Customer relationship management (CRM) software is rapidly becoming essential when it comes to helping your business manage its customer data and boost sales.
This type of software can help you stay in touch with your clients and improve your relationships with them. But it helps to have a unique setup that is easy to manage when running your business.
A CRM with automation can boost your marketing and reporting efforts. CRM automation combines marketing, sales, and service functions and keeps them organized.
In this article, we will mostly be focusing on the functions of software such as ActiveCampaign and HubSpot.
What is CRM Automation?
CRM automation is a practice that streamlines marketing and sales efforts through the use of a digital data management tool.
It produces multiple workflows that automate repetitive tasks, allowing your business to simplify its plans and strategies. It gives you more control over your company by letting you focus on the more specific tasks you want to concentrate on instead.
A CRM with automation provides many benefits that will help your business in the short and long term. You can increase productivity and keep the sales cycle short.
You can also interact with customers and be more responsive to their needs. It’s also easier to manage vast data banks to help you get a bigger picture over whatever you’re trying to address.
CRM automation currently works in nearly every market and every industry across the globe. It is present in healthcare as it helps manage patient data and digitizes information for insurance purposes. Retail stores can also use automation to create and send promotional campaigns to customers based on what interests them the most.
Any business or entity that uses computers and requires several measures for operation will benefit from what these types of automation processes offer.
Processes to Automate With Your CRM
You can automate various important business activities with your CRM to make your company more efficient and better at managing your clientele.
Lead Management
You can use CRM marketing automation to manage the leads that enter your sales funnel. You can identify leads and review data surrounding what interests them the most. Some automation setups can also compare the specific ways a lead reaches your site.
Automated Email Campaigns
Email campaigns are also ideal options for CRM marketing automation as they allow you to program triggers and rules for when emails will go to certain people in your database. They can get emails when they purchase something or visit a page on your site.
Sales & Customer Service
A customer relationship management system with automation can help with sales and customer service.
When a visitor is interested in a certain product, the CRM can send them an email or a chat box about the product and offer them a coupon to use for their first purchase.
If the customer has added a product to their cart and not purchased yet, the software could send them a reminder email about the product or offer another coupon to use for their first purchase.
When the customer is interested and places an order, the CRM will send them an order confirmation email with shipping information and can also help inform you to which campaigns or marketing automation is working the best.
Document Management
Your business might use multiple documents for various purposes. A CRM with automation can review your content by format and context and send them to the necessary departments based on the triggers or forwarding rules you set.
KPI Tracking
CRM automation also helps you review vital metrics through dashboards based on key performance indicators your company wants to track. The platform will display information on factors like the leads you earn, the sales you complete, and other details.
Make sure you are adding in any data that you can to make your KPI and deal tracking as accurate as possible.
CRM vs Marketing Automation
People often think that CRM and marketing automation are two things that are synonymous with one another, but they are very different.
While a marketing automation platform can help you automate campaigns with various triggers and other rules, a CRM helps you review sales efforts and work roles focused on customers.
An efficient platform will let you automate routine tasks and forward them to the necessary reps. You can also arrange a more detailed database through the system to stay organized.
Marketing automation manages your customer mailing lists and lead databases. A CRM tool lets you track the leads you gain and helps you review data surrounding each customer in your list.
You can prepare more criteria for how you’ll trace your customers through it functionality.
Another key difference between a CRM vs marketing automation involves how you’re reaching out to people. While marketing automation concentrates on promoting targeted content to your leads, a CRM is about addressing specific concerns or queries those customers hold.
You can also keep tabs on your customers during the entire purchase journey with a CRM, while marketing automation is more about bringing in new customers.
Benefits of Having a CRM with Automation
There are many CRM automation benefits that your business can take advantage of.
A CRM with the right kind of automations can be a powerful tool in a business.
Automations can be anything from a simple email follow-up sequence to a complex sequence of actions triggered by customer behaviors. The right kind of automation is one that is triggered by an action and completes a task without any need for further input from the user.
