CRM Marketing - Definition, Features, and Benefits + 5 Best Marketing CRM Tools

In today's digital landscape, cracking good marketing isn’t just about casting a wide net - it’s about connecting with customers in meaningful, personalised ways that build loyalty and boost revenue.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has completely reshaped the way businesses tackle marketing. It helps deliver tailored communication, streamline their operations, and make smarter, data-driven decisions. For businesses keen on improving their marketing strategies and building long-term customer relationships, CRM marketing software is a game changer.

In this guide, we’ll delve into the benefits of CRM marketing, take a look at some of the best CRM tools out there, and help you figure out how to choose the right one for your unique business needs. Learn how leveraging CRM solutions can set you up for marketing success and give you a leg up in today's competitive market.

What is Marketing CRM?

Marketing CRM is a tool that helps businesses manage relationships and build stronger connections with their customers. By keeping track of every interaction with current customers and potential leads, it allows businesses to use data-driven insights to personalise marketing strategies on individual needs and preferences.

A marketing CRM acts as a central hub for customer information, pulling together data from various sources like sales interactions, website activity, social media engagements, and email communications. This consolidated database gives businesses a clear picture of each customer, including their preferences, purchase history, and preferred ways of communicating.

With a CRM tool, businesses can:

• Gain comprehensive customer insights - by gathering and analysing data from various sources, businesses can get a solid understanding of their audience.
• Create personalised marketing campaigns - with the insights in hand, businesses can craft highly targeted campaigns that cater to individual preferences, boosting engagement and conversion rates.
• Measure and analyse performance - a marketing CRM comes packed with analytics tools to help you track your campaigns, measure ROI, and uncover insights into customer engagement and conversions.
• Automate marketing processes - CRM tools make life easier by auto,ating repetitive tasks like managing customer data, email campaigns, or scheduling social media posts. They also ensure you’re delivering the right messages to clients at the right stages of their journey.
• Streamline marketing project management - a CRM system simplifies managing projects by allowing you to add tasks, set deadlines, and track progress. Keeping thing well-organised boosts team efficiency and improves outcomes.
• Enhance client engagement - personalised communication and targeted messaging help foster meaningful interactions with clients, driving betteer engagement and encouraging repeat purchases.
• Improve customer retention and loyalty - by providing personalised experiences and nurturing strong relationships, CRM software helps businesses build loyalty and keep customers coming back for more.

What is CRM Marketing Automation?

CRM marketing automation is all about using smart technology to streamline and optimise marketing tasks, helping businesses deliver personalised experiences at scale.

It’s a way to automate repetitive marketing processes – like email campaigns, lead nurturing, and customer segmentation – while still keeping things highly customised and tailored to individual needs.

Here’s how CRM marketing automation typically works:

1. Data collection and analysis - CRM systems pull in and analyse customer data from various sources, like interactions, transactions, and demographics. This information provides valuable insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and interests – key for creating personalised campaigns.
2. Segmentation and targeting - armed with the insights, marketing teams can segment their audience into distinct groups with similar characteristics or behaviours. This makes messaging more relevant and targeted, boosting the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
3. Automated campaign execution - once the audience is sorted, CRM tools make is easy to set up and run automated campaigns. These might include personalised emails, targeted social media posts, or ads with offers that resonate – delivered at the right time and through the best channels to maximise engagement.
4. Monitoring and optimisation - CRM systems offer real-time analytics and reporting, so marketers can track how campaigns are performing. Key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions are monitored, making it possible to tweak strategies and get better results.

By automating marketing processes, CRM tools help businesses work more efficiently, engage with customers in a more personalised way, and boost overall satisfaction – building stronger, long-term relationships along the way.

How Can Customer Relationship Management Software Boost Your Marketing?

A CRM system has become a must-have for modern businesses wanting to take their marketing to the next level. By centralising customer data, streamlining processes, and enabling personalised interactions, CRM offers a range of benefits that can seriously enhance your marketing game.

Here are some key way CRM can supercharge your marketing efforts:

Understand your customers better

One of the standout perks of a CRM tool is its ability to give you a full picture of each customer. By pulling together data from touchpoints like website visits, social media activity, and more, it creates a unified profile for every client.

This overview helps marketers get a deeper understanding of customer behaviour, preferences, and purchasing habits. Armed with this knowledge, businesses can craft campaigns that hit the mark.

On top of that, CRM tools make it easy to segment your audience based on criteria like demographics, behaviours, purchase history, or engagement levels. This means your messages and offers can be tailored to suit each group’s specific needs and interests.

Personalise communication

Personalisation is at the heart of great marketing, and CRM systems make it easy to do at scale.

