CRM marketing builds more profound, more personalized connections. It lets sales reps and marketers use data to create campaigns that resonate with prospects and customers.
The issue is that making sense of large volumes of data won’t be easy. You’ll need the right tools and strategies for aligning data in your sales and marketing efforts.
Everyone has a CRM; you probably do, too. But are you using it to its full potential? We’ll help ensure that you do!
Let’s get started.
What is CRM Marketing: Definition and Benefits
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) marketing is a strategy centering around customer data. It personalizes interactions, manages leads, and builds stronger relationships. With the right tools and frameworks, businesses can quickly get the following benefits:
Personalized Customer Experiences
CRM systems store valuable customer data, such as purchase history, communication preferences, and interaction data. Marketers use this data to craft personalized messages and offers.
Each customer interaction becomes relevant. This is essential for outreach campaigns like cold email marketing. The more personalized the email, the less likely you get added to a blacklist.
Enhanced Lead Management
CRM marketing makes segmenting and lead scoring based on different criteria easier. Industry, past interactions, or readiness to buy are prime examples.
No more wasting time and resources on leads that don’t convert. Reps can focus on high-potential leads in sales pipelines. The faster the conversion, the shorter the sales cycle.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Sales has always been an iterative process. Strategies must evolve to keep up with changing trends, preferences, and market shifts. Analyzing CRM data gives insights into all of these.
These insights inform decision-makers about the best channels, messages, and campaigns. Businesses can run sustainable, cost-effective campaigns that get results.
Automated Communication
CRM platforms integrate with marketing channels like email and SMS. What marketers and sales reps get is trigger-based email marketing.
Brands can send emails after a purchase, send a follow-up if prospects don’t reply after some time, or give reminders to check out items inside abandoned carts.
Improved Customer Retention
Getting new customers is expensive. It shouldn’t be your main revenue stream. On the other hand, customer retention is more cost-effective and likely to bring in more revenue.
This approach goes beyond single transactions. For SaaS, that means increasing the ACV (annual contract value). Let’s say a customer hasn’t logged into their account for a month.
Customers can receive automated emails highlighting key features, providing quick tips, and giving insight on how to make the most of their subscriptions. No customer falls through the cracks.
Which Channels Are Best for CRM Marketing?
opt-inCRM marketing is all about picking the right ways to reach people in a way that feels right to them. Here are the best ways to do it and how each one works.
Email Marketing
Email is a direct line to your prospects. It goes hand-in-hand with CRM marketing. You can get personal, automate it, and reach anyone with an inbox, especially if you follow a solid email marketing strategy.
Picture a welcome email when someone signs up, a little reminder if they’ve left something in their cart, or a birthday discount message to make them feel special.
The best part? You can segment your audience based on their interests. Everyone gets what’s most relevant to them.
Imagine a coffee shop emailing you a 10%-off coupon on your birthday. Not only would you likely use it, but you’d feel more loyal to them.
SMS (Text Messaging)
Texting is fast and direct, much like email marketing. The only issue is that it can seem a bit intrusive. And if people don’t give out personal info, direct SMS marketing is generally illegal.
But if people did opt-in through an online form, SMS is great for anything that requires urgency or is time-sensitive. It’s perfect for quick reminders, promos, or discount messages.
Let’s say you run a barber shop that offers online booking. When customers book an appointment, they can receive a text reminder the day before. This keeps clients on schedule—no more forgetting.
Social Media Channels
Social media is the best place to connect with customers. Brands can leverage sales strategies like social proof, user-generated content, and exclusive offers to create a sense of community.
You can integrate CRMs with your social media accounts to track mentions, send followers messages, and answer questions. Let’s say customers message your page.
If you have a chatbot, customers' inquiries and information can be sent directly to your CRM. Sales reps can use that information to personalize offers and tailor messaging.
CRMs can also work with social activity. For example, if someone likes your brand’s Instagram post, they can send you a special discount code in a direct message.
Push Notifications
Push notifications are direct messages sent to your phone through apps. You can automate alerts, updates, and app-only deals through your CRM, which is great for eCommerce platforms.
Think of your favorite retail app reminding you when an item on your wishlist goes on sale or when you send a cross-sell recommendation. They make it easy to grab the deal while it’s hot.
Live Chat and Chatbots
Studies show that brands that respond first to customers get the deal. Whether a person or a bot, live chat helps people get answers fast. Live chat helps with questions about products, issues, stock availability, etc.
In-App Messaging
In-app messaging is best for businesses with an app. It reaches people while they’re already engaged. A great example of this is shoe brands like Nike and Adidas. While browsing their catalog from their apps, pop-ups can appear for discounts, promos, and new products.
Phone Calls
Nothing beats a phone call, especially when the high stakes or the service is complex. But cold calling can be invasive. Sometimes, the best alternative is to make discovery calls later in the sales cadence.
Remember, sales often happen after multiple touchpoints. You don’t want to rely on a CRM that’s only good for one channel, so we built Instantly CRM.
