A customer relationship management system (CRM) is an absolute must for businesses. Whether you’re operating a brick-and-mortar business or a SaaS platform, going after neighborhood sales or international enterprise B2B firms, knowing who you’re reaching and what they need from you is key for growth.
When set up properly, a CRM for small businesses will inform your marketing strategy and your sales funnel, along with giving your product team (or you, if you’re managing the product) the insights needed to solve your customer’s problems.
And you know what? Ultimately, it always comes back to email.
Yep, good ol’ email. The most bleeding-edge tech is available these days, but without great emails, you’ll always be missing out on your best-fit potential customers.
So how do you optimize your CRM for effective email communication? Let’s talk about that.
What is a CRM?
We’re so glad you asked.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is software that helps businesses manage their customer interactions and engagement.
And though it does so much more, this piece is going to focus on the ways a CRM solution can streamline and optimize your email marketing and communication efforts.
CRM tools can help you out by:
- Storing and organizing contact information, communication history, and customer details.
- Keeping track of your engagement in real-time with tools that monitor email opens, clicks, and responses.
- Automating your email marketing campaign.
- Helping you personalize email content and subject lines to make your messages more relevant and improve your customer’s experience.
- Lead management. Capture leads through forms and engagements and then nurture those leads through your chosen email sequence.
The Power of Custom-Coded Emails
But, again, your campaign can only be as effective as your emails.
And for the most effective emails around, there is no replacing a custom-coded design.
Custom emails are templates that have been designed from scratch using HTML and CSS code, meaning you have full control over the customization and look of your email templates.
And as we all know:
Better emails = better engagement.
Optimizing Your CRM Email Strategy
With a coder wielding full customization powers over your emails, here is what your emails can achieve for your campaign.
Elevated Email Design
If your subject line convinces your recipient to open your email, then the content of that email needs to deliver.
Custom-made email templates have a definite one-up over the generic pre-made email templates provided by your marketing platform of choice.
They offer complete design flexibility for a better-looking email that’s visually distinct, much more aesthetically pleasing, and that aligns perfectly with your brand identity.
This control over the design allows your campaign the complete freedom of creativity to create more engaging emails that are better tailored to your customer base and are more likely to be read completely through.
Ultra-Responsive Email Design
Having a custom-coded email also means that your developer has written clean and efficient code that can help you out with image optimization, faster load times, and spot-on formatting across whatever email client your potential customers are using.
In addition to all of that, custom code is much more likely to display correctly on different screen sizes and, since there’s a good chance that your recipients will be reading your emails from a smartphone or tablet, this is the good first impression you want to make to your readers!
Personalization
A custom template ensures that you can create a highly personalized email experience for every segment of your email list.
If your marketing and sales team is already benefiting from user personas (if they’re not, we can help you with that), then knowing how to personalize your emails for their eyes becomes so much easier.
If you don’t have customer personas, you can still insert a personal touch into your emails and subject lines with first names, company details, and other tailored content to make each and every one of your emails that much more relevant and personal to your recipients.
Subject Lines that Get Clicks
While your email subject lines cannot be styled with HTML tags directly, custom coding can still help you generate more dynamic and “clickable” subject lines to make your emails more personal and engaging.
In a CRM system with advanced scripting capabilities, a good coder can create subject lines that change based on your recipient’s industry, location, purchase history, or whatever other relevant data you have.
And you want those subject lines to be as intriguing and engaging as they can be because if your recipient isn’t convinced enough to open the email, then you can kiss your chances at converting them goodbye!
Additional Tips to Optimize Your CRM Strategy
And if you’re really looking to boost your CRM strategies and get the most out of your marketing efforts and budget, here are some additional tips that will take your campaign to the next level!
Valuable Content
Having valuable content is a sure-fire way to hook your recipients and keep them coming back for more.
Blog posts, white papers, case studies, surveys, or more are all great pieces of content to use, just make sure they have a purpose and align with your brand and your goals!
Whether you want to entertain, inform, or engage is up to you and what your target audience is looking for. Just make sure the content you’re sharing has value to them.
Automated Campaigns
Harness the power of an automated email campaign to maximize efficiency and make your life just that much easier.
Just set your goals, segment your lists, and use that valuable content we mentioned above to generate leads and attract new folks to your brand or to new products or services.
These campaigns allow you to automate your workflows with email sequences and triggers, such as abandoned carts, website visits, social media engagement, and more.
Further your reach and make sure you’re getting your brand in front of your customer’s eyes at the right times!
Monitor and Fine Tune
Once your campaign is up and running, your job isn’t done!
Use your CRM analytics to continuously monitor all aspects of your campaign to see which types of content, subject lines, segments, etc. are working the best and which need to be fine-tuned for better results.
Adjust as necessary to keep your campaign performing at its peak!
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Designity: Your CRM Experts
If you’re as convinced about the power of custom-coded emails as we are, then you might be wondering what it will take.
Here’s a handy list of what you’ll need.
- HTML and CSS knowledge to build out email layouts and responsive design.
- Design experience to know how to create emails that engage.
- Graphic design software to create images, graphics, and more.
- Time!
Alternatively, you can partner with Designity and take care of that entire list all at once.
Designity is made up of the top 3% of US-based creative talent, including graphic designers, HTML experts, email marketers, and more, all ready to optimize your campaign and take your email marketing game to the next level.
With a designated Creative Director taking the reins, all you’ll need to do is share your goals with us, tell us about your market, and let your Designity team members take care of not only your coding needs, but the content creation and email marketing know-how to help your campaign succeed.
Check out our email marketing and custom email coding services pages and see what we’ve been able to do for other businesses just like yours.
How do you optimize your email marketing campaign for success?
