7 Ways Marketing Automation and CRMs Streamline Your Processes

marketing automation, martech

Over 51% of businesses now use marketing automation software and many more plan to increase their automation budgets. Marketing teams derive multiple benefits from these tools, like generating and nurturing leads, often through integrations with other management software.

Even though the systems can be quite costly in the short run, companies still opt for them because of the problems they solve. Marketing automation helps eliminate common issues sales and marketing teams face during campaign executions.

They help to make your teams more efficient which in turn generate high returns on marketing investment.

Below are some of the major issues automation and CRM systems address within the marketing processes. You will learn how these tools can streamline your operations and provide the assurance your business needs.

What are some of the issues that marketing automation solves?

1. Marketing and Sales collaboration

The roles and tasks within marketing departments and between marketing and sales teams are gradually blurring out. Companies must find ways to improve the synergy within the two departments. That way, they can:

  • Ensure seamless flow of leads through the entire funnel
  • Maximize the efficiency of each department by focusing on qualified leads which they identify through shared data
  • Maximize conversion rates since they can seamlessly share information and draft appropriate strategies accordingly.

Marketing automation and CRM systems are the best way businesses can do this. Both teams can access the systems simultaneously and feed off a shared database. Furthermore, when marketing identifies sales-qualified leads, there can be a smooth transfer between the groups through integration.

2. Reduce Inconsistency

Since sales and marketing personnel work differently, our clients usually have inconsistencies when executing their strategies.  Thus, the need for a uniform automation system.

With marketing automation or CRM system, their teams feed off the same database and follow similar guidelines with clients. The platforms can dictate which steps to perform when to perform them and suggest messages that consistently work well in the correct situations.

In some doing, they can ensure a consistently good customer experience. Even in unique cases, the team can easily communicate or work together to achieve similar goals. 

3. They Boost Efficiency

Businesses that do not use marketing automation and CRM systems face inefficiency issues. Their teams spend a lot of time figuring out what to do, collecting and managing information manually, or even going back and forth when sharing data.

However, with marketing automation, your business can cut out all this waste. The systems are standard and consistent, enabling you to conduct your marketing processes faster and more accurately. You also won't need to hire more personnel to fill the gap, thus saving on costs.

4. Peace of mind

For Sales managers and CEOs, concerns often arise that some elements of the marketing and sales process may not work out according to plan. Team players might abandon some activities if they are too tedious, information may get lost, some contacts may not be followed up, etc.

These managers need the assurance that their strategies will be well-executed and without error. That is where marketing automation systems come in.

Marketers only need to set up their parameters, provide content, and then let the system handle all the nitty-gritty details.

Many of our clients, especially in bigger companies, often face this problem, especially when dealing with smaller teams. So, our SharpSpring software gives them peace of mind that their strategies will run as planned.

5. They Offer Control

Managing leads, drafting communications, and other tasks can be tricky, especially considering different salespeople have varying methods.

So, purchasing a CRM and marketing automation system provides them with some control over these processes. The teams can rely on one source of data. And when members make improvements, everyone benefits as well.

The main aspect of this is the measurement and tracking data. Without marketing automation systems, it can be harder to obtain regular campaign results.

These help the team make decisions in sync, considering that they feed off the same valid source instead of using guesswork.

6. Minimize Missing Leads

Without automation, it can get tedious to manage your leads manually, especially for larger companies. However, marketing automation and CRM systems ensure you capture and nurture all possible leads that come to your platforms. They also help you identify the most promising ones.

Most of our clients find it challenging to figure out marketing or sales qualified leads to work with. So, they adopt automation tools that come with lead scoring features to help.

Lead scoring features help you assess and score leads depending on their behavior, so you can easily identify those worth chasing.

Furthermore, automation tools make it easy to communicate to multiple leads consistently. You can follow up, send messages, email sequences to numerous contacts with just a few clicks and a little customization.

7. Reduce Human Error

Since marketing strategy comes with multiple activities and different team working styles, manual methods are often prone to human error.

It is common with many of our clients where team members miss out on essential data or misplace it or make technical mistakes that can be costly and time-consuming to rectify.

But they have found that marketing automation and CRM systems greatly reduce these occurrences. With the right data in play, these systems are more efficient at processing and producing accurate results each time.

Therefore, marketing automation tools boost efficiency by reducing or eliminating human error during campaigns.

Final thoughts

Many businesses are gradually adopting marketing automation systems for multiple reasons shown above. Luckily, there are several systems on the market to cater to different needs.

Experts recommend comprehensive marketing automation systems with key features like lead scoring, analytics, email automation. Etc.

SharpSpring is an all-in-one automation system that you can customize to suit your business's specific needs.

At a top automation agency like Funnelbud, you can get the system with additional expert marketing support to help you make the best of it.

Get a free demo today and see how it works.

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About the Author

Priscilla Achieng

Priscilla Achieng is a lead Technical Content Writer at Funnelbud. A Content marketing professional by day, a passionate soccer fan by night, she also provides copywriting and SEO services for businesses of all sizes.

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