Knowing how to use CRM data for content marketing will help you understand your customers’ behavior and preferences better.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software has revolutionized how businesses interact with customers.
At its core, a CRM system helps businesses manage customer data by centralizing it. This data can include contact information, purchase history, preferences, and customer behavior like email opens and clicks.
However, a CRM system can do much more than just be a data repository. It also helps businesses segment their audiences, track customer changes over time, and expand their target audiences.
Your business likely already has some form of CRM software. But you may not realize that a CRM can have a huge impact on your content marketing strategy if you use it correctly.
Here are some tips for how to set up a CRM system with an eye toward content marketing, followed by three ways to use your CRM for content marketing to better reach and engage your target audience.
Setting up a CRM system for content marketing success
Not all CRM platforms are created equal. Look for one with data integrations to platforms where your customer data lives already. A built-in analytics dashboard and automation for tasks like sending emails or follow-ups are also great features.
Once you’ve chosen CRM software, treat it as the central location for all your customer data. This means either integrating or inputting data, including contact information, purchase history, and interaction history.
After your data is entered into the system, it’s important to keep it updated. This means adding new contacts and customers as well as keeping track of changes in existing ones or automating this via data integrations.
Next, you can set up automation using your CRM system. Some common tasks that are often automated are contact follow-ups or abandoned cart emails.
Once you have decided which tasks you would like to automate, set up the automation rules within your CRM system, which will define when the task is carried out.
Finally, once everything is set up, it is important to test everything out and make sure it is working properly before going live. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing valuable customer data or not reaching potential customers.
3 ways to use CRM data for content marketing
Follow the steps below to use CRM data for content marketing and get the most out of this powerful duo.
1. Create personalized content using CRM segmentation
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all piece of content for everyone in your audience. A CRM system can help you segment your audience in many ways that are useful for content marketing.
Segment by lead source
One method is segmentation by lead source. This allows you to personalize content based on a client’s journey to your product, including blog posts and emails. That way, the content they read is more relevant to them.
You can also use this type of segmentation for analytics to see what content has had the highest amount of clicks, reads, and conversions.
This data can help you decide what to spend more time on — maybe doubling down on what’s working or troubleshooting what isn’t.
Segment by contact type
Second, you can segment your audience by contact type. This is useful because it gives you the option to send targeted messages to specific groups of people.
For example, you might want to send specific emails to VIP customers or to those customers who haven’t purchased anything in a while.
Segment by lifecycle stage
A third idea is to segment your customers by lifecycle stage. Segmenting this way allows you to send targeted messages to people who are in different stages of the buying cycle, or to create content that is relevant to each specific stage.
An example of this would be if you work for a B2B company and you want to write articles on:
- how your buyer can get budget approval for your tool
- how to get the rest of their team on board
- how to implement your tool
By segmenting your audience, you can ensure you’re sending the right message to the right people at the right time, which is crucial for using CRM data for content marketing effectively.
2. Fine-tune content based on CRM customer change data
Another way to use CRM data for content marketing is by tracking changes.
A CRM system allows you to track any changes that occur within your customer base. This includes changes in contact information, purchase history, and preferences.
Knowing when this information change is valuable because it allows you to fine-tune your content marketing and marketing campaigns on an ongoing basis.
If you look at CRM data about your customers and notice that customer behavior is changing, you can keep those shifts in mind as you are setting content strategy.
For example, if your company is an e-commerce platform and you notice that one category of products has started selling better than another, you can start to build a content strategy around the best-selling category to continue to increase sales.
3. Expand your audience with insights from CRM systems
You can also use CRM data for content marketing by expanding your target audiences effectively.
By giving you visibility into your customer base, a good CRM system makes it possible to identify potential new customers or new audience segments you hadn’t considered before.
For example, imagine your company sells products primarily bought by women aged 25 to 54.
However, through your CRM data, you notice that a significant number of men in their 30s and 40s are also viewing your website and engaging with your content. You might decide to create additional content targeting this new audience segment to drive sales.
Not only can you use CRM data to reach new audiences, but you can also use it to further engage with your existing customers.
One way of doing this is to track which content pieces are most popular with your audience. With this data, you can create more of the content that they’re actively consuming.
Another example of expanding within your current audience is to look at what products your customers are purchasing. If there are products that are frequently bought together, a CRM system can help you identify those products.
Then you can write blog posts about how those products work together. You can even create email marketing campaigns to target customers who have purchased one product but not the others in the past, explaining to them what they may be missing.
By understanding how your customers interact with your brand — what kind of content they consume and what kind of messaging they respond to—you can create more targeted and effective content marketing campaigns.
CRM systems are a great resource for content marketing
CRM systems and content marketing go hand in hand. CRM software can be a valuable asset for any business’s content marketing strategy when used correctly.
You can use CRM data for content marketing to get insights into your target audience that you can use to produce content that resonates with them.
It can help you segment your audience in useful ways for content marketing, including by lead source and contact type.
By centralizing customer information and tracking engagement data, businesses can create more targeted and effective content marketing campaigns while also expanding their target audiences.
A CRM system is essential to running effective content marketing campaigns and building content strategy. Now is the time to start if you’re not already using your CRM data to inform your content marketing efforts.
If you need help creating content that resonates with your target audience, ClearVoice’s expert team of writers and editors has you covered. Talk to a content specialist about your needs today.
