Marketing automation has established itself as a technique for automating customer relations in companies . Sometimes integrated into CRM tools, sometimes into emailing tools, it becomes complicated to know how to differentiate marketing automation tools from CRM applications.
Marketing automation: what and for whom?
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation is sometimes called “automated marketing” or “marketing automation” in French. It is a process of automating and industrializing marketing campaigns . It allows a company to automate, script and measure marketing flows and actions.
One of its best-known features is the launch of campaigns (email or SMS). Depending on the behavior of customers on the company’s website, a specific commercial strategy will be put in place. For example, if customers abandon their cart before finalizing the purchase, the tool sends an email.
Concretely, marketing automation can consist of sending an email following the fulfillment of a predefined condition such as abandonment of the shopping cart before finalizing the order. Automating these processes saves the company time and better manages customer relations. In addition, marketing automation generally boosts the generation of inbound leads and improves sales.
Marketing automation therefore makes it possible to automate certain tasks, totally or partially. The aim is to optimize the marketing strategy , by improving the customer experience and lead retention.
Why use marketing automation software?
Marketing automation is often considered THE solution to increase inbound lead generation.
One of the primary goals of this tool is to automate marketing actions based on prospects and customers. It is therefore a solution that allows a significant time saving for a company.
But more than just saving money or time, marketing automation helps improve the effectiveness of your marketing and sales strategy. This system provides a better view of the customer journey on your website.
Through its scoring features, the use of marketing automation software offers the possibility of identifying the most interesting leads. And therefore, of maximizing the conversion rate . In particular by addressing each prospect in a personalized manner, via message or email for example.
Read: Boost the e-mail conversion rate with an automation campaign
But the marketing automation technique goes even further in its actions. After the emailing campaigns, the system allows you to know which prospect opened your message or clicked on the email.
Using marketing automation therefore guarantees many advantages. Like improving your sales strategy. Thus, sales are improved, as is the generation of interesting leads. Marketing automation software will also help you understand what works and what doesn’t. How to transform your prospects into customers . And will help you know which sales axes you need to rework.
What is CRM?
CRM: definition
According to Salesforce, a software publisher, a CRM is a strategy for managing a company’s interactions with its prospects/customers . Also called customer relationship management (CRM), it is a system that helps companies interact with their targets. And this, in an optimized way.
CRM is one of the tools often used for managing contacts, sales and much more. The primary objective of such software is clear: to improve the company’s commercial relationship. And this necessarily involves good CRM.
CRM software records all information about the company’s contacts. Whoever they are (prospect, customer, supplier, etc.). This includes addresses (electronic, postal), social media profiles, telephone numbers, etc. But also, the communication preferences of this or that prospect.
A CRM offers other functionalities. Unlike marketing automation, CRM is an approach rather than a tool in itself. CRM is a real approach, a strategy implemented to improve CRM.
Why use CRM software?
As we just mentioned, the heart of a CRM system is customer relationship management. And any company knows that a good CRM is essential to ensure its sustainability. In addition to saving time by grouping all contact information, it gives an overview of the company.
To facilitate this 360° vision , Salesforce CRM offers a simple and customizable dashboard. Just like Hubspot’s for example. This centralized solution allows you to have access to a lot of important information, at a glance. Like interactions with each prospect, the status of orders by sale, unresolved service issues…
CRM software is often considered the best sales and marketing tools. But it offers a whole range of very interesting actions. Particularly in the field of CRM, partners or even the supply chain. It also allows for better customer service , which is essential today to ensure the sustainability of a company. Indeed, many people take into consideration the quality of customer service. This is all the more true for online sales.
See also: How to choose your CRM?
Different characteristics
CRM Main Features
- Business tool
- Allows individual control of contacts
- Allows you to model and streamline a sales funnel
- Allows you to automate certain marketing actions
- Based on a data model
- Action with a strong impact in SaaS and B2B
- Typically costs more than a marketing automation solution
- Improves GRC
- Optimized time and schedule management
- Personalized follow-up of each prospect
- Reduction of repetitive administrative tasks
- Improved sales
- Systematic monitoring of sales opportunities
- Best quality customer service
Main features of marketing automation
- Marketing tool
- No individual piloting of prospects
- Less expensive than a CRM (Salesforce or Hubspot for example)
- Action with high impact for blogs and online businesses
- Helps automate marketing communications
- Allows dynamic segmentation of contacts
- Automated email campaigns
- Personalization of the marketing message according to the target
- Improvement of commercial axes (scoring and reporting functionalities)
- Improving sales team efficiency
- Allows coordination of marketing and business development
- Generating better leads
When should you use one rather than the other?
