CRM email marketing is the process of managing and executing email marketing campaigns through a customer relationship management (CRM) system. A CRM system allows businesses to manage and track customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle, from lead generation to termination.
Email marketing campaigns can be automated and tracked through the CRM system, providing businesses with valuable insights into the effectiveness of their campaigns.
While many CRM systems are available to businesses, few are specifically designed to manage email marketing campaigns. Email automation is built into some CRM systems; however, the ability to track the performance of email campaigns and measure campaign ROI is limited.
This means that finding a CRM system specifically designed for email marketing can be a challenge.
In this post, I will explore why you need a CRM designed for email marketing, how to find one, and some of the top options available.
How Does A CRM System Work With Email Marketing?
A CRM system can work with email marketing in a few different ways. The most common way is to use CRM as a record system for all customer data. This means that all customer data (e.g., name, address, contact info, purchase history, etc.) is stored in the CRM and can be accessed and used by the email marketing system.
Another way a CRM can work with email marketing is by integrating with an email service provider (ESP). An ESP is a company that provides businesses with the tools and services needed to execute email marketing campaigns.
Most ESPs offer integrations with popular CRMs, such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Data from the CRM can be easily exported to the ESP and used to create and send email campaigns.
When looking for a CRM system, it is essential to determine whether it offers an integration with your ESP or not. If not, you may need to find a different ESP that provides this integration.
What Are The Benefits Of Using A CRM For Email Marketing?
There are many benefits to using a CRM with built-in email marketing software to improve campaign performance through more targeted messaging.
While marketing automation tools can help you send more targeted email campaigns, a CRM system can do this even better.
A CRM system has access to all customer data, including purchase history and contact info. This data can be used to create highly targeted email campaigns that are more likely to resonate with customers.
Also, a CRM system can automatically segment customers into groups based on their purchase history or other criteria. This allows businesses to send different versions of their email campaign to different customer segments, increasing each customer’s chances of receiving a relevant message.
Increased ROI From Email Campaigns
A CRM system can help businesses track the performance of their email campaigns and measure the ROI of each. This information can determine which campaigns are most effective and adjust future campaigns accordingly.
ROI and customer relationships are closely linked. The more effectively you can measure and improve the ROI of your email campaigns, the better your customer relationships will be.
Easier Campaign Creation And Management
A CRM system offers businesses a centralized location to create, manage, and track their email marketing campaigns. This makes it easier to keep track of campaign progress and ensure that all the campaigns align with overall business goals.
Marketing tools that help with campaign creation and management include a user-friendly email editor, pre-made templates, automated workflows, and reporting tools.
Efficient Customer Relationship Management
In addition to being an effective tool for email marketing, a CRM system can also help you manage your customer relationships as a whole. This includes not just your customers but anyone that has a contact or interacts with your business, such as partners and suppliers.
Other features of a CRM system worth considering include lead generation tools, marketing automation integrations, sales forecasting software, sales reports & analytics, activity monitoring tools, and more.
Those features might be one of the most significant benefits of email marketing. With the help of a CRM system, it can be easier and more efficient to manage customer relationships.What Are The Features Of CRM Email Marketing?
Finding the right CRM system for your business can be tricky, as each system has its own unique set of features. However, most CRM systems offer some common features, including:
Let's have a look in more detail at each of these features.
Centralized Location For Creating And Managing Email Marketing Campaigns
The sales and marketing processes are a lot easier when they can be managed from a single location. A CRM system allows you to do just that, giving you access to customer data and tools for email marketing from a centralized dashboard.
Having a centralized location helps with campaign creation by allowing marketers to quickly see all their customers in one place and then segmenting them into groups based on previous interactions or purchase history.
It also helps with campaign management by keeping track of all the different running campaigns and gathering information about each one’s performance.
Access To Customer Data, Including Purchase History And Contact Info
CRM systems have access to everything needed to create targeted email campaigns, including a list of your most valuable customers. This data can include contact info, purchase history, and demographic information.
Sales and marketing teams will also appreciate the ability to quickly look up a customer's contact info and see their past purchases. This information can create personalized offers or target specific products or services to customers based on their interests.
Segment Customers Into Groups Based On Criteria Such As Purchase History Or Interests
One of the most powerful email marketing features of a CRM system is segmenting customers into groups. This can be accomplished based on several criteria: purchase history, interests, age, location, and more.
This allows businesses to target specific campaigns at specific groups of customers.
