Benefits of Integrating Email Marketing Tools with CRM

Email marketing is an important asset to businesses and marketers. In fact, in the near future, emails are more likely to stick around as compared to social media channels.

But marketers do not just manage the email marketing channel. Rather, they have to look at all the marketing channels and understand the sales funnel to nudge the potential prospects towards the point of purchase.

As the business starts picking up pace, leads start pouring in. But how to qualify the leads and increase the chances of conversion?

The Need to Integrate Email Marketing Tools with CRM

You are putting day and night to generate more leads, segment your contact lists, create engaging email marketing campaigns, drip sequences, automation workflows, and more. Ironically, the results are below your expectations.

Why?

Everything boils down to loads of work and not utilizing existing information. You have the details but scattered.

Emails are the ultimate weapon for boosting engagement via personalized communication whereas your CRM system is a weapon to enhance customer relationships. Why not bring them together?

First things first. Check the integration options provided by your email marketing tools. If your current tool does not provide you CRM integration options, you may switch to other tools that provide the same.

Selecting robust email marketing tools is essential to your business or marketing needs. Take free trials, explore the features, perform a comparative analysis of email marketing tools to select the best out of the bunch.

Next, I’ll tell you what exactly happens when you integrate email marketing tools with CRM.

What will you Achieve with the Integration?

1. Enhanced Segmentation

I don’t need to tell you about the importance of segmentation as it is an essential part of any marketing campaign.

You might wonder what do I mean by enhanced segmentation?

Let’s take an example.

You are employing an email marketing tool that is not integrated with your CRM. Now, you must have collected your leads through a lead generation form or newsletter subscription on any of your web pages.

A lead generation form captures only the essential information that is asked from the visitors. This initial information gives you a headstart to put your leads in segmented email lists.

You may create different email nurturing campaigns to qualify your leads, or know more about them. But what if they do not engage or share their interests through emails? Collecting enough information only through emails will probably take up a lot of time.

How will you further segment your email contacts? Segmenting and personalizing emails require more information about your leads.

Coming to your CRM system. The system maintains individual records of potential and qualified leads. It contains more information about qualified leads from different marketing channels. Moreover, you would not want to spend extra time hopping from one software to another.

You might know where I am leading. If you have two rich sources of information about your leads, isn’t it best to combine both of them?

Eventually, you may also aim for hypersegmentation with the two forces combined. The best part? You don’t have to do anything manually. Email marketing tools have become smart enough to integrate with your CRM and extract the necessary information about your leads seamlessly.

2. More Personalization

This has its roots in the above-mentioned example. When you have more details about your leads or potential customers, you will be able to send them more personalized emails that further helps in the lead nurturing process.

According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report 2020, using personalization elements is the best tactic to increase email engagement metrics.

(Source)

Again let’s see an example.

You use an email marketing software but haven’t integrated it with your CRM. You have a decent contact list with appropriate segmentation. You send them emails based on their past email behaviors, open-rates, and click-throughs.

Furthermore, your CRM contains more information about your leads such as their web behavior, search analysis, and details from other marketing channels. All of this combined together will help you in creating more personalized emails for your leads or potential customers.

Your potential customer might search one product on a social media channel, look for another product on your website, and interact with a different set of products via email. When you analyze each touchpoint thoroughly, you will be able to understand the interest of your leads.

Adding personalization elements does not end by putting the name of the lead in the subject line or email copy. When you create copy that resonates with the interests of your potential prospects, consider it an achievement.

For instance, look at this beauty brand. Initially, I didn’t click on a lot of their emails. I browsed them casually on the weekends.

But I did interact with their offers on social media and their website. I had a brief history of buying from them too. Over time, they collected information about my preference and interests through my behavior. Here are two emails:

The first one is from the initial days of joining the brand.

The second email is the latest one I received.

Look at the difference in the categories, pitch, and overall suggestions of the products.

