CRM Email Marketing: 5 Features to Look For | Saphyte

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Updated: May 12th, 2020

CRM use has dramatically increased lately. The software has been adopted by many businesses to carry out their marketing strategy. They are often used to collect their target leads’ contact information and put them all into the system, where they will become part of the sales pipeline– a set of phases in a buyer’s journey that leads go through to become full, paying customers. 

When certain conditions are met, the company’s sales team can then use the system (for contact management) to make phone calls. This furthers the engagement of the business with the target lead or prospect, which is designed to trigger a purchase behavior. After a purchase is done, the prospect is now considered a customer. The CRM software is then used to promote customer interaction and establish loyalty.

This sales process can arguably be done using traditional methods such as pen and paper, or a bit more advanced ones like an online spreadsheet. But CRMs are designed to cut the manual work and lessen the workload for sales teams. They are developed to automate tasks such as data gathering so that sales teams do not have to manually input this data into the spreadsheet. 

Good CRMs often have a feature that automatically inputs the data of target customers into its system after they fill out a form (on a website or on social media). But for target customers to be actually interested in filling out your forms and performing other desired actions, your marketing strategy needs to be optimized. 

Its content must be tailored to fit the needs and preferences of the target market and it needs to be crafted in a way that the target customer could not resist clicking on your CTA buttons. This makes it easier for your sales and marketing teams to generate leads and convert them into loyal customers.

CRM Email Marketing: What you should look for in a CRM

After the bare minimum is fulfilled, businesses can then use CRMs to streamline the marketing process. This means that with the use of the software, the marketing process will be expedited and managed using one centralized platform, so that the marketing team can have full control over its campaigns without switching from one app to another.

With CRMs, marketing teams will be able to track individual marketing campaigns, have access to real-time data and analytics, and will be able to monitor the effectiveness of each of their campaigns. 

Marketing teams can then just sit down and relax and benefit from processed information after the software has automatically analyzed the available data. Now that they have more information, they can then fully decide on which marketing campaign to focus on. In short, a good CRM system can maximize the efficiency of marketing campaigns, so that they will bring out much-needed results.

Given this, there are five email marketing tools that you should look for when using a CRM:

1. Bulk Emails
2. Custom Email Templates
3. Third-Party Integration
4. Scheduled Email Sender
5. Workflow Automation

Let’s discuss them in detail:

1. Bulk Emails – is a feature that allows users to send emails en masse. While your ordinary email app can do this by typing in multiple email addresses, CRMs cut this process by allowing you to manually click on target clients in the system. You can also expedite the process by sorting and filtering them into groups such as their companies or their company roles, etc. so you can send emails to multiple target recipients at once.

2. Custom Email Templates – is a feature that allows users to email prepared messages for specific use cases such as welcoming a customer onboard, thanking a customer for making a purchase, or billing a customer. 

This eliminates the manual work of crafting individual messages for individual clients. These email templates can also be edited to make the email more responsive to the context and personalize it (like including the recipient’s name and other details) to give the email more warmth and a sense of personal touch.

3. Third-party Integration – is a feature that allows users to have full flexibility and scalability. As businesses grow, the amount of work that will be added to the organization will also grow, putting a strain on the business model. This is where third-party integrations in CRMs come in.

The expansion of the functionalities of the CRM will allow the business to address the new challenges right away. For email marketing, this might include using your email account (e.g. Gmail) to contact your leads right away and getting customer information through the use of Live Chat Apps, so you know who to email immediately.

4. Scheduled Email Sender – is a feature that allows users to schedule the sending of email. This is a very useful function when it comes to email marketing. By scheduling your emails (plus the use of bulk emails), your recipients are constantly reminded that your business exists and it can serve them anytime.

The automated email boosts your brand awareness strategy which can also increase your sales. Overall, the scheduled email sender is a necessary functionality since it also eliminates the work of sending emails on schedule manually, giving the sales and marketing teams more breathing rooms for productive activities.

5. Workflow Automation – is a feature that allows users to automate their workflows, reducing the need to hire more employees to perform perfunctory functions. Workflow automation is a unique CRM function since not all CRMs are designed to do this. 

A good CRM must be flexible enough to let you automate a lot of your work processes. This includes gathering leads from various channels, sorting those leads in the system, and engaging those leads through email. It is also important for the CRM to allow its user to set conditions so that the CRM solution will only contact leads that fit the target customer profile. 

Conclusion

CRMs are a must-have for businesses these days. With it, a small business, for example, will no longer need to hire employees to perform tasks that the CRM can be configured to automate. CRM systems can also help businesses gather customer data so they stay responsive to their market environment.

This allows them to be adaptable– willing to morph into a business that can serve their customers better. CRMs can also provide users analytics in real time, which lets them have a 360-degree control over their business. This helps them mitigate risks and losses, which helps them survive even in the worst conditions.

To have more grasp on how a CRM can help you, look for a product that has a free trial. The experience allows you to determine what you want in a CRM and check it with the product you are using. This also lets you compare whether a CRM product is an actual necessity or not.

But if you are looking for a CRM specifically for email marketing, don’t forget to check out these five functionalities: bulk emails, custom email templates, third-party integration, scheduled email sender, and workflow automation. These features ensure that you stay at the top of your CRM email marketing game.