Integrated CRM and Email Marketing

Integrating your CRM and email marketing solutions provides a number of benefits over having these as completely separate systems.

Benefits of CRM Integration with Email Marketing

For many companies, CRM and email marketing solutions are separate purchase decisions.  Companies that deploy an email marketing solution independently of their CRM system normally end up exporting CRM email addresses to a file and then importing these addresses into an Email Service Provider (ESP) database. 

While effective campaigns can be run from the ESP marketing solution under this scenario, there are several major drawbacks associated with the fact that email marketing results are not fed back into the CRM database.

Use Cases for Integrated Email Marketing and CRM

The following are just some of the use cases related to an integrated CRM and email marketing.

Use Case #1 - With email marketing completed separated from CRM, onging segmentation is only based on data from click-throughs on marketing emails.  The marketing department cannot leverage updated parameters from within the CRM database, such as recent purchases, for even more granular segementation.  With an integrated solution, segmentation can be based on both CRM data and email recipient click-through actions -- resulting in more focused, ongoing email communications.

Use Case #2 - CRM users do not have visibility to the click-through actions of their customers and prospects when CRM is not integrated with email marketing.  When the systems are integrated, before a sales rep follows up with a prospect, the rep can view what links that prospect clicked through in a newsletter and therefore focus the conversation on the prospect's interests.

Use Case #3 - In the absence of integration, CRM users are not able to use the email marketing solution as a transactional email repository.  With an integrated solution, a salesperson can send out a company newsletter to a new prospect and track the results of that send.

Use Case #4 - Integration allows for unified reporting and analytics.  For example, reports can indicate how many Opportunities resulted from a specific email campaign or from a landing page for a campaign.

To discuss additional use cases, including ones specific to your company's situation, please contact Richard Benziger at 415-462-5492.