Report on integrating CRM

Transcription

1 Report on integrating CRM In association with 1

2 Foreword Estimates suggest that currently offers the lowest campaign costs for marketing purposes, and accompanied by its potent success rate, is accounting for an increasing proportion of the average digital marketing budget. With 36% of consumers prompted into making an online purchase as a result of receiving an , and 27% reporting that an was the cause of an offline purchase, the recent Econsultancy Marketing Industry Census 2010 reports that businesses are putting increasing emphasis on . Indeed the Census suggests that now represents 17% of the average digital marketing budget, up from 14% in But while is the heart of many a firm s marketing programme, integrating it with the organisation s CRM system is what can really make it tick, enabling greater segmentation, supporting improved visibility for the sales team and delivering better reporting. Against this backdrop, in association with MyCustomer.com, Pure360 recently undertook a research project to explore how successfully companies are integrating their CRM and marketing software and what their experiences are. The findings, outlined below, make for interesting reading, and suggest that there is a great disparity between players at present. What this means, of course, is that for those businesses at the leading edge, there is a great opportunity for a competitive edge. We hope you find these findings provide some food for thought. Neil Davey, editor, MyCustomer.com 2

3 We re not using spreadsheets & Outlook anymore, are we? Marketing departments need to increasingly justify their expenditure and ensure that they re using the right channels to access their markets. But with more and more sophisticated technology available to them, marketers are finding it much easier to measure which of their online activity is creating the desired outcome, whether that be generating leads for the sales team or ensuring that loyal customers remain that way. Historically, marketers would be working with a contact list in a spreadsheet and their ing would have been done through Outlook or other office software. But marketing and database management have come a long way since then. The marketing industry is now highly fragmented, with hundreds of marketing providers to choose from. Interestingly, of these, only eight providers have more than 10 companies on their books and the single largest player only has 10% market share. There is a large difference between the smaller providers and the top eight in terms of features, support and service, and it s when you hit the top eight that things really get serious. Features are rich with enterprise level reporting, and while support levels vary, it s no longer self-service. Another factor characterising the sector is the growth in integration with other systems. Marketers can now integrate their campaigns not only with reporting packages such as Google Analytics, but also CRM software to get a view of recipient activity. Gone are the days of having to log into separate systems, remembering different password combinations, just so they can export results and combine them into a single report. The sales team don t need to make a call to a prospect without knowing whether the prospect has responded positively or negatively to a recent campaign. And let s not forget the customer services team who are tasked with continuously engaging a customer base and ensuring they stay loyal and of course spending money. With the ability to combine the proven channel of marketing with the holy grail of data in a CRM, are businesses actually making the most of this marriage? 3

4 How are people integrating their CRM & systems at the moment? Pure360 undertook a research project in association with MyCustomer.com, to find out whether companies were actually integrating their CRM and marketing software and what their impressions of the experience was. With a predominantly CRM focussed audience, Mycustomer.com was the perfect place to get not just the marketers view but also that of CRM users outside of the marketing department. Here are the highlights: Many flavours of CRM but clear favourites... There were 33 different types of CRM used. However, over half of recipients were split between just three, Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle Siebel. Just 10% of respondents did not have a CRM system in place and fewer than 5% had their own tailor-made solution. Resource is a precious commodity... A whopping 50% of respondents either didn t have their CRM integrated with their marketing or didn t know if it was. Of these, 70% would like to integrate their marketing and CRM system but they don t know how to go about doing it and they re worried that it would take up marketing / technical resource and would be expensive to put into place. Interestingly, the respondents who had no wish to integrate the two systems just didn t find it a priority, which again could reflect the fact that available resources and funding are being used elsewhere first. 4

5 Show me the money...quickly... Respondents aren t getting maximum benefit from their marketing and CRM integrations, with only 32% thinking their integration was great and 60% settling with it does the job. And the main reason for settling with an integration that isn t great? 50% want to see better reporting and nearly as much would like it to be much easier and quicker to set up in the first place. Respondents were asked what is the most important reason for a CRM & marketing integration? Ability to export marketing lists from CRM Ability to feed marketing campaign data back Seeing all marketing activity in one place Aligning marketing activity with sales activity Automate campaigns based on contact activity Other The spread shows that CRM integration is required for many different reasons, not just the one, which is surprising when 50% of respondents didn t have one in place already. What is promising is the high number of those people who did want to put one in place and it is the responsibility of marketing companies to ensure that this is possible. 5

