The way consumers interact with brands is constantly changing, and with over 3,500 companies in the marketing technology landscape, there is no shortage of CRM tools and marketing software to keep companies up to speed. But mastering how to best leverage customer data and information technology is no easy feat, causing far too many services to lose focus on bringing efficiency to daily tasks and driving strong customer relationships.
For years, CRM tools have been sought after for fine-tuning customer management and easing administrative burdens, but questions still remain around how broad and complex these services should actually be. The direction of CRM has become muddied — it’s trying to be too many things to too many people. These broad offerings aren’t necessarily valuable for your business or unique target audience.
CRMs are focusing too heavily on providing extensive customer management solutions, when tailored customer marketing solutions would be a more effective way to strengthen customer relationships. No two industries or audiences are exactly alike, and your CRM and martech stack should reflect this reality to deliver everyday value to users.
Marketers, let’s focus
The value of CRM is clear. Digital marketers need tools to help build their brand and connect with their customers. The days of casting a wide net and expecting companies across industries to buy into the “one size fits all” approach are past. The key to moving CRM toward a productive future is focus; we need to zoom in on everyday tasks specific to each industry, unpack how they could be made more efficient and offer unique solutions that bring productivity to the next level.
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