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Email Marketing CRM

Why Your Business Needs a CRM for Email Marketing and Texting

I recently had two separate experiences that inspired me to write this post. First, I was invited to present to a local business group on the topic of email marketing. During the presentation, I learned some audience members were sending emails through their personal email service provider account (like Gmail) to a list they stored and manually updated in Excel. Second, I participate in a small business Facebook group where members were discussing how great it would be to have email and text messaging to clients automated. In both cases I thought, “you need a CRM!” In this post you will learn:

(A heads up: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through an affiliate link, I will receive a small commission.)

What is a CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It’s a system that helps businesses manage their interactions with customers, usually with the goal of improving customer satisfaction and driving sales growth. A CRM system can help store and organize customer data, track interactions and customer history, and automate certain tasks such as email marketing and lead generation. In my opinion, a CRM is an essential tool for businesses of all sizes looking to improve their marketing efforts and customer relationships. In every in-house marketing position that I have held in the past decade, our team used a CRM to manage customer/constituent communications and gain insights into individual customer’s affinity for our brand. Signing up for the Hubspot CRM platform was one of the first things that I did when starting my business because I know I need to collect data and have a management system in place to pursue my growth goals. Although there are a huge number of sales, marketing, and customer service functions that can be simplified through a CRM, in this post, we are going to explore the benefits of using a CRM for marketing communications, specifically email marketing and texting.

Email Marketing Service Providers and Compliance

If you are already engaging in email marketing, then you already have a list of some sort. If you’re like the solopreneurs who attended my email marketing presentation and are currently manually collecting names in an excel file and sending out email messages, I encourage you to streamline the process by using an email marketing service provider. It doesn’t have to be a CRM. Using an email marketing service like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Emma, etc. is a step in the right direction.

The reason you need to use an email service provider is because you risk being identified as a spammer if you are sending marketing emails to a large list through Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or whatever email provider you use in day-to-day business. The CAN-SPAM Act is the U.S. law that governs the rules and regulations for commercial emails, and it requires you to include a way for recipients to opt-out of your communications among other things. If you do not have that mechanism built into your email and you send an email to a large number of people, your IP address will likely end up on a spam blacklist.

This is a very real concern, and it happened to one of my former colleagues. She was a salesperson and sent a large number of emails through her company Gmail account. Gmail promptly blacklisted her.

With an email service provider, you can put a form on your website and collect sign-ups for your email communications. You can also upload your current list into the email marketing service provider, enabling your audience members to automatically update their preferences when they wish to do so.

Why Use a CRM for Email Marketing

If you use a CRM for your email marketing efforts, you will receive more data and deeper insights into your prospects and customers.

One of the main benefits of using a CRM is the ability to perform prospect scoring. This feature provides insights into which customers are ready to buy, allowing business owners to target their communications more effectively. By targeting the right people at the right time, businesses can increase their sales and revenue.

As your email marketing becomes more sophisticated, a CRM will also allow you to build integrated journeys for your customers and prospects. A customer journey in email marketing refers to the series of stages or touchpoints a subscriber goes through from the moment they first hear about your brand to becoming a loyal paying customer. It typically starts with the opt-in process, followed by a welcome email, nurturing emails to build a relationship, promotional emails to generate interest and sales, and post-purchase follow-up emails to ensure customer retention.

While I don’t want to dive too deep on that topic in this post, I do want you to know that a CRM will enable you to scale your marketing efforts through a wide variety of tactics beyond email marketing. By using your CRM as the hub for all your marketing efforts, you collect robust data that enables you to make better decisions about what is working and what is not working for you. You can also A/B test your marketing efforts to continually improve your return on investment.

Automated Texting through a CRM

Most CRMs have a way for you to send messages via text message to customers. As a Hubspot user myself, I am most familiar with texting through Hubspot, so that is what I am going to cover here.

To text customers through Hubspot, you need an integration. An integration is a separate platform that connects with Hubspot to collect data from all your text message interactions and stores it in your Hubspot account. This data can be used for prospect scoring and automating customer journeys, just as you would with your email marketing.

With Hubspot’s CRM Messaging integration, you can send bulk texts to a large number of customers (assuming they have given you permission to text them). You can also automate the sending of personalized texts based on an action that customer or prospect has taken.

Texting Regulations and Compliance

It’s important to note that when you use text messaging for marketing, there are also regulations that you must adhere to. In the U.S. those regulations are mandated in two Acts: The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the CAN-SPAM Act.

The most important thing to remember is that you must have permission to send a text message to a contact before you text them. While the CAN-SPAM act makes exceptions for marketing emails (as long as you follow certain rules), you do not have the same leeway with text messaging. TCPA requires you to have written consent from a contact before you text them.

Summary

In summary, a CRM system can help businesses manage their interactions with customers, store and organize customer data, track interactions and customer history, and automate certain tasks such as email marketing and lead generation. Using a CRM as your email marketing service provider enables you to access more data and deeper insights into prospects and customers. A CRM also allows for prospect scoring, targeting of communications, and building integrated journeys for customers and prospects. Texting through a CRM is possible, but regulations such as the TCPA and the CAN-SPAM Act must be followed.
Marketing Blog Author Jenn Yamnitz image

About Jennifer Yamnitz

Jenn is an independent marketing consultant and owner of Adance Communications, LLC. She has more than 20 years of experience in marketing-related fields and has a unique, comprehensive perspective of marketing and branding having worked in PR, graphic design, and marketing over the course of her career.

In 2022 she earned a master’s degree in marketing from the University of Arizona Eller College of Management – one of the top ranking M.S.M. programs in the U.S.

Her mission is to help small businesses and nonprofits with limited budgets get the most out of their marketing investment.

Have a marketing challenge you want to discuss? Schedule a consultation to explore how we can work together to maximize your marketing efforts.