Marketing automation and CRM concerns the use of technological resources with the aim of automating certain marketing tasks and processes, such as generating leads, sending email marketing and managing the sales funnel. For companies looking for ways to sell more and more assertive solutions to meet their customers' needs, automation may be the answer.
In this post, we will better understand how these practices can optimize your business's workflows.
What you will see in today’s content
- What marketing automation is and which tasks it automates.
- How flows organize funnel journeys and reduce rework.
- Action examples: lead capture, personalized emails, segmentation, lead scoring, and nurturing.
- Automation of social media and online advertising campaigns.
- Use of metrics and results to adjust the strategy.
- What CRM is and which information it centralizes in the customer relationship.
- How CRM supports upsell, cross-sell, service personalization, and handling complaints and feedback.
- Workflow impacts: efficiency, segmentation, real time data visibility, and cross department collaboration.
- Customer retention through personalization, ongoing contact, churn risk identification, and good privacy practices.
Good read!
Marketing automation and CRM: how they work together to sell more
Marketing and CRM automation uses technological resources to automate tasks and decisions, such as lead generation and nurturing, sending personalized emails, segmentation, and lead scoring. In practice, it organizes journeys throughout the funnel, reduces rework, and helps marketing and sales operate with the same qualification criteria. CRM centralizes data and relationship history from the first interaction through post sale. When integrated, they connect marketing actions to the customer’s history, reduce noise in lead handoff, and improve funnel tracking, impacting productivity, retention, and trust.
- Capture leads through landing page forms and start automated flows.
- Segment contacts by profile, behavior, interest, and needs.
- Apply lead scoring and prioritize opportunities based on behavior.
- Nurture leads with educational and informative content until purchase.
- Analyze metrics to identify improvements and adjust the strategy.
How does marketing automation work?
Marketing automation is the use of software to build workflows that automate tasks and decisions, such as segmenting contacts, sending personalized communications, and prioritizing opportunities based on behavior. In practice, it structures journeys across the funnel, reduces manual work, and helps marketing and sales operate with the same qualification criteria. These flows can include actions such as:
- Capturing leads through forms on landing pages;
- Sending personalized emails, with content and offers relevant to each stage of the sales funnel;
- Segmentation of the contact base according to some criteria, such as profile, behavior, interest and needs;
- Lead scoring, which evaluates the maturity of the lead according to the interaction with the company;
- Lead nurturing, sending educational and informative content to help educate the customer and prepare them for purchase;
- Automation of social media and online advertising campaigns to expand reach and generate more leads;
- Analysis of metrics and results to identify areas for improvement and adjust the strategy.
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The functions of a CRM
O CRM ou Customer Relationship Management is a tool that allows you to manage and monitor all aspects of the customer relationship, from the first interaction to post-sales. With CRM, it is possible to centralize important information about customers, such as their contact details, purchase and interaction history, preferences, complaints and feedback.
The objective of CRM is to help companies maintain a close and personalized relationship with each customer, creating loyalty and increasing satisfaction. With the help of CRM, you can:
- Follow the customer lifecycle, from the first contact to after-sales;
- Identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, offering relevant products and services to each customer;
- Manage complaints and feedback, seeking quick and effective solutions to problems presented;
- Personalize communication and service, using CRM information to offer a closer and more appropriate service to each customer;
- Analyze metrics and results, identifying trends and opportunities for improvement in customer relationships.
When used together, marketing automation and CRM can help companies build a solid lead and customer management strategy, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales process and generating more significant results.
Workflow
Marketing automation can have a big impact on a company's workflows, especially if that company relies on many manual, repetitive processes to manage its marketing efforts. Here are some of the main impacts of marketing automation on your processes:
Reduction of manual workload
With marketing automation, many tasks performed manually, such as sending emails or managing advertising campaigns, can be performed automatically. This means marketing teams can focus on more strategic and creative tasks.
Increased efficiency
Marketing automation can help optimize processes in the marketing department, reducing the time required to perform tasks and minimizing errors, as well as improving the overall efficiency of the marketing department.