Humans are great at multitasking and, when we automate processes, we free up brain space for other tasks.
Keep Track of Leads, Clients, & Contacts
It is easy to keep track of leads, clients, and contacts with a CRM that is automated for follow up.
Most CRMs will allow users to create an initial follow up time after an event. This follow up time can be anything from a few days to a week.
For example, if someone completes a form on your website, you may want to automatically email them first, and even follow up in the next few days to ask if they would like more information or if they would like to book an appointment.
You can also store as much data about that specific client as you need in their profiles, and use that information in your automation process.
Streamlined Tasks
It is challenging to manage many tasks in the workplace without help from an organizational platform. A CRM with automation helps you keep many complex objectives together, automating routines and letting you focus on more specific details.
Your CRM system can automate marketing tasks through lead generation and data syncing processes. You can also streamline sales tasks by assigning projects to specific people and scheduling calls and reviews at the best times.
Be There For the Customer Throughout Their Journey
A customer will appreciate your business if you are active during each step of the buying journey. You can use CRM automation to respond to questions people have by email, or you can set up messages to re-engage with people when they meet certain triggers.
Some special marketing offers may be available to people based on where they are in the sales funnel. Your CRM system can let you prepare as many rules for interaction as you need.
Store Leads from Live Chat Widgets
Companies like ActiveCampaign and HubSpot have built-in live chat widgets you can add to your website.
When a visitor reaches out to you via the chat widget on your website, you can then automatically request the chatbot to get their information and store them as a lead.
After you’ve captured their information, you can also have your CRM software add them to a particular list or campaign and begin sending them automated sales campaigns or nurturing campaigns to turn them into paying customers.
Give Sales Agents More Freedom
Sales or service agents may be more interested in focusing on specific or complex problems in the workplace. They don’t want to be stuck doing the same repetitive tasks many times over. A CRM provides more freedom to these agents, as they are free from having to work on the same tedious tasks consistently.
Manage Multiple Campaigns
You can run as many campaigns as you wish with a CRM platform. The drag-and-drop arrangement on most CRM systems lets you compare steps and criteria for each campaign you operate. You can establish a diverse array of campaigns that cover everything you want to highlight within your business.
Review Metrics
It’s easier to manage your business metrics when you know what’s happening in your industry. A CRM can review vast data stores in your business and calculate the metrics surrounding your work. You can create thorough reports through the system, where it will check on additional pieces of data in your business.
Manage Deals & Projects
Keep track of your project pipelines and set up automations to send emails when you drag a deal into certain stages.
For these CRM automation examples, when we are building a website and we need some additional page content from the client, we can drag the project into a ‘Content Needed’ stage.
When we put the client’s ‘deal’ into that stage, it will automatically send them an email requesting the content from them.
This single task helps save hours of email writing and back-and-forth conversations by having this process setup before hand.
Find a CRM with Automation that Fits Your Needs
There are many options out there when it comes to picking a relevant CRM that offers automation features. Doing some research ahead of time will help you discover a program that fits your specific requirements.
Best CRM Software with Automation for Businesses
There are a few companies that are known as the best CRM software that has automation built in. These would be:
There are plenty of options to choose from when it comes to CRM automation tools.
Some of the most popular are ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, and Salesforce. All of these are reputable programs with different features to choose from, at drastically varying price points.
However, the best option for your business depends on what you need the software to do.
Most Affordable CRM
If you are looking for an affordable CRM with automation features, then you might want to consider ActiveCampaign.
The company has developed a way for users to automate their email marketing tasks while also not requiring you to be a digital marketing expert or automation professional, making it perfect for small to medium sized businesses.
Most Feature-Rich CRM
If you need an all-in-one digital marketing CRM with automations, email marketing pipelines, extremely in-depth tracking, SEO software built in, website live chat software, and even more functionality in a single software, HubSpot may be the best software for you.
Learn more about important software and other digital marketing systems to improve your business by checking out the AWEBCO blog!
