VIDEO: CRM and Marketing Automation: Understanding the Key Differences and How to Use Them Effectively

Hello, I’m Justin Fraction for TechnologyAdvice. So let’s say you’re in the market for a CRM or customer relationship management platform and start researching independently. You might notice that you keep coming across something called, “Marketing Automation” as a function of CRM platforms and as a whole thing unto itself. In this video, we’re going to explain what CRM and Marketing Automation are, where their platforms/ functions overlap, where they are different and how do you know which one you should choose?

This video is only part of the story. If you’d like, you can read more about it in the article this video is based on at the link I’ll put right here. And beyond that, you may want to head on over to our website just to look at the articles that we write Reviews and CRM marketing stuff. It's all there. Go on over, take a look after you've watched the video. Watch, watch this and then go. You can do that by clicking the link up above that I’m going to put right here.

As always, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe. First up, “What Does a CRM Do?” CRM stands for Customer Relationship just to look at the articles we write. Reviews and and CRM marketing platforms help you manage and grow your customer relationship. How do they do that? They usually organize customer contact information, keep track of the things they’re interested in when they arrive at your site, and focus on marketing your products to the customers most likely to buy them.

So “What is Marketing Automation?” Automation allows you to automatically do tasks that are usually done manually like sending emails to nurture leads or reminding customers to schedule an appointment via text. If that sounds like something a CRM might do, that’s because it is. Many CRMs include various marketing automation functionalities built in. But you can also work on platforms that wouldn’t be classified as CRMs that primarily automate tasks without all the other bells and whistles you might find in a CRM platform.

With that in mind, what are the differences between these two things? Marketing Automation generally focuses on the beginning or the end of the sales cycle by nurturing leads initially or emailing them with reminders to rebuy their favorite product. CRM solutions are geared towards working with a customer over the entire lifetime of their relationship with the company. Marketing Automation is often a single feature of CRM packages. CRM platforms have many more features like database management, reporting, and more.

Which should you choose for your company? Any company could benefit from a CRM but they’re mostly, not all, designed to be used by medium to enterprise-level businesses with large teams and customer bases. Marketing Automation is useful for any business that deals with a large volume of communication methods such as emails, texts and chats. Marketing Automation platforms also don’t usually have the level of customization that you can find with a CRM platform.

So what are the benefits of both platforms? Both help businesses save time, stretch marketing budgets, find more customers and convert more leads. CRM platforms generally centralize everything you could need to manage your customer relationship over their entire lifecycle interacting with your business. Marketing Automation platforms specifically focus on automating things humans might have to otherwise do “the long way” like sending emails. So now that you know all of this, which is right for you?

Overall, you might just want to choose a CRM. If you get something like Salesforce it will already have marketing automation built in! But if your business is small then maybe you don’t need all of that? You may also end up spending more for a CRM system than you would a Marketing Automation system. In those cases, you could go with a Marketing Automation platform like Wrike, which we covered at the link I’m putting right here. Well, that’s it for this video.

For more information CRM or Marketing automation platforms feel free to visit our site at TechnologyAdvice by clicking the link right here. Or you could subscribe to the channel by clicking this link. Then again you could stick around after that and view a playlist we made especially for you of things you may dig. We’ll see you next time.