If you work in sales and marketing, it’s safe to assume that you’ve encountered the terms customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation software. It’s also safe to assume that you’re not entirely sure how they’re different from each other. Well, you’re not alone.

While both are essential tools for collecting and managing customer data used for sales and marketing, there are key differences and understanding them allows you to use each one effectively for better results.

What are CRM and marketing automation?

One of the most important parts of running a business is making sure you have repeat customers. That requires constantly checking up on them, letting them know you’re around in case they need you. This can involve sending emails, remembering who to call, creating a schedule, etc.

You can imagine how tedious and time consuming that can be and even though it’s arguably the most important part of your business, it still is just a part. There are other things that need to be done to keep it running. Enter marketing automation and CRM.

These tools are designed to make working with your company’s leads and customers easier. Their entire purpose is to automate repetitive tasks in order to have constant, efficient, and effective communication with your leads to eventually make a sale. They map out a customer’s journey from awareness to a call to action to a sale. By executing email templates, campaign designs, and social media posts, you can get customers to do what you want them to do: sign up, shop, join, download, etc.

The key is making everything efficient for you and the customer and to ensure they keep returning by being a constant presence in their online experience. All that can be set up through automation and can still be highly personalised.

Why you need marketing automation

1. List management and segmentation

Marketing automation allows you to manage your contacts into lists and segments.