By using customer data, marketers can create highly personalised messages and experiences across multiple channels, keeping customers engaged throughout their journey.

Manage and nurture your leads

CRM streamlines the often-complex task of lead management and nurturing. From capturing leads through forms to tracking their interactions and scoring their engagement, a CRM helps marketing teams focus on the most promising prospects.

It also supports automated workflows for lead nurturing – sending relevant content and personalised messages at the right time to guide leads towards conversion.

Manage and optimise marketing campaigns

CRM helps you plan, execute, and optimise your marketing efforts. Whether it’s creating multi-channel campaigns, scheduling them, or tracking their performance, CRM ensures consistency and efficiency across all touchpoints.

Engage your customers

CRM is a game-changer for boosting customer engagement. It allows businesses to track interactions in real-time, respond to inquiries quickly, and proactively offer personalised recommendations or deals. By delivering exceptional experiences, you can foster loyalty, retain top-tier customers, and drive long-term growth.

Integrate with other tools

Most CRM platforms play well with others, integrating with marketing tools like social media management tools, advertising platforms, and analytics solutions.

This integration centralises your workflows and data, making it easier to coordinate and create cohesive strategies across your marketing channels.

Automate repetitive tasks to free time

CRM systems automate mundane tasks like data entry, lead scoring, email follow-ups, and campaign scheduling. This frees up your marketing team to focus on the big-picture stuff – like creating compelling content, analysing campaign results, and connecting with customers. Automation also reduces manual errors and improved productivity

Measure the impact of marketing campaigns

CRMs come packed with analytics and reporting features to help you measure how well your marketing efforts are working.

You can track important metrics like conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, return on investment (ROI), and customer lifetime value (CLV). This makes it easier to see what’s working, tweak what’s not, and drive better results.

5 Best Marketing CRM Software in 2024

Choosing the right CRM solution is vital for taking your marketing efforts up a notch and driving business growth. Here’s a rundown of five top-notch marketing CRM solutions for 2024, with a spotlight on their features, pros, cons, and pricing.

1. Creatio

Marketing Creatio is a feature-packed CRM platform designed to streamline your marketing processes and boost customer engagement. 

With its intuitive interface and powerful tools, Creatio is ideal for crafting personalised marketing campaigns, nurturing leads, and analysing campaign performance.

Features

• 360-degree view of contact and account data
• lead management
• campaign management
• email marketing automation
• digital ad management and analytics
• event management
• lead scoring and segmentation
• website behaviour tracking
• workflow and project management
• performance and productivity management
• omnichannel communication
• analytics and reporting

Pros

• all-in-one platform integrating marketing, sales, and service.
• user-friendly design with customisable dashboards and workflows.
• advanced marketing automation capabilities like lead scoring, campaign management, and more.
• no-code capabilities and composable architecture that enables extensive customisation even by non-technical users.
• AI-powered recommendations for NBA/NBO.
• comprehensive analytics and reporting to track campaign performance and ROI.
• Access to a marketplace with 700+ third-party apps, add-ons, and connectors.
• Highly scalable, making it a great fit for growing businesses.

Cons

• The extensive features and customisation options may feel a bit overwhelming at first for some users.

Pricing

Marketing Creatio’s pricing starts at $49 per user per month, with customisable plans to suit individual business requirements.

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2. Salesforce

Salesforce is a CRM platform that offers a range of marketing automation tools designed to help businesses supercharge their marketing efforts and drive revenue growth.

It enables marketers to deliver personalised customer experience, automate repetitive tasks, and measure the impact of their marketing effectively.

Features

• client data platform
• marketing AI
• lead scoring
• referral marketing
• campaign management
• loyalty management

Pros

• advanced AI capabilities for lead scoring, account-based engagement, and AI-driven marketing insights.
• multi-channel targeting options, including mobile app notifications, SMS, and webinars.
• out-of-the-box reporting capabilities for areas like campaign-influenced revenue and pipeline tracking
• a scalable solution, making it suitable for businesses of any size.

Cons

• pricing is complex and varies depending on the features and add-ons selected.
• Limited integration options with third-party CRM and SFA platforms.
• not beginner-friendly – setup and customisation require a degree of technical know-how

Pricing

Salesforce can be a significant investment, with pricing ranging from $1,250 per month to as high as $108,000 per month, depending on the plan and features chosen.

Read our Salesforce marketing cloud alternatives guide here.

3. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a user-friendly platform that merges CRM with email marketing via its Campaigns feature. It’s a great choice for businesses looking to manage email campaigns efficiently and deliver highly personalised messaging to the right audience.

