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CRM platforms and marketing automation tools may often appear to be quite similar at first, but they both serve two different purposes. Therefore, it’s important to understand what each of these tools can accomplish. This article will also compare CRM vs Marketing Automation and explain how integrating CRM with marketing automation tools can prove to be beneficial for your business.

What is a Marketing Automation Tool?

A marketing automation tool enables you to analyze, automate and streamline your marketing workflows and tasks. Using marketing automation tools, you can perform various tasks such as automated form filling, email scheduling, sending out surveys, collecting feedback/reviews and so much more.

Benefits of Marketing Automation

Here are some important benefits of using a marketing automation tool:

• Marketing automation tools can help you improve customer engagement through audience segmentation based on various marketing data about customers’ interests, preferences, and purchase history.
• A marketing automation tool can help you sort out your leads and identify the most promising leads that have a higher conversion probability.
• Marketing Analytics is one of the most important features of a marketing automation tool that can help you track marketing campaigns and give key insights on campaign performance.
• Marketing automation tools can help you streamline your most repeated tasks and can help you save time and improve efficiency.  

Does Your Business Need Marketing Automation?

It is recommended to invest in the right marketing automation software, if:

• You are handling thousands of clients that include emails, feedback, reviews, complaints, etc. which can be difficult and stressful to manage manually.
• You are dealing with a lot of customer data and you want to segment your target audience based on many factors such as age, gender, interests, preferences, etc. 
• You are planning to automate the process of cold email and speed up the process of prospecting and outreach activities.

Get a detailed view of the best marketing automation software in the market and get all the information you need on choosing the right marketing automation tool for your business.

What is CRM?

In a nutshell, a CRM or Customer Relationship Management tool helps you to manage all the interactions with your current and potential customers. CRM enables you to store customers’ information such as contact details, interactions, and conversations, purchase records, phone conversations, and email records. The primary goal of CRM solutions is to build a good relationship with the clients which leads to higher customer satisfaction and improved sales.

Benefits of CRM Solutions

Here are some important benefits of using a CRM solution:

• Timely notifications to sales reps about scheduled calls and meetings, subscription renewals, offers, customer anniversaries or birthdays, etc.
• Sales teams use CRM to prioritize and manage their schedules so that all the customers get the required attention on time, thus improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. 
• Integrated workflow automation helps to reduce time-consuming everyday tasks and improves efficiency.
• Promotional offers and rewards to build trust with customers and improve customer relationships.

Read further about the importance of CRM in sales and learn how CRM solutions can improve your sales performance. 

Does Your Business Need a CRM Solution?

Your business is most likely to require a robust CRM platform if:

• It’s difficult for you to manage all your leads using internal tools such as spreadsheets, calendars, and emails, and you need to collect and analyze customer data.
• You are not able to retain your customers for a long period of time and most of the customers are not satisfied with your customer service. A CRM helps you reach out to unhappy customers and resolve their issues well on time.
• You’re losing track of customers during their journeys or if you face difficulty during the follow-up of potential clients. You need a CRM solution to track each potential or existing customer throughout the sales pipeline.

Key Differences Between CRM vs. Marketing Automation

In a general sense, marketing automation tools primarily manage all your digital campaigns, email marketing, prospecting, lead nurturing, marketing analytics, audience analysis, segmentation, and streamlines many other marketing tasks.

On the other hand, CRM manages all the interactions with your customers (sales pipeline process) such as individual emails, interactions, lead tracking, task management, and opportunity insights. CRM solutions try to improve customer satisfaction and maintain healthy relationships. 

A simple difference between CRM vs. marketing automation is that marketing automation helps to generate and nurture leads, whereas CRM helps to convert the leads and increase sales. 

Integrating CRM with Marketing Automation

Integrating CRM and marketing automation solutions can help you achieve better sales results and increase your revenue. At the same time, the combination of marketing automation and CRM can improve your business’s efficiency and ROI. 

You can leverage both tools by Integrating CRM with marketing automation tools and maximize benefits such as:

• Nurture prospect relationships
• Identify high-quality leads
• Analytical insights on customers 
• Campaign tracking and reports
• Manage and optimize lead journeys
• Optimize and improve customer interactions seamlessly

Does Your Business Need Both CRM and Marketing Automation?

In this article, we have compared CRM vs marketing automation and explained why you need each of these tools. It’s not easy to give you a simple “yes” or “no” because it entirely depends on your business, operations, sales funnel, and customer base. We recommended considering all these factors while deciding whether you need a CRM solution, marketing automation tool, or both.

If you decide to use both CRM and marketing automation tools, we recommend syncing the data between both platforms because it is important that your sales team and customer service teams stay on the same page. If you’re looking for a perfect combination of CRM and marketing automation, you may also consider choosing CRM systems that include extended functionalities or integrations to streamline your sales and marketing operations. 

Here at OMI, we offer marketing automation solutions to streamline your marketing and sales workflows that can help you attract and convert new leads and drive more opportunities. OMI marketing automation expertise can customize your CRM platform and integrate it with marketing automation tools.