The main priority of customer relationship management (CRM) is to find, attract and win new clients; nurture and retain the customers your company already has and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service while determining the most efficient way to engage with both existing and potential customers.
The latter has become a key focus of CRM in our rapidly developing digital age, as customers have embraced digital technology and marketers cannot reach them through the traditional ways. Now marketing teams need to re-establish a means of reaching the customer via social media platforms.
Social media has boomed over the last few years and has created a fluid space where people interact more freely and at a faster pace than before. There are also many different channels used for different kinds of communication, so understanding the customer and exactly what they want has become crucial.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows you to implement CRM more freely and with more ease by using technology to best communicate across a growing number of channels ranging from traditional media to digital environments, all the while maintaining a consistent message and identity.
Another trend is the rise to prominence of digital marketing platforms. Digital marketing has risen to comprise roughly half of daily media time, with customers increasingly turning to social media to express satisfaction but especially dissatisfaction with products and services. This has become influential in developing and implementing a CRM system. The digital engagement environment needs to be defined carefully and correctly, paying attention to how it is evolving and subsequently how the nature of engagement with the customer needs to adapt. Social media needs to be managed carefully, ensuring that the right amount of information is released at the right time to the right people on the right platform. Being responsive and having a lightning reaction time to negative engagement is crucial. Engagement is more personal and more immediate, so a social media marketing (or digital media marketing) strategy has become a must-have.
CRM engagement in the form of marketing campaigns and strategies have changed direction; where it once had more of a one-way, rigid-once-approved nature it has now become fluid, with the customer determining the tone and shape of the CRM strategy. It is fully two-way, with customer input in what works and what doesn’t work becoming invaluable and indeed what could mean the difference between engagement and indifference.
This convergence in different media has had a significant impact on how the consumer landscape is changing and therefore impacting businesses. Innovation has become key and with that the ability to concisely and comprehensively communicate that expertise in an increasingly competitive and crowded marketing sphere. Campaign effectiveness needs to be measurable as this convergence has caused more transparency in both data and analytics. This has led to a need for new KPIs and changed the face of how the success of marketing strategies is viewed. Customers – the kings – now have a far greater say in how effective a marketing campaign is deemed and how marketing campaigns will look in future.
You need the best of the best to help you create the perfect CRM strategy to engage with your customers in a positive, productive manner.
