{"id":46843,"date":"2013-08-10T11:35:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T18:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/customerthink.com\/best_of_crm_august_10th\/"},"modified":"2013-08-10T11:35:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T18:35:00","slug":"best_of_crm_august_10th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/best_of_crm_august_10th\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of CRM: August 10th"},"content":{"rendered":"
Every week, we recount some of the best buzz around CRM and data integration. We’ll review our favorite articles and share the most pressing findings or key takeaways from each.<\/p>\n
Stale CRM Data can Stall Sales<\/a><\/b> What CIOs Need to Know about Marketing’s Data Needs<\/a><\/b> Which Tools do you Use?<\/a> <\/b>
\nBy: Christopher Bucholtz (@Bucholtz<\/a>)
\nThe role of sales no longer consists of hard and soft-selling – successful salespeople now work to become their buyer’s trusted advisor, and to do so they need relevant and timely data on that customer. This data may not be perfect, as Christopher writes “CRM data is to the prospect what a painting is to a photograph. It’s not a perfect reflection of the prospect – it’s an impression based on aspects those collecting the data chose to emphasize.” One way to ensure sales is armed with the most relevant data possible is to frequently update customer records in the CRM system, which means sales must engage in more “listening” and less “selling” than ever before. And as an added bonus, integrating the CRM system with other business systems will further flesh out this customer record, ensuring a more complete and up-to-date view of the customer.<\/p>\n
\nBy: Loraine Lawson (@LoraineLawson<\/a>)
\nWith marketers continuing to gain importance for enterprises, they require more data than ever before. Unfortunately according to a survey by Gleanster, the CMOs of many midsize and large B2C organizations lack this much-needed data, hindering revenue-driving tasks like customer segmentation. According to Loraine, “the study shows that overall, not even half of the marketers were satisfied with their data capabilities,” with a key highlight showing that 86% of marketers believe they could drive more customer revenue with a better 360 degree view of customer attributes. Of note to us is the finding that under half of marketers surveyed were satisfied with their customer data integration, demonstrating an easy way to being moving towards that full customer view. The study provides four recommendations to improve the situations, which include breaking down silos and allowing real-time data access, shifting data from campaign-centric to customer-centric, creating an integrated multi-channel approach, and connecting analytics, strategy and creative.<\/p>\n
\nBy: Denis Pombriant (@DenisPombriant<\/a>)
\nThis piece covers Denis’ new marketing study on how marketers analyze data like cost per lead, cost per program, etc., along with what systems they use for processing data. Denis found that “the big dog was CRM with a 54 percent share. Next came marketing automation with a full third, and last was business intelligence with 22 percent.” While the data commonly collected is useful, the problem comes more from the data not<\/span> collected, with under 10 percent of marketers collecting critical performance data such as time stamped marketing events, deal velocity and average lead time for each marketing stage. To leverage marketing as a weapon rather than a cost, marketers must measure and utilize these data points to move the needle for their company and gain a deeper understanding of and more control over the leads going into their sales funnel.<\/p>\n