Email marketing is one of the highest ROI digital marketing channels out there with 2019 sales totaling $7.5 billion. Moreover, even though it may seem like the inbox has lost its past vigor, the experts disagree. They see exponential growth over the years with 2026 revenues forecasted at $27.45 billion.
Email marketing software has evolved rapidly to fit the escalating demand with players like MailChimp, ConvertKit, OmniSend offering affordable systems for drip campaigns and transactional emailing. Is CRM of any use for an email marketing manager? Indeed.
Let’s have a closer look at the realm of email marketing as well as how a Customer Relationship Management system fits into this tech stack.
What is CRM in email marketing?
Customer Relationship Management system in email marketing is a tool that helps to gather, systemize, segment, optimize and analyze the client database for further integration with tools allowing the creation of drip campaigns and other related activities. The final benefit of a CRM for an email marketer is the facilitation of the process of converting a lead into a prospect and finally a paying customer.
Some of the CRMs for marketing, like Nimble, for example, have an email module as part of its core features and allow for basic email actions, like group emailing segmented contacts, open rate tracking, etc.
But the possibility to integrate a CRM with email marketing software produces technical synergy, capable of elevating the effectiveness of both tools significantly.
Email Marketing software overview
Let’s quickly see the key functions of the email software as well as the best tools for email marketing before we deep-dive into the use of CRM in this subsegment of digital marketing.
Key Features:
When considering a vendor in this domain, users are looking for the following features:
- Auto-responders
- Dynamic content
- Drip Campaign
- WYSIWYG Email Editor
- A/B testing
- Customer surveys
- Image library
- Event-triggered emails
- Landing pages
- Reporting
- Donations
- CAN-SPAM compliance
- List management
- Subscriber management
- Template library
Best email marketing software
Depending on what you need to achieve in this branch of digital marketing, how much budget you have, and how many subscribers there are on your list, you are likely to end up choosing one of the following tools:
- Mailchimp
- OptinMonster
- Constant Contact
- Klaviyo
- Active Campaign
- Remarkety
- MailerLite
- AutoPilot
CRM VS email marketing
CRM started as a contact database management tool, and it’s still the main feature of the system.
Also, many such tools will have (on top of the contact management and email marketing module) the following features:
- Calendar & scheduling
- Task and deal management
- Pipeline management
- Lead generation [Nimble Prospector extension]
- Customer profile enrichment
- Social media integration
- Reporting and analytics
So, while it can perform some of the email marketing functions, it also helps in planning the day, distributing tasks, and analytics.
It does have somewhat limited capabilities in the creation of drip campaigns or transaction emails, lacking the level of sophistication and granularity of specialized email software.
Why would an email marketer use a CRM?
There are multiple benefits of using a customer relationship management system integrated with the mailing software, let’s see the most critical ones:
To get a 360-degree overview of the process
CRMs are contact database tools to start with, so they have the most extensive client profiles.
Nimble CRM contacts, for example, have over 40 defaults fields and the possibility to create custom ones or add custom tags.
This helps to have a fuller profile to define a general User persona and deep dive into specific segments.
CRM also allows for data like sales managers, tasks and deals to be attached to users, which gives an extra dimension to B2B sales, which need a more granular approach to selling.
To save 90 minutes a day
Email marketers are human.
Just saying. Some of you may think they are robots, obsessed with data and conversion, but they are in fact human.
This means, they are also prone to a bit of procrastination here and there and can fall down the rabbit holes of YouTube and social media during the day.
This is when CRMs can help achieve the best results in email marketing just by streamlining their working routine through the calendar, task management, scheduling features.
Nimble saves 90 minutes a day on average for professionals who start working with the Customer relationship management tool. BTW, it’s got over 140 thousand users by now, so it’s a lot of saved time.
To create VIP-segment emails with social insights
The Pareto principle states that it’s 20% of customers, who produce 80% of revenue.
Email marketing is all about squeezing maximum efficiency in each phase of the conversion funnel. So focusing on the VIP 20% is the prime example of how savvy digital marketers would start about increasing conversions and driving the average check.
Having MailChimp integrations with CRM [or any email marketing tool of your choice] will allow vivisecting those VIP customers down to an atom.
The Nimble Prospector browser extension is an absolute favorite of all marketers, as it allows you to quickly research a contact by pulling all the internet-available data into your contact database automatically.
A user can jump to correspondence with that contact and see all tasks and deals associated with the contact for the best understanding of all the touchpoints. Personalized communication with top clientele based on such thorough research is likely to increase the conversion, loyalty, referrals, and LTV of a client.
How email marketing manager can use a CRM to drive conversions
Clean up the schedule and focus on what matters
Time is one of the most precious resources there is, specifically as it’s not renewable. This is why a good time management resource costs a little fortune. This is why all sorts of notification blockers and procrastination-battling apps like the Forest app are so popular. This is why the Pomodoro technique and GTD are in such high demand.
The Calendar feature in Nimble is compatible with major similar systems, like Google Calendar, Outlook. It also has amazing scheduling and reminder features.
Task and deal management are also linked to the calendar, so you can overview main tasks in the calendar mode as well for better planning of your day.
Mass email all contacts, not only clients
You would usually use email marketing tools for commercial correspondence only, while the inbox in the CRM can and should be used to intercompany communication, correspondence with partners, vendors, etc.
This way, users can easily assign such people to specific deals and tasks as well, which helps to better plan a day.
Create killer lead magnets quicker
Lead magnets are a big deal for email marketing, as a quality magnet is capable of landing an impressive mass of leads.
It’s a dying species though, as more of the quality material is available in exchange for an email.
This is why the creation of a high conversion lead magnet is a big deal, that involves multiple stakeholders, A/B testing, and a lot of brainstorming. Any repetitive task with a certain structure is best executed in the framework of a CRM, whereby all relevant materials and SOPs can be attached to a specific deal or task or copies from a previous flow.
Assign tasks and manage the team efficiently
Team management is hard enough as it is, but remote work made it even more complex.
Getting your team on the same page and adhering to deadlines is the mission possible for a CRM, that integrates it all in one flow: calendar, tasks, correspondence. So, you have all info within a click of a mouse.
Many SMB is looking for CRM with email integration, so that they can utilize this tool instead of the multiple systems, like calendar, email, and task manager.
Create contests in Freelancer for the best ideas and talent
Inspiration is the liquid currency in the kingdom of email marketers.
Contests on freelance platforms help hand pick the best talent and brainstorm for the best ideas.
Having contests often enough will leave you with the contacts of top talent at reasonable rates and brilliant ideas for your email sequence.
Note such freelancers in your CRM with the tag so you can let them know when you create a new contest and invite them to partake.
A/B test your campaigns with a granular view of the segmentation
A/B testing is how you increase conversions in email marketing strategy. You test the subject of the letter, you test the text, images, color of the button, and many more parameters.
Having a CRM tool integrated with your email marketing systems allows for a more granular approach to this mission, whereby you can segregate specific segments and test them separately for most personalized massaging.
Mailchimp integrations made easy via Zapier
Integrations with Mailchimp or other similar systems are a breeze with 3rd party tools like Zapier or via API.
Nimble CRM for email marketers: the no-hassle solution to boost performance
If you are looking for CRM and email marketing for small businesses, Nimble can be the answer to your prayers.
Not only does it have one of the most user-friendly interfaces, but it also has a state-of-the-art Nimble prospector extension, that won the hearts of many in the industry and garnered awards.
Try Nimble for free for 14 days and discover all the ways to optimize your email marketing efforts.
