I have been tasked with writing the company newsletter in my past lives…and anyone who has shared that responsibility knows the associated dread that comes as the next publish date approaches. It’s tough being creative on queue! You know you had a brilliant idea at one point during the last 30 days that you fully intended to carry the newsletter with, but it now escapes you as you stare at the blank template. When these dark moments come you start thinking even more negatively. “Who even reads this anyhow?” you start to ask yourself and “Am I just wasting my time?”
Though I am using a newsletter as an example in this story, we know these same doubts often apply in many marketing campaigns. Marketing sometimes feels subjective. You have to “believe” your efforts are having an impact because you haven’t been able to actually quantify them. Marketing is an important role that sometimes leaves its champions feeling a little lost behind the scenes.
Allow me to let you in on a secret. It doesn’t have to be that way.
I like to think of myself as creative (at least selectively), but more importantly I think of myself as analytical. Show me the numbers! The beauty of CRM is that it can provide analytics for previously subjective activities. You can use CRM to track how many of your email campaigns have been open, viewed or read. You can begin to quantify that fact that leads came from your marketing efforts. And here is the real magic….when you are feeling creative you can create campaigns (like newsletters!) in advance and set up automated processes for them to release on a predetermined schedule.
Imagine…writing all 12 of your newsletters in one industrious day and allowing the automated process to send them on schedule. Better still, let that automated process automatically update the contact record that it has been opened and read by the prospect and then auto notify the appropriate sales person so they can call in “warm” instead of “cold”. When that prospect becomes a client…you now KNOW your efforts played a part in securing that business. Create a report in your CRM that notifies you on a monthly basis of all the prospects that were converted to clients after having opened and read your marketing emails. Evaluate which marketing campaigns created more leads, improve your campaigns or target market based on specific groups to achieve the results you desire.
You won’t believe what an impact creativity combined with analytics can do for your departmental objectives or for your morale! It will seem miraculous!
