CRM: a marketer's manifesto

When you're using CRM in marketing, the goal is ultimately to increase the value of your existing customers. CRM is about developing the relationship with your customers so it is a win/win situation: the customer is better served and this has a knock-on effect in the value they bring to your company. 

Here, we'll share a slice of our manifesto for using CRM marketing, gleaned from many years' experience implementing Microsoft CRM in Bristol and beyond.

Loyalty and value

The customer base of almost all industries at the moment is increasingly disloyal - they have an ease of information at their fingertips and can easily, largely through new technology, find the best offers in the market and also how companies perform and treat their customers. 

So the chief benefit of using CRM wisely is to increase customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty to your brand. In turn, customers will want to use your services and buy your products rather than go elsewhere as you are offering them a better service than your competitors. This will increase long term sales and profits. 

In a recession or difficult period customers look for value rather than price, the combination of quality and price. You can see this in the brands that have done well, and those that have suffered. 

Timing and relevance

It is more important that ever to offer your customers the right product at the right time. CRM helps you anticipate customers' own need cycles. At the moment all commercial organisations need to work harder for their customers and sales. You need to offer the customer what they want, rather than them wanting what you have: they have more power than ever before. 

Being relevant to the customer is key or they will just go elsewhere. Customers want, in all aspects of their life, more personalised levels of service and products. 

Personalisation

Personalising emails means more than just including someone's name, or altering the email with basic selections such as male or female. Personalising, done well via your CRM, has the power to make your communications truly customer focused, giving each person relevant information, services, products and offers at a time and through a channel that they want. The key to achieving this is having a good data source: you cannot really overemphasise the importance of good quality data in producing good CRM comms. 

Three models for producing well targeted CRM communications

These methods are all about talking to customers when they want you to and about what they something that is important to them, not just when you have something to say. 

1. Propensity models - very useful in targeting customers who may be interested in a product, but limited in that they are not necessarily customer led. The model needs to be very tight to get a good base of customers to contact. 
2. Behavioural targeting - such as when customers have a child. This is a great way of helping customers when they need your services. It is about offering a service as much as selling a product; it can often be more about offering a service to get loyalty at an important time for them. 
3. Retargeting - contacting customers based on how they react to marketing. For example, if customers click on a certain link in an email, you would be wise to contact them again about that. Once more, this is about contacting customers at a time that is relevant to them. 

A few words of warning to marketers

Insight as well as data is vital. Don't just rely on what customers tell you. You need insight to see what they really want and combine what they are telling you and what they are doing, as these two are not always the same. 

Lastly, CRM needs to be used to produce a win-win scenario. Your business is meant to win as well as the customer. The ultimate goal is to make money for your company in a long term, sustainable fashion by interacting much more closely with your customer. 

Done well, CRM is not just about squeezing profit, and it's not just about keeping customers happy. It's about achieving the perfect combination: making money from keeping customers happy.