Customer Relationship Management – or CRM – represents a further development of the classic marketing approach. In traditional mass marketing, a large number of people are targeted with the same message. Segmenting, e.g. according to psychographical criteria, does not take place. Target group marketing takes one step further and adjusts its marketing measures specifically to the requirements of target groups. In CRM, every individual customer is focussed on: this is one-to-one marketing. The goal is to create an added value for the customer as well as the company within the framework of the business relationship.
Tasks of CRM in Your Company
CRM fulfils different tasks in a company, which include all stages of the customer life cycle. Initially, prospective new customers need to be identified, targeted and acquired. Interesting customers, i.e. those with sufficiently high sales potential, are targeted and transferred to a dialogue. During the course of this dialogue, information on the prospective customer is collected, which ultimately, can be used to submit a tailor-made offer at the right point in time, which meets his requirements as closely as possible.
Once a customer is acquired, CRM takes on the task of retaining him. Customer retention needs to happen actively as well as reactively. Active customer retention means that existing customers are regularly addressed in order to identify further interests, detect the new or changed requirements and possibly serve these with extended offers. The goal should be to increase customer satisfaction and exploit his sales potential to the maximum. Reactive customer retention means to understand the prompt and satisfying response to customer enquiries, e.g. in the form of reachability of a support hotline for enquiries and problems. In the best case scenario, issues and conflicts are already detected prior to a complaint or before the customer migrates to a competitor without further response. When this happens, the CRM has the task of customer recovery. Each stage in the customer retention dialogue should be recorded, analysed and used for further specification of the customer knowledge.
Integration of CRM Into Relevant Processes
CRM is an integrated concept, which focusses on the customer-oriented direction of the whole company. This means that all relevant business processes must be integrated in the CRM concepts. These do not only include processes, in which direct customer contact takes place. Even the development department needs to be integrated in the CRM. It is responsible for adapting products to the specific customer requirements and regularly redeveloping them based on the collected customer knowledge The goal is to represent all areas of the company as a whole towards the customer. This requires a central capturing of information, as well as processes to transfer and use this information in the individual areas.
CRM in Online Dialogue Marketing
One of these areas, which is particularly relevant for CRM, is online dialogue marketing. The task of the online dialogue marketing is the communication with customers at all relevant points of the customer life cycle. Direct digital marketing develops a communication concept and designs the communication, e.g. through creating the communicated content, and controls them via suitable channels. The goal is to target the right customers at the right point in time via the right channel with the right and most customised messages. Direct digital marketing thus assumes the role of the sender and recipient. In the framweork of a continuous online dialogue, online dialogue marketing does not only send messages to the recipients, but also responds to communication from customers. Customers are only willing to enter a long-term relationship with a company, if they feel taken seriously in an interactive dialogue and there is an added value for them.
To create this value, a targeted individualisation of the communicated contents is necessary. Direct digital marketing therefore requires access to the collected customer knowledge, e.g. to detect customer demands or interests and deliver the relevant content. At the same time, online dialogue marketing itself works on the enrichment of customer knowledge by continuously capturing and evaluating customer response to its communication, as well as communication initiated by the customer.
Customer Rating Based on Scoring Methods in Online Marketing
One possibility to individually address customers based on the collected data, are scoring procedures, such as used by the online CRM software ELAINE FIVE. Here, each action for which the email recipient has given an opt-in, will receive a scoring value, e.g. for a click or an open. If the recipient carries out an action, this value will be added to his profile or existing scoring value. By means of scoring, you can track, how the response of the recipient has developed during the dialogue and when, for example, the right point in time has come to target the recipient with a specific offer.
Recipients can also be clustered according to their focal points. This can be done by assigning links to fixed categories. By means of clicks on the corresponding link, you can then determine, which category the recipient is particularly interested in. You can then focus more on these categories in future communication.
More information on online crm and other digital marketing topics
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