While marketing people are quite rightly getting excited by this concept, increasing volumes of information brings its own headaches.
Traditionally, sales and marketing activities are carried out in isolation and are digitally separated. The sales team manages the sales process from enquiry to sale using their CRM system (e.g. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013). The marketing team utilises the company website, email marketing, social media and a whole range of traditional tactics to generate sales enquiries.
The sales and marketing process should be one continuous process. However, there can be a break in the information flow between the sales and marketing teams. This break in information is usually managed manually.
Marketing teams usually measure a huge range of information:
- Email click throughs
- Email opens
- Search terms used by individual to find your website
- Who has attended an event
This information is of vital importance to the sales team but can be un-available to them. This can be due to the data being locked away in the electronic marketing systems managed by the marketing team.
The same goes for sales information availability to the marketing team. The answer to a simple question like “Did any of the website search terms we optimised recruit any A grade customers?” can be almost impossible to answer. Capturing the search terms used to bring new customers to your website and attaching that information to the customer record in the CRM makes this information available in real time.
Integrating your digital marketing activities with your CRM system brings almost all your customer intelligence into one place. Combine detailed marketing information on individuals with their buying habits with a powerful reporting system means more effective marketing leading to more sales opportunities.