6 What level of integration is possible? Make sure it s clear to you what you actually want your integration to provide, as you don t want to spend money only for it to sit there and not be used. The main elements that are used with a CRM and marketing integration are listed below: Pulling a list from CRM for ing You don t want to worry about adding an address to both your CRM and your marketing software. By integrating the two systems you should be able to pull a list into your software, direct from your CRM, very simply. Opt out and bounce management When running these two systems separately you could get into trouble with your opt out management. If someone opts out of an and it s recorded in your CRM, but that info isn t then transferred to your marketing software, you ll have an unhappy recipient and potential spam marking. Recipient response tracking by contact You can already track recipient responses within your marketing software but that information isn t included in your CRM (without integration). As this is where your sales team and customer service team get most of their data from, it s important that any responses to an campaign are stored within the contact data. Anyone who then contacts someone from the CRM can react accordingly to these responses. 6

7 How techie do you need to be? How dependent you need to be on technical resource in-house would depend on what kind of integration you go for. Historically, integrations were rather cumbersome and needed tech support both in-house and externally, this drove up the cost of the integration and so the barrier of integrating due to costs came around. Thankfully this does not have to be the case now; there are many APIs available through marketing providers that require very little technical resource at the beginning and not really any for upkeep. Costs are kept much lower and premium tech resource can be used elsewhere in the business. If you re looking to undertake an integration between your CRM and an marketing company, make sure that your CRM version has an API (if you got through a reseller then they can tell you this) and you re good to go. If you re using a CRM that does not allow third-party applications to connect, it may be difficult to achieve a good level of integration. Pure360 CRM Integrations Pure360 have been getting thousands of marketers better results since 2001, with powerful timesaving and SMS marketing tools alongside expert advice and support. We built our marketing software from the ground up and we never get tired of making it better, and sharing new functionality with our clients. If you re looking to integrate your CRM with a trustworthy marketing solution, Pure360 will take out the hassle for you. Our marketing software can integrate with your CRM quickly and with little ongoing technical support, plus our own support team can help you through the simple set up. We can integrate with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 in a matter of minutes! If your CRM is managed through a third party then we are happy to work with them to get your systems talking. 7

8 Why choose Pure360? What makes us special? We re proud to work with lovely brands including... You won t get tied into a long contract Lots of marketing providers will give you great rates if you sign up for years on end, then when you ve joined them and aren t happy with their product or service you re stuck. We don t believe in all that you should have great rates anyway, so we re contract-free our customers stay because they love us. You ll get more than just easy software Our marketing & SMS software is great but you need more than just software to send amazing campaigns. That s why alongside your account manager; you have webinars, blogs and guides galore to help you on your way. 8

9 We re just like you We know you re more than just a job title and company, so are we. Everybody at Pure360 is friendly, loves a chat and wants to make your life a bit nicer (whether that s looking good to your boss or sharing the latest Dexter series). You won t meet a nicer bunch to work with. We ll get you out of a jam No-one likes getting stuck on a campaign or reporting not so great results, so whether it s a new feature you re trying out or you want to share some ideas on improving your click throughs, our technical support and account management team will get it sorted. Your hours are our hours Being based in good old Blighty, we share more than just the weather our hours are 9-6pm to match yours. So call us, us or just drop in for a cuppa and chat. Did we mention no contracts? If you are being asked to sign one, then ask the marketing provider what benefit there is to you of signing one? If they re that good then the proof s in the proverbial pud. Ask our customers... We chose Pure360 for our marketing and SMS needs because of the ease of integration between the two channels that the PureResponse system offers. We have been really pleased with the results and wouldn t hesitate in recommending them. Pure360 have been helpful from the off. They ve given us a package & technical support that s spot-on and now we re able to send out something very pretty with no hassle. Using Pure360 has enabled me to smash our targets this year 9

10 Call us to discuss getting your CRM & marketing talking to each other: About MyCustomer.com MyCustomer.com is the largest independent online community for the customer management and CRM market place, with over 90,000 visitors per month. They re unique in that they not only provide up to the minute, award-winning content, but also facilitate online interaction and engagement between members in a true community environment. MyCustomer.com is read by a broad range of professionals who influence purchases across the entire organisation - from CEOs to CIOs - and is regarded widely as the voice of the customer management profession. 10