Improved audience targeting
Marketing automation can enable better audience segmentation, enabling marketing teams to deliver more personalized and relevant messages to their customers and prospects.
Greater data visibility
With marketing automation, marketing teams can have better visibility into real-time campaign data, allowing them to monitor performance and adjust their strategies in a timely manner.
Better interdepartmental collaboration
Marketing automation can help improve collaboration between different departments of a company, especially if there is integration between marketing automation tools and other business tools.
Overall, marketing automation can help improve marketing department efficiency, effectiveness, and collaboration, allowing teams to focus on more strategic and creative tasks, as well as providing a better customer experience.
What is the impact on customer retention?
One of the main ways in which Marketing automation helps retain customers This occurs through the personalization of communications and interactions with customers. With automation, it is possible to segment the customer base according to their interests, purchase history and behaviors, allowing companies to create highly personalized and relevant marketing campaigns for each customer. This can significantly increase customer engagement and brand loyalty.
Furthermore, marketing automation can also help maintain contact with customers over time, through scheduled email marketing campaigns, for example, allowing the company to stay in constant contact with its customers by offering relevant content and keeping the brand present in their minds.
To keep this strategy healthy over time, it helps to connect automation and CRM to strong privacy practices, such as a valid legal basis, easy opt-out, and data minimization. This reduces risk and increases trust across email, forms, and nurturing flows, aligned with Brazil’s General Data Protection Law.
Finally, marketing automation can also help identify customers at risk of churn, allowing the company to take proactive steps to prevent customer churn. For example, it is possible to create specific campaigns for these customers, offer promotions or special discounts to encourage their stay.
Summary: For companies looking for intelligent ways to increase their productivity, as well as the effectiveness of their processes and campaigns, marketing automation combined with a CRM system promotes an approach that can maximize business results.
When CRM and automation work together, relationship history and marketing actions stay connected, reducing friction in lead handoffs and improving pipeline follow-up. Platforms like HubSpot centralize CRM automation and help turn intent signals into outreach priorities.
Check out our other blog post about how the Hubspot platform can be your company's greatest ally.
Frequently asked questions about marketing automation and CRM
What is marketing automation and what is it for?
Marketing automation is the use of software to create flows that automate tasks and decisions, such as segmenting contacts, triggering personalized communications, and prioritizing opportunities based on behavior.
Which actions can be part of marketing automation?
Automation can include lead capture through landing page forms, sending personalized emails, segmentation by profile and behavior, lead scoring, lead nurturing, automating social media and online advertising campaigns, and analyzing metrics and results.
How does marketing automation help in the sales funnel?
It organizes journeys throughout the funnel, reduces rework, and helps marketing and sales operate with the same qualification criteria.
What is CRM and what is its goal?
CRM is a tool that manages and monitors the customer relationship from the first interaction through post sale, aiming to keep a close and personalized relationship, creating loyalty and increasing satisfaction.
Which information can a CRM centralize?
A CRM can centralize contact data, purchase and interaction history, preferences, complaints, and customer feedback.
How can CRM support sales and service?
CRM helps track the customer life cycle, identify upsell and cross sell opportunities, manage complaints and feedback, personalize communication and service, and analyze relationship metrics and results.
What changes when marketing automation and CRM are used together?
When used together, they help build a solid lead and customer management strategy, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales process and generating more expressive results.
What impacts can marketing automation bring to workflow?
It can reduce manual workload, increase efficiency, improve audience segmentation, increase real time data visibility, and improve collaboration between departments, especially with integration between tools.
How can marketing automation help retain customers?
It helps through personalized communications based on interests, purchase history, and behaviors, keeps contact over time with scheduled campaigns, and identifies customers at risk of churn for proactive actions.
Which privacy best practices were mentioned to support the strategy?
Adequate legal basis, simple unsubscribe, and data minimization were mentioned, reducing risks and improving contact trust, especially in email, form, and nurturing flows, in line with the General Data Protection Law.
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