Are your marketing programs ready for takeoff?
Which marketing projects offer your CRM program the most bang for the buck? I hear that question a lot, especially as many chief marketing officers (CMOs) and VPs of marketing have been seeing their project budgets increase.
Indeed, over the next five years, many businesses’ CMOs will be spending more on IT than their CIOs. That prediction comes via Gartner analyst Laura McLellan, and while it’s being ultra-promoted now by marketing software vendors, many CMOs expect it to hold true. Accordingly, it’s a reminder that CMOs should always work with their CIOs to identify and implement the best CRM tools for the job.
So, what’s hot? Here are the top four marketing projects we’re seeing for 2013:
1. Marketing Automation Tools
The top, current CRM requirement for marketing programs is to ensure that your CRM system can support core marketing capabilities and requirements. Accordingly, we’re seeing many businesses that are using cloud-based CRM looking to add two key marketing enhancements: campaign management, as well as lead management, including lead nurturing.
To make that happen, most businesses tap marketing automation software, such as from Eloqua and Marketo. For example, Cloud Sherpas recently helped Panasonic’s B2B divisions implement salesforce.com as part of a business transformation aimed at providing the company’s customers with a single sales and service point of contact. Going forward, Stephen Yeo, who’s in charge of marketing Panasonic’s B2B products across Europe, says the company plans to take its CRM project to the next step by implementing Marketo.
2. Marketing Analytics, In The Cloud
Coming on the heels of more businesses rounding out their CRM software with marketing capabilities will be CMOs investing in analytics. The driver here is simple: Once businesses get their core, operational capabilities in place for marketing, and marketing managers gain experience using the new features, CMOs will then want to calculate their new marketing program results, such as measuring campaign spend, and identifying the company’s most profitable leads. To do that, many businesses are investigating cloud-based CRM analytics add-ons from vendors such as Cloud9 and Domo. Such tools help not only accurately track and report on marketing campaign investments, but also accompanying sales returns.
3. Social Media Monitoring
We’ve seen a lot of businesses investigating social media monitoring. The rationale is simple: If you don’t know what customers are saying about your products and services on Facebook and Twitter, or taking appropriate steps to handle complaints, you’re wasting a valuable opportunity to keep your current customers, while attracting new ones.
Of course, telling CMOs that businesses need to get social media savvy is preaching to the choir. But too many CEOs still don’t “get” social, even though the business upsides are clear. As Forrester Research analyst Nick Hayes recently noted, while using social media might seem risky, your competitors are well on their way to mastering its use. Furthermore, a Harvard Business Review study finds that social media can increase employees’ productivity by up to 25%–for example by enabling salespeople to connect with prospects via LinkedIn. The smart business money, across all customer-facing domains, is on social CRM.
4. Connect Campaigns With Always Connected Customers
Leading businesses, in 2012 began to figure out social media. Come 2013, legions of always connected customers will expect every business to have its act together, and marketing must lead the charge.
Accordingly, beyond simply monitoring social networks, CMOs must begin rethinking their campaigns for the social media age, and ensuring they can tie CRM systems to social campaigns. Furthermore, social media pushes marketing–and by extension, CRM programs–in exciting new directions.
Learn More
Want to build a more effective CRM program? Then identify the next, best step for your marketing, sales or service program, by benchmarking your current program against the best practices we’ve assembled through our experience with more than 5,000 CRM projects. Once you’ve identified what to improve, then find the best tools and technology for the job.
Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user kevin dooley.