Features

• email marketing automation
• email builder
• audience segmentation
• analytics and reporting
• campaign management
• marketing workflow automation

Pros

• easy-to-use tools for creating and sending personalised email campaigns while tracking responses.
• pre-designed email templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop email editor.
• seamless integration with popular marketing and productivity tools.

Cons

• limited advanced marketing automation features compared to more robust platforms.
• reporting may not meet the needs of businesses with complex analytics requirements.

Pricing

Pipedrive offers flexible pricing, starting at $14 per user per month for the Essential plan, up to $99 per user per month for the Enterprise plan.

4. ClickUp

ClickUp is a flexible project management platform that doubles as a CRM and marketing automation tool, helping businesses streamline their marketing processes and improve teamwork across the board.

With customisable workflows, task automation, and built-in communication tools, ClickUp makes it easier for marketing teams to plan, execute, and track campaigns efficiently.

Features

• task management and automation
• customisable task lists, boards, and calendars
• collaboration tools
• content marketing management
• event marketing management
• campaign planning and tracking

Pros

• all-in-one productivity platform combining project management, CRM, and marketing automation functionalities.
• strong automation features, with over 100 pre-built workflows to simplify sales and marketing tasks.
• integrates with more than 1,000 third-party apps

Cons

• marketing automation features aren’t as advanced as those in dedicated CRM platforms.
• new users might find the interface and navigation a bit tricky at first.
• non-technical users may need assistance setting up complex workflows.

Pricing

ClickUp offers various pricing plans starting from free for basic features and $7 per user/month for the Unlimited plan.

5. HubSpot

HubSpot is a marketing platform offering a robust suite of CRM and marketing automation tools. The Marketing Hub delivers an intuitive interface, automation features, and extensive integrations, enabling marketing teams to attract, engage, and delight customers while driving revenue growth.

Features

• lead generation
• multi-touch revenue attribution
• email marketing automation
• ads software
• campaign management
• marketing analytics and reporting

Pros

• seamless integration across HubSpot's sales, customer service, and marketing tools for end-to-end customer management.
• comprehensive marketing automation capabilities, including lead nurturing, and workflow automation.
• vast library of resources, training, and support for users.

Cons

• pricing can be steep for small businesses, especially for advanced features.
• some users may find the platform's complexity overwhelming.
• limited template customization makes adjusting to brand identity challenging.

Pricing

HubSpot pricing starts at $20 per month for the Starter plan and goes up to $3,600 per month for the Enterprise plan. A free plan with basic features is available, making it an accessible choice for smaller businesses.

Choosing the right CRM solution is essential for optimising your marketing efforts and achieving business goals. Whether you need advanced automation, seamless integrations, or user-friendly interfaces, the five CRMs highlighted above offer a range of features and functionalities to meet your marketing needs.

How to Choose the Right Marketing CRM Software?

When picking the best CRM software for your marketing teams, it’s important to weigh up the following factors:

Business goals

Start by aligning the CRM’s features with your business objectives. Whether your focus is on lead generation, customer engagement, or driving revenue growth, making sure the platform supports your strategies effectively.

Scope of features

Check you the features on offer – like lead management, email marketing automation, campaign management, and analytics. The platform should have all the tools you need to execute your marketing campaigns.

Ease of use

A user-friendly CRM interface can make all the difference. Choose a platform that’s intuitive and easy to navigate so your marketing team can get on board quickly and work efficiently.

Scalability

Think about your business’s future growth. Make sure the CRM can handle more leads, contacts, and projects as your business expands, without missing a beat

Integration capabilities

Your CRM should play well with the other tools in the marketing toolkit. Look for seamless integration with email marketing platforms, analytics tools, and other marketing automation software to keep your workflows smooth and productive.

Pricing

Budget matters. Look for a CRM that offers a pricing model that fits your budget and provides flexibility – so you’re not paying for features you don’t need.

By taking these factors into account, you’ll be better equipped to choose a CRM that matches your business goals and delivers the tools your marketing needs to thrive.

Take Your Marketing to the next level with a CRM System

Choosing the right CRM system is a game-changer for businesses looking to refine their marketing strategy and achieve long-term growth. A good CRM helps streamline operations, enhance customer relationships, and boost revenue with targeted marketing efforts.

When it comes to CRM solutions, Creatio stands out as a top choice. With its user-friendly interface, powerful marketing automation features, and smooth integration with other tools, Creatio is designed to meet the diverse needs of today’s marketers. It enables businesses to simplify marketing processes, enhance customer experiences, and deliver measurable results.

By opting for Creatio, you’re investing in more than just advanced technology – you’re choosing a tool that aligns with your business objectives and supports sustainable growth.

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