efficient
By using the above two advantages, you can automate tasks and make your work more efficient.
In the past, employees had to sort through unorganized customer data once and then complete tasks. But with CRM software, it is now possible to use integrated customer contact data to automate tasks such as email distribution and report creation.
By automating tasks, you can focus your efforts on other tasks, so you can expect to increase revenue and grow your company.
Disadvantages of CRM
Now that we know the advantages of implementing CRM, I will explain the disadvantages.
Disadvantages of CRM are as follows:
- Security concerns due to centralization of data
- Initial cost of implementation
- Requires an established sales process.
Now, let's move on to the explanation.
Disadvantage 1: Security concerns due to centralized data
As explained in the advantages section, it is possible to manage customer data collectively by installing CRM software.
However, there are some aspects where centralizing data can be said to be a disadvantage.
By storing large amounts of data in one place, if the system itself is damaged, you can lose all the data you have.
So, it is necessary to implement a security process to protect the personal information of the client.
Disadvantage 2: Initial cost of implementation
There are multiple CRM software, such as cloud system-based software that can be shared by multiple employees, and high-quality CRM will incur the initial cost of implementation.
And because new CRM software is not a quick-to-use system, it takes some time before you can recover deployment costs from your implementation.
Note that there is also short-term, centralized CRM software, but it may not last for a long time.
Disadvantage 3: Established sales processes are required
The last disadvantage of implementing CRM is that it requires an established sales process.
Increased return on investment is a must for marketing and B2B business with CRM software.
Therefore, it is necessary to create a process-driven sales system.
Also, CRM is used as a data store for insights, assuming that data is updated consistently.
It is necessary to have each employee understand sales and marketing to use CRM software efficiently.
Summary
This article explained why CRM is essential to modern marketing strategies, based on its advantages and disadvantages.
By implementing CRM, you can clarify what your company needs to work on and what sales processes are necessary.
As a result, we can structurally grasp the problems of our current business.
By efficiently solving structural problems using a CRM system, it is possible to increase revenue more.
Understanding the impact of CRM on modern digital marketing will help you grow your company even more.