It’s a CRM focused on email marketing, but it has all the bells and whistles needed for multi-channel outreach, including SMS and phone calls. We’ll get more in-depth with this later!
Best Tools for CRM Marketing
CRM marketing naturally revolves around what type of CRM you’ll be using. This section will review the best CRMs for outreach, nurture, and trigger-based automation campaigns.
Instantly CRM: Best for Cold Outreach
Instantly CRM simplifies CRM marketing with tools like Salesflow, Dealflow, and Unibox. It helps you manage leads, personalize outreach, and organize your sales process in one platform.
Salesflow automatically organizes leads based on their actions—like clicking links or opening emails—so you know who’s interested.
You can set up “if-then” rules that route hot leads for immediate follow-up and keep others in automated nurturing sequences without manually tracking each one.
Dealflow clearly shows each lead’s stage in the pipeline, helping you spot bottlenecks and focus on leads closest to conversion.
You can assign revenue estimates to leads, making it easy to set goals and measure each campaign's impact.
Unibox pulls all email, SMS, and call interactions into one inbox, keeping everyone on the team up-to-date. Plus, automated follow-up prompts make sure no sales slip through the cracks.
HubSpot: Best for Nurturing Warm Leads and Customers
HubSpot offers a centralized platform for marketing, sales, and customer service. It keeps all departments on the same page, from the first lead to closing the deal. You can set up workflows for personalized follow-ups, triggered messages, and customer segmentation.
HubSpot CRM is also integrated with their email marketing service. Although HubSpot isn’t a tool for cold outreach, it’s one of the best platforms for nurturing warm leads and customers.
Marketers can create and automate personalized nurturing campaigns and include customizable templates for email marketing efforts.
Its analytics tools also provide an in-depth view of campaign performance, A/B testing, and customer engagement metrics.
Zoho
Zoho is a budget-friendly CRM with powerful automation features, making it one of the most popular tools for eCommerce. It can send follow-up emails, segment leads and offer customization features.
With lead data from Zoho CRM, you can tailor content based on interactions, demographics, or behavioral data. For example, Zoho can pinpoint customers most likely to buy from your store.
Zoho also integrates email, social media, chat, and other platforms into one platform. It gives a complete view of every customer’s journey, which means better, more personalized responses.
How to Use Instantly for CRM Marketing
Instantly CRM gives you a complete view of customer information, making it easy to create cold emails that feel personal, relevant, and valuable.
Lead Generation and Segmentation with Instantly B2B Lead Finder
Instantly B2B Lead Finder makes filling your CRM with quality leads that match your buyer personas easy. And before 2024 ends, we made Lead Finder better!
We cleaned our entire lead database, removed old leads and insufficient data, and normalized column data for easier LLM access. As always, you only pay for verified leads.
Play around with 14 filters, including technologies, company headcount, and revenue. With our Lookalikes feature, you can find leads using keywords or similar to clients.
Plus, evergreen settings allow you to keep your pipeline full of fresh leads without needing manual updates.
Targeted Content for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
Features like Dealflow give sales teams a clear view of each lead's position in your pipeline. You can send sales introduction emails to cold leads and more detailed, solution-focused content to those in the decision stage.
Instantly AI is trained on the best-performing cold emails. It can automate cold email personalization by tapping into lead data from Instantly CRM. No matter what stage of the customer journey your leads are, they’re sure to get content that resonates with their needs.
Personalization that Goes Beyond First Names
Most CRMs let you personalize first names or company names. Instantly takes personalization further by letting you create custom variables. Remember the lead list built using Lead Finder?
In the Leads tab, you can use AI prompts to create custom columns for every lead in your campaign. For example, you can find pain points for each lead. Lead data from Instantly CRM can also be used for customized variables.
Then, in the Sequences tab, you can use the new custom variable {{pain point}} when writing email copy. You can use these custom variables in every part of your email including subject lines, email body, or closing lines.
Automate Follow-Ups for High-Interest Leads with Salesflow
Salesflow in Instantly CRM automatically handles follow-up tasks for “hot” leads based on engagement, like opened emails or link clicks.
You can set conditions to ensure leads interested leads receive timely follow-ups without you needing to track every detail. With all communications stored in Unibox, sales reps can access all interactions in one place.
Track Performance and Auto-Optimize Campaigns
Tracking open rates, response rates, and conversions is essential for improving your outreach. Instantly CRM’s analytics dashboard offers real-time data on all these KPIs.
You can also enable the auto-optimize setting for A/B testing. Instantly will find your best performing email based on KPIs like open or click rates. Then, send that email to the remaining leads in your list.
Reviewing campaign data and A/B test results lets you fine-tune your messaging, timing, and lead segments to maximize results and get the best possible ROI.
Key Takeaways
CRM marketing removes the guesswork from the equation, lets you automate responses, and enables sales reps to focus on leads ready to buy. Instantly is the best tool for the job if you’re looking to leverage CRM marketing for cold outreach. Try it for free today!
