How Much CRM Experience Do You Need to Be Successful with Marketing Automation?
“How much do we need to know about our CRM system to be good at this marketing automation stuff?” I seem to get a variation of this question at the beginning of nearly every implementation. Inevitably my reply remains the same no matter what the industry: “You need to know a lot!”
Most marketers have never had to know much about their CRM. Many are lucky to even have access to the system. Once the initial shock from my reply dissipates from my inquisitor’s face, I attempt to explain. To be successful with marketing automation, you MUST closely align yourself to the overall business process.
You need to know things like:
What are all of our fields used for?
What do their values mean?
What are related objects?
What do we store in them?
And overall, how do all of our teams from sales to finance use the CRM system on a daily basis?
If you’re not familiar with this information and how it’s connected, your reporting and insights will be misleading or wrong.
For us, marketing automation is less about automated emails, WYSIWYG editors, drip lead nurturing programs, or even complex scoring models.
The difference between ordinary and great marketing automation implementations is not who uses the most functionality, but how the tool is used to improve their business processes as they stand today. These optimizations need to be carried out in both the marketing automation tool and the CRM. Similarly the processes must be agreed upon by marketing and all other CRM stakeholders.
Here are a few examples of process gaps that we see on a daily basis:
Lead Status
Your company holds a great event and captures over 400 Marketing Qualified Leads. You import them into your marketing automation system and pass them onto sales to qualify and convert. The majority of companies we speak to do not have a firm understanding across sales, let alone marketing, on what each of their Lead Statuses represents. When should a lead be moved from ‘Open’ to ‘Working’, versus ‘Contacted’ or ‘Unqualified’, versus ‘Recycled’ or ‘Qualified’, or simply creating an opportunity? If a week after the event, 350 of your 400 leads were sitting at a status of ‘Contacted’, what sort of insight could be derived as a marketer?
Opportunity Management
Have you ever had an account executive update a marketing sourced opportunity to a Lead Source of ‘AE Generated’? Or created a great opportunity that strangely was closed out, only to miraculously see a new one created in its stead seconds later?
Marketing is inevitably moving towards being measured by the pipeline and revenue it creates. Understanding the intricacies of how your Sales team creates, manages, progresses and closes their pipeline is vital for marketing’s success.
In summary, all CRM processes need to be monitored. They need to be clearly understood, documented, agreed upon and audited by all relevant parties. If marketing does not start “knowing a lot” about CRM processes and looking beyond just the new features of their marketing automation tools, not only will they be unsuccessful with marketing automation, but they will be ineffective in their roles.
Manager’s Office
Sales & Marketing Dept