For example, you could send an email campaign promoting your newest product to all customers who have purchased in the last six months. Reaching email marketing KPIs when you send this campaign could be straightforward because you only target customers who have already shown an interest in your product.Track The Performance Of Email Campaigns And Measure The ROI Of Each Campaign
For most businesses, email marketing is one way to help reach sales or marketing goals. A CRM system can help by providing detailed reporting information about the success of specific campaigns.
This includes things like:
The effectiveness of email marketing takes time to measure, but the more data you have available, the easier it is to determine which campaigns are most successful.
Having valuable information for future marketing efforts is perfect for helping your business achieve email marketing KPI goals faster than other methods of reaching customers.
Automated Workflows To Help With Campaign Creation And Management
Manually sending out email marketing campaigns can be very time-consuming, especially if your business regularly sends out many different messages.
A CRM system makes this process easier by providing automated workflows, which allow tasks like creating and publishing email campaigns to be completed quickly and easily. Depending on the features offered by an individual system, some jobs may even be done without leaving your web browser.
Email marketing software is beneficial because creating and sending email campaigns does not require special software or skills.
As long as you have a list of customers and an account with an email service provider, you can start reaching your email marketing KPIs right away.
CRM systems for small businesses could be precisely what your company needs to help take the hassle out of reaching target markets and making sales through email marketing. CRM systems will allow you to spend more time finding new ways to improve your business while staying on top of sales results. Finding the best system should be easy, even if you don't have much free time for research.
Drag And Drop Functionality
Some CRM systems, like Salesforce, offer drag and drop functionality, making campaign creation even more straightforward. Features such as this allow users to easily create campaigns by dragging and dropping different elements into place. The elements can include text, images, videos, and more.
Functionality makes campaign creation faster and easier for those unfamiliar with coding or HTML. It also eliminates the need for using multiple software programs to create a cohesive campaign.
Simply put, a CRM system that offers drag and drops functionality can save time and hassle when creating email marketing campaigns.
A/B Testing For Email Marketing
One of the best ways to improve the results of your email marketing campaigns is to test different versions of each message before sending it out to customers. This is known as A/B testing, and it allows you to see which version of a campaign produces the best results.
This process can be simplified using a CRM system that offers built-in A/B testing tools. These tools make it easy to create different versions of your campaigns and track the results of each test.
This information can then improve future campaigns, helping you reach email marketing KPIs more quickly.
Which CRM Software Offers The Best Email Marketing Functionality?
Now that I've provided a brief overview of what email marketing is and how it can help your small business, along with the right features to look for, let's have a look at the top CRM software providers and see which one offers the best email marketing tools. I'll be comparing the most popular in the examples below.
1. Zoho CRM
Best Overall For Email Marketing CRM
Zoho CRM enables enterprises worldwide to convert more leads, interact with customers, and increase revenue by connecting them to a network of over 250,000 companies in 180 countries.
Zoho CRM offers a wide variety of features for email marketing, including automated workflows, A/B testing, and drag and drops functionality.
It also integrates with various email service providers, making sending out campaigns quickly and easily.
Zoho CRM combines the best features of general-purpose and vertical solutions into one product. By attending to the unique demands of different industries, Zoho CRM ensures that companies in each sector are equipped with the tools they need to succeed.
Automate email marketing campaigns and many aspects of your business as possible to eliminate time-consuming, monotonous activities. Streamline your sales and marketing processes so that you can focus on more important things.
Key Features:
Pricing:
There are four pricing plans with Zoho Sales CRM, as follows:
2. Freshsales
Best For Those That Want To Make The Sales Cycle Shorter
Freshsales allows you to use context-driven sales to identify the right leads and engage them at the right time with the right message.
The solution's unique features allow you to personalize your outreach by delivering relevant messages to multiple customers or contacts quickly and easily.
This enables you to make stronger connections with your clients, increase sales conversion rates, and improve overall marketing performance.
Freshsales helps you personalize your engagement, reduce the sales cycle, and increase revenue by allowing you to connect with interested consumers right when they express an interest in what you have to offer.
Transform your website into a lead generation machine with this powerful chat software.
Key Features:
Pricing:
There is a free package with limited email marketing capabilities, and the paid pricing plans are as follows. These are based on a per-user, per month basis.
3. HubSpot CRM
Best For Those Wanting To Improve Their Customer Relationships
HubSpot CRM helps you manage appointments, tasks, and contacts while tracking social media interactions with clients.
Your team members will be able to access free tools from the get-go. The basic account is an excellent way to get started and go from there.
