According to a Gartner survey, around 50-70% or CRM projects result in losses.
We know. When you’ve spent such a significant amount of money implementing a CRM system, that’s the last thing you want to hear, especially when your main goals are to drive business wide growth and return on investment.
So, what’s the solution? Well, if you want to deliver best-in-class marketing campaigns and get the most out of your CRM system, you need a CRM strategy. And to create a CRM strategy that works hard for you, it all comes down to data.
If you’re not leveraging your data, you’re not going to succeed. It’s as simple as that.
It’s all about data
Of course, this is nothing new. CMOs and marketers have been utilising their CRM systems to gather information on their existing and prospective customers for years. However, data alone isn’t enough to increase ROI.
If you’re going to get the most out of your CRM, you need to think ahead of the curve, strip it all back, and use data to drive your CRM strategy right from the beginning so you can deepen customer relationships, build intimacy, and ultimately, boost loyalty. Here’s how…
7 ways to build a data-driven CRM strategy
1. Define your vision and goals
Before you begin, you need to decide what it is you want to achieve from your CRM strategy. Doing so means it will have a clear purpose from the beginning. For example, are you looking to increase customer satisfaction or decrease customer churn rates? And what do you need to be able to achieve these goals?
Creating a CRM strategy based on your challenges, goals, and key outcomes will ultimately get you the results you need. It’s not about an all-singing, all-dancing piece of software – rather, it’s about taking it back to basics and building your strategy on strong foundations from the ground up.
2. Identify your customer segments
One of the most powerful ways to use data to inform your CRM strategy is by identifying customer segments. You probably have thousands of customers on your CRM, but if you don’t segment them properly, you won’t be able to identify what it is that makes them tick.
You need to use your data to uncover how each customer journey works, unearth trends, identify likes and dislikes, and ultimately, connect to your customers in a more holistic way. Then, you can use your data to define the objectives and KPIs you want to achieve for each segment.
Ultimately, the more segments you have, the more personalised your campaigns will be. And the more personalised your campaigns, the bigger the impact you will have on the customer.
3. Understand who your customers really are
Most companies already understand who their customers are on a basic level, whether this is from creating personas or gathering general insights about what interests their customers from their data.
However, by using data to really inform your CRM strategy, you can go beyond this basic understanding and access key information and data points such as how your customers interact with your business, when your last engagement with them was, or even how you acquired the lead in the first place.
Such in-depth information enables you to get a crystal-clear picture of your existing and potential customers, so you can uncover trends and pinpoint their wants and needs – and ultimately begin to predict exactly what your customers want and when.
4. Use data for extensive targeting
As a CMO, one of your main strategic objectives will most likely be to reach as much of your target market as possible. After all, the more customers you reach, the more opportunities you have for conversion – and if you’re going to target your customers effectively, it all comes down to accurate data.
Taking full advantage of your CRM will allow you to supercharge your marketing capability and create continuous, targeted, and personalised marketing campaigns rather than generic, one-size-fits-all marketing strategies.
Essentially, by using your data to find out what your customers really want and need and targeting your content to specifically to them, you can get straight to the point with campaigns that really engage so you can increase conversion and decrease churn.
5. Share valuable content across all channels
In today’s world, there are more ways to communicate with customers than ever before. So, it’s no surprise that the more marketing channels you are utilising, the more successful your marketing campaigns will be.
It’s not just about channels, though. It’s about providing consistent messaging across all channels for a unified brand experience – which is where your data comes in. The key to success is using your data to create content that resonates with as many customer segments as possible and sharing that content where your customers will see it.
Basically, by utilising customer data to weave value-driven campaigns across all consumer platforms and deliver a consistent, multi-channel experience, you can forge connections and build trust with your customers.
6. Measure impact by attributing revenues
So, you’ve used your data to create effective campaigns that enable you to target each customer segment with bespoke, personalised content. So far, so good! But all strategic actions need to be backed up by figures if you are going to prove the value of your marketing strategy – which is why you need to measure your CRM strategy’s progress.
By using data analysis to monitor your CRM strategy and track the performance of your campaigns, you can identify opportunities for improvement, learn from your mistakes and constantly improve your customer experiences.
As well as performance metrics such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, and customer churn, you should also refer back to your initial goals and see what has worked and what hasn’t. And once you know which campaigns delivered results, you can replicate them for the future.
7. Adapt and evolve over time
When it comes to an effective CRM strategy, it’s important to be flexible. Your strategy is a work in progress, not a simple item that you can tick off a list and move on from. That’s why you should let your data make your decisions and inform what you should do next.
Your CRM strategy should be constantly evolving as your business and customers continue to grow and change. In fact, the reason many CRM projects fail is because they only look at the end result, rather than the process of continual improvement over time.
That’s why here at Edit, our strategy teams work alongside data scientists to find valuable, actionable insights – so we can help you to keep honing your strategy as you go.
How Edit can supercharge your CRM strategy
Here at Edit, we strip everything back and use data to drive our approach so that we can create powerful, bespoke, transformational CRM strategies that enable you to build stronger relationships with your customers.
If you want to find out more how our team of Editors can help with your CRM strategy, contact us today to learn more.