The first email depicts wide categories of products wherein I have to explore my options. On the contrary, the second email provides personalized and detailed product suggestions based on my past interactions with the brand.

At this point, I do check their emails thoroughly because they recommend the products that I am interested in. But, in the initial days, I would rate my email interaction with the brand as nil. Still, they sent me personalized recommendations via emails. How do they personalize emails?

Clearly, they have integrated their email marketing tool with their CRM.

3. Authentic Information

I have a question for you. Do you think all the lead’s information in your email base is authentic and absolutely correct?

I guess not.

It is quite ironic but fake leads are real. You may keep sending them emails without recording any activity or response. As a result, your email performance declines, and your bounce rate spurts up.

Another reason could be incorrect information or a spelling mistake committed by the lead itself while filling the form.

Your CRM will be able to collect more detailed information about your leads from other marketing channels. If you integrate your email marketing tool with CRM, you can easily identify fake leads or related anomalies without sending them a series of re-engagement email campaigns.

4. Increase in Sales

Email marketing tools are more efficient in nurturing leads before qualifying them as a sales lead.

These marketing tools are great for sending them emails according to the buyer’s journey. But one thing to be noted is you forward emails to segmented lists and not to individual contacts.

With email marketing, you can direct your potential prospects to the point of purchase. You may send them educational material, instructional videos, newsletters, or more to nurture your leads.

Ultimately, your CRM maintains the database of each lead (or existing customer) and the actions they perform. With email metrics, you can get insights on the type of content the potential leads interacted with, open rates, click-through rate, geographical representation, and more.

Let’s not forget, emails are used as a mass communication tool whereas CRM maintains individual databases. When you integrate email marketing tools with CRM, you have a better chance of closing deals.

Your CRM contains more detailed insight such as communication history on any channel, interaction level, whether the lead wants a product demo or more. You will need your CRM system at a later stage when the leads become qualified.

5. Better Customer Handling via Marketing automation

This is one of the most beneficial junctures of combining email marketing tools and CRM. You can create advanced email automation workflows based on your CRM’s data.

Hello? Welcome emails, thank you emails, cart-abandonment emails, order details, post-purchase emails, follow-up emails, and more.

Consider it this way. Your CRM creates an alert about a potential prospect abandoning his/her cart after a set time. As email marketing tools have built-in automation triggers, a cart-abandonment email is sent to the respective prospect.

This retargeting email works wonders and helps in closing many deals. In fact, 63% of abandoned carts are recoverable. Here’s an example of an automated cart-abandonment email.

This cart abandonment email not only reminds me about the abandoned products in the cart but also creates urgency by providing me with the best offers and deals for a limited time.

The next major aspect that marketing automation can tackle with CRM integration is customer support. It is essential to assure the customers and potential leads that you have received their queries.

Why am I talking about customer service here? Because reports suggest that 78% of potential buyers were reluctant to make a purchase owing to a poor service experience.

Therefore, if you want to increase your overall sales, consider integrating your email marketing tools with CRM.

6. Magnified Analytics

Email marketing tools are great for boosting engagement metrics. These tools provide you detailed reports about your email’s performance, open rates, clicks, bounce rates, geographical analysis, and more. Some even provide heatmap analysis for better understanding.

You can leverage your CRM’s data and reports to analyze the loopholes in your email marketing strategy. You need to see what your prospects are genuinely interested in. Furthermore, not all of your leads are email enthusiasts in the initial stages.

By analyzing your prospect’s behavior on different marketing channels, you can come up with an engaging email campaign that converts.

In a Nutshell

Want the best of both worlds? Consider integrating email marketing tools with CRM. You will not be disappointed.

I’ll leave you with an interesting insight. Most marketers use both email marketing and CRM software as a practice. According to a report by Ultimate Marketing Automation, “67% of respondents report having both marketing automation software and CRM software in their marketing stack”.

What are your thoughts? Let me know by commenting below.