Difference between CRM and Marketing Automation

As someone who works in marketing, you should already know that there’s quite a difference between Customer Relationship Management — CRM for short — and Marketing automation software. 

If this is news to you, it’s all right, but you should keep on reading to find out. 

Although CRM and Marketing automation may seem similar or even to be the same thing, they are not identical. Each of them serves a different purpose and play a distinct rule in any business, and you should be aware that to be able to choose the best system for your team and business.

What is CRM?

A CRM system is a software that helps businesses and companies manage their relationships with all their current as well as potential customers. A CRM system will have many features that prove useful in this regard such as: 

- Task Management — to monitor any incomplete actions that relate to moving transactions forward. 

- Contact Management — to store all contact information in one database (that’s most likely backed-up regularly) and track all interactions with all contacts 

- Workflow management — to create a contact plan which often consists of a list of emails that should be sent to a group of contacts at certain times. 

A suitable CRM solution can be of great help to the team managing customer interactions in any business as it automates some tasks that performed manually. That saves time and money and allows them to manage a much larger group of contacts. 

Some of the top CRM software for small Business include HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM, Insightly, Pipedrive, and Salesforce. You can discover even more Customer Relationship Management solutions here.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is all about automating some marketing tasks to save you some time and money while taking your business to higher efficiency levels. Similar to CRM systems, a marketing automation system will store information, but the purpose of saving this info here is entirely different. The goal here is to bring leads into the top of the sales funnel. 

Some of the features of Marketing Automation solutions include: 

- Tracking and Analytics — these systems will track the activities of leads before they’ve caught the attention of the sales team. They will gather useful information such as the time the lead visits the site, opens an email, etc. 

- A/B Testing — Marketing Automation systems enable marketers to test how different effective campaigns are going to be to determine which approach is most likely to get the best results

- Segmentation — A Marketing automation system will assign leads to market segments, after which it can interact with him/her in a more personalized way. It will also track the results of the personalized interaction and analyzed it to improve the process in the future. 

As you can see, Marketing Automation systems are used to nurture leads and bring them to the point where the sales people can start interacting with them with good results. 

The best Marketing Automation Solutions include HubSpot, Pardot, Marketo, Eloqua, and Active Campaign. If you are currently looking for a Marketing Automation solution, you should probably take a minute to check out this Pardot VS Marketing — 2018 Marketing Automation comparison. 

What is the difference between CRM and Marketing Automation Systems? 

As you might have noticed already, even though CRM and Marketing automation systems do similar things — such as store information — each of them manages a different type of interaction.

To get a better understanding of the difference, let’s look at the everyday use cases:

CRM Use Case: 

Sales and Customers Service teams often use CRM. They use CRM solutions to manage and optimize the interactions with their customers — past, current, and future customers — to ensure the best customer experience. 

Marketing Automation Use Case: 

As you have probably guessed by now, Marketing Automation systems used by Marketers and marketing teams. They are used to draw the leads into the sales funnel, after which they would transfer to the CRM system. 

A Marketing Automation system gives your business an advantage over your competitors as it enables you to respond to opportunities that are the results of your marketing efforts and draw those qualified leads smoothly and efficiently into your sales funnel.

Do you need a CRM or a Marketing Automation System? 

That’s probably the question you are here for. So, let’s try to answer it as simple as possible. 

Firstly, let’s get this out of the way: They are different systems, and neither one is objectively better than the other. 

Secondly: Most businesses eventually use both to harness the most significant benefits possible. 

With that being said, as a small business, you are more likely to be in need of a CRM system before a Marketing Automation one. 

You can learn to Choose the right CRM system for your business here. 

The ability to manage a large number of contacts, automate many tasks that would’ve otherwise been done manually, and keep your customers happy will undoubtedly result in more sales, and consequently, more profit. 

As your business grows and your marketing operations become more sophisticated, you will find that a marketing automation system can be of great use. At such point, you will most likely start using a Marketing Automation system and integrate it with your already-existing CRM system. 

If the integration process is completed successfully, you will be able to reduce costs while improving customer relationship at the same time. The two systems do work together really well — especially for growing businesses — and can yield great results. 

When a business can use both systems successfully, it can see significant improvements in productivity, efficiency, sales, and profits. The systems will enable the company to provide automated support for both marketing and sales operations. 

In a nutshell, your business will see an increase in the number of leads that can be attracted thanks to the marketing automation system and then nurtured through conversion with the help of the CRM system. 

I hope this article has been helpful to you. If it has, why not share it with a friend who might find something useful in it as well? 

If you have a question or a comment, feel free to leave it below, and we will do our best to get back to you with answers as soon as possible.

Source: Reviano