Marketing automation for acquiring leads
Converting targets into customers is a crucial step for a company’s success. Marketing automation is an effective way to improve this process. Especially when this system is implemented at the top of the conversion funnel .
During these steps, the most interesting leads will be registered in the database. This is called lead acquisition and qualification marketing. Marketing automation allows you to meet future customers, for a commercial conquest action.
This is done through four levels:
► Knowledge of behaviors : thanks to the marketing automation technique, the company can know the information on the path of each visitor to the site. Such as, the frequency of visits, which pages were visited… Such software also provides information on the name of the companies that visit the website. The analysis of all this data leads to the second level: segmentation.
► Segmentation : it is carried out using the scoring features of marketing automation. A number of points, positive and negative, is attributed according to the action of each visitor. These behaviors can be: opening a message, frequency of visit, downloading documents, etc.
► Email identification : all this data is not really usable without email identification. The goal of this level is to succeed in interesting the target to lead to the registration of their email. For this, several options are possible: free download of a white paper, a quiz, registration to a newsletter… No matter the format, the important thing is that the action requires the registration of the email. Thus, you will be able to take full advantage of the data collected at the previous levels.
► Personalized exchange : once the segmentation is done, and the emails captured, a communication channel is opened between the visitor and the company. This is where CRM comes into play, and the conversion of a prospect into a customer or not. Thanks to marketing automation, the prospect can receive a personalized message. Thus, their interest is aroused, and they will be more likely to come back for a purchase.
CRM to qualify or disqualify a lead
Once these levels are passed, the use of a CRM makes sense. Indeed, CRM (Salesforce or Hubspot for example) is ideal for qualifying or disqualifying a lead . It is the CRM that allows the loyalty or not of a visitor. Faced with the diversity of commercial choices, buyers often favor companies with a good customer relationship.
CRM is essentially based on customers . Its goal is to retain buyers, and increase the average revenue of each customer. This is done over time. By establishing a good relationship between the company and customers. By centralizing all data, CRM gives a history of contact points . The different teams then know when to trigger actions for maximum efficiency.
As a reminder, CRM allows you to create relational scenarios based on the data collected . These scenarios can then be sent by the various sales departments. In the case of large volumes of customers, this can be done automatically. Then, the difference between marketing automation and CRM takes on its full meaning. These two tools are complementary to ensure the sustainability of a company.
More instant marketing automation in customer events
As we have seen, there is a difference between marketing automation and CRM. This is what makes them complementary . This difference between marketing automation and CRM is especially noticeable in the management of customer events.
Indeed, the main difference between marketing automation and CRM is the action time . Marketing automation is done in real time, while CRM is deferred. In the case of customer events, marketing automation takes on its full scope and allows real-time management.
Thanks to automation, it is possible to create real-time dialogue mechanisms . In this way, the interest of leads is constantly maintained, thus increasing the chances of a sale. This automated real-time marketing is often called LMA (Live Marketing Automation). These are, for example, automated follow-up techniques , such as cart abandonment or the expiration of an offer.
CRM is more about data analysis , file selection, structuring. It is more of an approach than a tool. Unlike marketing automation which is a real tool. This is the biggest difference between marketing automation and CRM.
Marketing automation at the service of CRM
Many agree that the difference between marketing automation and CRM can be summed up as follows. CRM is the basis of customer relations, and marketing automation is a tool to achieve this.
It is in the CRM that all the important data is stored. It is from them that marketing automation can be effective and impactful. But it is a virtuous circle. CRM feeds marketing automation , which in return feeds CRM. Gradually, the campaigns become more refined and therefore more effective. The sales axes can thus be reworked to become more impactful. For an effective CRM, you have to play on this difference between marketing automation and CRM. By combining the two, the benefits will only be greater for your company.
FAQ
Should the marketing automation solution be integrated with the CRM?
There is a difference between marketing automation and CRM, that is obvious. But that does not mean that they are exclusive. On the contrary, they are two complementary tools. The field of technology is constantly evolving, software is becoming more and more efficient.
CRMs have an increasingly broad scope of actions. The same goes for marketing automation (especially Hubspot). Indeed, Hubspot’s marketing automation now integrates an increasing number of CRM features. For greater efficiency, it is interesting that marketing automation is integrated into CRM.
What are the benefits of marketing automation?
Using a marketing automation technique has many advantages. Among other things, it saves a significant amount of time. By automating certain actions, for example. This automation frees up time for other high value-added activities. And it also reduces costs, which is not insignificant for a company.
Marketing automation enables a better conversion rate by generating more interesting leads. With personalized campaigns, leads show more interest. Your company will therefore obtain better results.
Since there is a difference between marketing automation and CRM, for even more results, consider combining the two.