CRM or Marketing Automation

What’s the Right Solution For You?

CRM systems and marketing automations are often used in the same context, sometimes they overlap and many tools offer both but they have different primary functions and features.

Here are the most important differences between the two:

  • Primary function:
    • CRM systems are primarily focused on managing customer relationships, including organizing and tracking customer data, managing leads and sales pipelines, and providing customer support.
    • Marketing automation platforms, on the other hand, are focused on automating and optimizing marketing campaigns, including lead nurturing, email marketing, and social media advertising.
  • Data sources:
    • CRM systems typically rely on first-party data, which is data that is collected directly from customers or prospects through interactions with a company’s website, sales team, or customer support channels.
    • Marketing automation platforms may also incorporate third-party data sources, such as demographic data or behavioral data, to help target and optimize campaigns.
  • Features:
    • CRM systems typically offer features such as contact management, lead tracking, sales forecasting, and customer support ticketing.
    • Marketing automation platforms include features such as email marketing, lead scoring, lead nurturing workflows, social media management, and analytics and reporting.
  • Integration: While both CRM systems and marketing automation platforms may integrate with other tools and platforms, CRM systems may be more likely to integrate with sales and customer support tools (ecommerce, accounting, help desks), while marketing automation platforms may integrate with advertising platforms, social media tools, and other marketing-specific technologies.

CRM Systems

A CRM manages all your company’s interactions with current and prospective customers (qualified leads). It tracks purchases of your customers, email interaction, and any other information that’s important for your relationship with this customer.

A CRM system also keeps track of your administrative interactions with customers. This is different from marketing emails. You need to be able to communicate with your customers about billing issues, change in subscription plans, etc. Administrative emails do not have to include an “unsubscribe” link.

A CRM system provides you with a clear picture of your customers and helps you decide which customer segments should be added to a certain marketing campaign, such as the promotion of a new course that you only want to offer to customers who previously purchased a certain other program from you.

A CRM system includes all your contacts, customers, non-customers and subscribers likewise. That includes people you met at networking events, contacts at various companies or organizations that you see or hear from once a year (or less), and any other personal or professional contact in your wider network. Can you market to all these contacts? No. You can only market to those who gave you permission or contacted you for specific information. Can you send a personal email to selected contacts because you feel that your programs and services can be of interest to them? Yes you can.

There are three main types of CRM systems: collaborative, operational and analytical.

Collaborative CRM systems are built for information exchange between different departments of companies and make it easier for marketing, sales, and customer support teams to work together. Sharing data, files, emails and conversations with customers, assigning tasks and keeping track of who is doing are some of the most important features of a collaborative CRM system. These systems work well for bigger companies with sales, marketing and customer support teams who need to interact on a daily basis.

Operational CRM systems keep their focus on process management and customer relationships. Their strongest feature are automations that help streamline business operations, customer interactions and sales & marketing initiatives. That includes email marketing automations, lead scoring, sales pipeline management, and management of customer feedback loops. Operational CRMs work well for businesses who want to keep their processes efficient and easy to use for their team.

Analytical CRM systems focus on generating reports, data analyses and tracking options that help you determine which marketing campaigns are most successful, how your customers use your products and services, how your sales team is doing, and much more. Analytical CRMs work best for companies that want to utilize their customer data to improve the delivery and profitability of their products and services.

Most important CRM features:

  • Contact Management: Manage and organize all customer data in one place, including contact information, communication history, and interactions.
  • Sales Automation: sales processes, including lead management, pipeline tracking, and workflow automation (if this, then that)
  • [potentially] Marketing Automation: including email campaigns, social media marketing, and customer segmentation.
  • Collaboration and Team Management: collaborate and share customer data among team members.
  • Integration with other business applications, including email, social media, accounting software, ecommerce store, membership/online course tool, Google Workspace, etc. Integrations may be limited for lower tiered plans.
  • Custom Branding: most 1st tier plans do not allow custom branding.
  • Customizations: the ability to customize the system to fit your business needs, including custom fields, tags, workflows, and user roles.
  • Pricing
    • in relation to number of contacts vs flat fee pricing
    • in relation to number of user accounts
    • tiered pricing plans
  • Mobile Access: access customer data and CRM features on mobile devices.
  • Security and Data Privacy: The ability to ensure data privacy and security, including user access controls, data encryption, and compliance with data protection regulations, such as HIPA in the US or GDPR in Europe.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Generate real-time reports and analytics, including sales reports, customer behavior analysis, and marketing campaign performance.
  • Scalability: The ability to scale the CRM system as your business grows, including adding new users, features, and integrations.
  • Industry-specific Features: You may be looking for an industry-specific CRM, such as one that’s specifically build for fitness clubs, for coaches, or for counselors and health services providers who need to comply with HIPAA regulations

Selection Criteria

Customer Profiles

  • Custom Fields
  • Customer data AND company data
  • Formulas (e.g., automatically calculate upcoming birthdays or get-back-in-touch dates)
  • Filtered views by birthdays, follow-up dates, type of customer, etc.

Process Management

  • Ease of setting up and managing workflows and processes
  • Kanban board view of sales pipelines and other processes

Team Collaboration

  • Communication with Team (tagging, messaging, etc.)

Task Management

  • Creating tasks & delegating to Team members
  • Filtered view by tasks (type of task, date)
  • Calendar view for tasks and events

Automations

  • Automated task creation if certain trigger happens, e.g., new customer gets entered
  • Automated change of project status when all tasks are completed (e.g., onboarding tasks completed – change status automatically to “onboarding complete”)