CRM for B2B marketing: Enhancing customer relations and sales

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems have been revolutionary in the world of B2B marketing, allowing digital marketers to take care of the core of their businesses – their customers.

With this technology at their fingertips, they bring customer data together in one centralised hub, organise and store it safely and analyse the data to provide vital insight into customer behaviour.

As a result, B2B businesses can increase their revenue, manage their sales pipelines, capture and nurture leads, create better marketing campaigns, analyse data, streamline their operations, boost efficiency and improve both customer relationships and sales.

In our previous article, we introduced you to the power of CRM systems for B2B marketing and how they can help you boost efficiency and save money.

Today, we’d like to focus more closely on one of the greatest powers of this technology – the ability to gain insights into customer behaviour, pain points, preferences and needs and strengthen these relationships for optimal B2B marketing success.

We’ll first look at why customer relationships are so important for your business, then focus on the benefits that CRM systems can bring to your organisation.

Why is it so important to nurture customer relationships in B2B marketing?

To put it simply, better relationships with your B2B customers lead to greater customer satisfaction, increased brand awareness and loyalty and as a result, more potential revenue for your business.

However, these days, your interactions with your customers can come from a variety of touchpoints including email marketing, social media, meetings, phone calls and many more.

Of course, the larger your company, the harder it becomes to keep track. This can cause your communications to become patchy, inconsistent and disappointing. If this happens, you could damage your relationship with potential or existing customers, they could turn to your competitors, and you could lose valuable revenue.

On the other hand, if you can streamline your customer interactions with a CRM system for B2B marketing, you can build even stronger relationships, show that you genuinely care and show the real human side of your organisation.

In turn, this boosts sales, enhances your brand image and helps you keep track of that key data for optimal growth.

How do CRM systems help boost your customer relationships and sales?

CRM systems are a key tool for effective B2B marketing because of their ability to streamline customer communication, bring data together into one centralised hub and allow for better, more personalised communication with your customers. Let’s go into some more detail.

1. You’ll get to know your customers better

Imagine if you could get a holistic view of your B2B customers, personalise any interactions and understand the key pain points of each. Imagine what a difference it would make to your business. This is all possible when you adopt a CRM system for B2B marketing.

It brings together all key data including basics such as their name and contact details, buying behaviour, which stage of the buyer’s journey they are currently at, their preferences, requests for information and other vital information. Your business can then use this to understand your ideal buyer better, create more detailed buyer personas and keep track of all communications.

2. You’ll boost brand loyalty

When you have this customer data at your fingertips, you’ll be able to answer their questions and address any objections more easily, stay transparent and show a real human side to your business that your customers will love.

By doing so, you’ll demonstrate that you genuinely understand, improve their overall customer experience and naturally develop greater brand loyalty without having to develop a separate B2B marketing strategy.

3. You’ll find it easier to segment your customers

Segmenting your contacts is another powerful way to separate various types of buyers and where they are in the sales funnel so you can deliver tailor-made content that meets your potential buyers’ needs.

When you adopt a CRM for B2B, you can do this easily, breaking down your data into categories and criteria so you can run specific B2B marketing campaigns and adjust your sales pitch, content marketing and lead generation to match.

4. You’ll better anticipate your customers’ needs

Your B2B customer relationships and sales will also improve when you can anticipate their needs and provide exactly the right experience at exactly the right time.

CRM systems allow you to do this effortlessly as they allow you to track buyer behaviour across various touch points, making it easier to guide the potential buyer through the funnel, cross-sell, upsell or offer post-sales support as required.

This also allows you to be more proactive and tweak your offerings or provide better offers at exactly the right time.

5. You’ll communicate with your customers faster and more easily

Today, everyone expects a swift and efficient response when communicating with a business. Without a CRM system for B2B, the lack of a centralised hub means that your customers could be forced to wait for a reply, you will look unprofessional and your potential revenue is likely to decrease as your customers look for a company that can provide better customer service.

Best of all, CRM systems offer various templates that you can use to enhance your B2B marketing strategy including the ability to automate emails, send quotes and ask for feedback.

6. You’ll boost customer retention

Want to keep your existing customers happy and encourage repeat sales? CRM systems are perfect as they can automate post-sales support and guidance without a significant amount of extra effort from you.

This can be a huge investment in your business because keeping an existing customer is around 6-7 times cheaper than generating leads, nurturing them and guiding them through the sales funnel.

Use your CRM system to continually update and educate your customers about products or services, offer further advice and support and boost customer retention.

7. You’ll increase referrals

Although we live in the digital age, word-of-mouth marketing remains one of the most effective ways to expand your customer base, get referrals and grow your revenue.

When you use your CRM system effectively, you will boost customer satisfaction, which will lead to more referrals, better networking opportunities, and more potential clients.

In essence, there’s no better marketing tool than a satisfied customer.

Summary: CRM systems for B2B Marketing

Your customer relationships should always be your priority in business as they are the core of your business.

By adopting a CRM system, you can better nurture these relationships, treat your customers as individuals, gain valuable customer insights, build trust and customer loyalty, boost your brand image and as a result, generate greater revenue.

If you want to future-proof your business, investing in a CRM system for B2B is a savvy option.

Want to know more about CRM systems for B2B? Or help choosing the right one for you?

Contact us today.