HubSpot CRM integrates with Google Analytics to provide you with information about the latest metrics. This allows your team to have real-time insights into how your website is doing so that they can make improvements as soon as possible.
You'll be able to see how your team is tracking toward quota with comprehensive reports on sales activity, productivity, and individual performance. You'll never be in the dark about how they're doing.
You'll have all of the data you need to help your team succeed because of it.
The Customer Relationship Management software from HubSpot, a customer relationship management (CRM) system, provides marketing, sales, customer service, content management, and operations across the enterprise.
Key Features:
Pricing:
Annual pricing plans (billed annually) are available, as follows:
Best For Small Enterprises That Want To Be More Productive
Salesforce Essentials is great to increase brand loyalty with the CRM tailored to small enterprises. Sell smarter by increasing productivity with easy-to-use tools that help you manage your team, schedule meetings, and manage key customer information.
Salesforce Essentials is a cloud CRM that enables your company to effectively manage sales, service, and marketing operations across the entire customer lifecycle. The solution allows you to provide an exceptional experience for every customer by automating and streamlining sales and service processes.
Salesforce Essentials is designed for small enterprises, focusing on ease of use and productivity. The solution offers a range of features to manage customer interactions across sales, service, and marketing.
Get the tools you need to connect with your customers and grow your business.
Key Features:
Pricing:
Salesforce Essentials is an affordable and scalable solution with two pricing plans available. The pricing plans are as follows:
5. Nimble CRM
Best For Those Looking For Preset Email Templates To Get Started
Nimble CRM helps automate your marketing and sales processes, and you can dramatically increase their effectiveness.
Data is critical to the success of any business. With Nimble, you can take charge of client data and profit from it. Nimble is the first CRM that creates itself for you and simplifies the setup process.
Teams worldwide are already utilizing Nimble to work smarter and be more competitive in their markets.
Key Features:
Pricing:
Nimble offers several pricing plans, all of which allow users access to the full range of features in the Nimble CRM.
The pricing plans are as follows:
6. Keap CRM
Best For Those Looking To Automate The Non-Business Critical Tasks
Keap CRM allows you to take pride in doing something worthwhile. They believe that everything else should be automated.
Keap is a cloud-based business management suite that comes with all the CRM, email, text messaging, online chat, landing pages, payments, and analytics features that your business needs to succeed.
It has all of this in one easy-to-use software with 24/7 assistance.
Lead Management is where you can keep track of, manage, and organize all of your leads. Keep track of, manage, and organize all of your leads in one place with Lead Manager.
Organize your contacts into segments and send custom campaigns to them. Leads are moved through your sales funnel rapidly and automatically using Lead Manager.
Key Features:
Pricing:
They currently have special prices for the first three months on their paid plans. Based on a contact list of 500 people, this is their pricing structure:
Best For Those That Want To Study What People Do On Their Website
ActiveCampaign is great for providing customer experience automation to help you develop a strategy for increasing revenue.
You can use A/B testing, form analytics, and segmentation, create CRM records directly from Salesforce, or collaborate with small business owners to drive your growth.
ActiveCampaign lets you drag-and-drop to create beautiful email newsletters, then track the success of your campaigns with real-time analytics. You can also use their automation rules to send targeted messages based on customer behavior.
Use specific targeting features to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
Create a more personalized experience for your audience by offering customized advice. Assist them in learning what options are open to satisfy their demands.
Key Features:
Pricing:
Based on a contact list of 500 people, these are their annual pricing plans:
8. Salesmate
Best For Those Looking To Get Started Quickly
Salesmate allows you to raise your income and connections. Salesmate offers simple yet powerful features to help you manage your leads and customers.
You can connect with new customers, partners, or suppliers from anywhere in the world and increase your sales productivity.
Automated and personalized communications can help you convert more prospects into customers. This CRM comes with a built-in email marketing tool that you can use to create beautiful newsletters and then track your campaigns’ success with real-time analytics.
Salesforce is one of the easiest ways to track leads, deals, sales activities, and conversations as they happen. Use sales playbooks and automated cadences to turn this software into a money-making machine.
Key Features:
Pricing:
There are four pricing plans on offer:
Conclusion
Choosing the right CRM for email marketing is about making smart decisions to improve productivity, revenue, and customer service. I've reviewed some of the top options in this post, so take a look at them individually before deciding which is right for you.
Remember that features and pricing can vary, so it's important to do your research and find the CRM that best suits your unique needs.
