Life after customer acquisition – CRM & Marketing Automation
Over the past years, brands in the Middle East have invested heavily in advertisements, digitisation, performance media, and analytics – CRM and Marketing Automation Over the past years, brands in the Middle East have invested heavily in advertisements, digitisation, performance media, and analytics. This has led to a whole new ecosystem of (online) businesses, a […]
Over the past years, brands in the Middle East have invested heavily in advertisements, digitisation, performance media, and analytics – CRM and Marketing Automation
Over the past years, brands in the Middle East have invested heavily in advertisements, digitisation, performance media, and analytics. This has led to a whole new ecosystem of (online) businesses, a massive increase in client bases and with that; a whole lot of data on prospects and customers.
Great, you nailed the ‘acquisition’ phase! Now, it’s time for the next step on this exciting journey: utilise and leverage what you know and build further on this new relationship. Welcome to the world of CRM and Marketing Automation!
Advantages and how-to’s on CRM and Marketing Automation
One of the main advantages of exploring this domain is that businesses will have the ability to ‘steer’ audiences based on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), NPS, or only revenue.
As a starting point, businesses should have a good understanding of their user journeys and the related ‘lifecycle stages’. You have a big group of people that just bought your product or service for the first time, they are in the ‘Onboarding’ stage, great!
- What are you communicating to them to foster that starting relationship?
- What do you want to know from them, and more importantly; what do you have to offer them?
Looking further down the lifecycles, you will see a group of people that used your product or service for a while, but they might stop or consider alternatives.
This is not something to be afraid of, but a normal ‘’fact of business’’. How is your relationship with these people?
Do you know what will make them stay? If so, are you able to offer that? If you don’t know anything at this stage, you’re steering in the dark.
The question arises: what should you change in your approach during earlier lifecycle stages, enabling you to retain them as soon as they are in the ‘retention stage’ of the lifecycle?
Make CRM and Marketing Automation work for you
So, think about your key performance indicators. What is it that you are trying to accomplish, whether it is in terms of CLV, NPS or revenue, and how can you get that from the people you have relationships with?
What are your next steps to make all of this happen, is it a campaign, or do you need to offer a better overall experience or something else?
Getting your CRM strategies and tactics in place in such a way it plays a strategic role in reaching your goals isn’t the easiest. But bear in mind: it is a strategic choice to build further upon what you have developed so far, to truly foster your customer relationships.
Combining data gathered across different touchpoints and during different moments across the customer lifecycle will enable you to manage your user’s journey effectively.
According to research, organisations who can do this right might expect a 28% increase in revenue as well as a 26% increase in marketing ROI.
Also Read: How Does CRM Differ From Marketing Automation?
A great example from the past
Just take a second to remember how in times gone by, shop owners would actually know a lot about the customers who turned up in their shop, didn’t they?
They would know who this person in front of them was, their household situation, their children’s names, products this person mostly bought, preferences he or she had as well as things they didn’t like.
Until today, they still surpass us with one critical success factor: the way they built relationships with their customers based on the genuine interest they showed and the way they acted upon this.
Knowing your customer, based on data and insights you get from actual behaviour, forms the basis of working on a genuine relationship like the shop owner back in the day.
Actively working on this relationship offers companies a whole range of new possibilities; Therefore, we look at CRM and Marketing Automation as a strategic element of a business.
We believe that CRM or Marketing Automation is not just a technology platform, a sort of magic box, or even worse: ‘’e-mail drip campaigns’’.
It is a mindset—a mindset of genuinely wanting to establish and foster a relationship with your customers.
