At the core of all marketing activity should sit your data; consistent, accurate information is the key to gaining better business insights and measurable results. With the launch of GDPR last month, 2018 has been all about data management. Your CRM system capabilities along with your security measures will now be under the spotlight and the way you process your data needs to comply with the new EU regulation. But while good data will help you avoid potentially hefty fines of up to €20 million or 4% of your global annual turnover, there are a whole host of other benefits that will drive maximum value from your marketing efforts.

Increased retention and revenue
In today’s unpredictable economic climate, targeting customers precisely is more important than ever. Savvy marketers use profiling to understand their best customers; who they are, their preferences, and commonalities. Identifying common demographic criteria such as post codes, business location and size enables you to understand your best customer segments. From here you can take the steps needed to retain these valuable customers. In order to accomplish this, a process must be established whereby data in your CRM system is regularly cleansed ensuring customer, supplier and partner information is up to date, accurate, and actionable. Regularly enriching your CRM system with third party data adds demographics and shows upsell opportunities, while applying intelligent analytics helps create more powerful customer profiles by predicting future behaviour.

Enhanced customer service
For any business wanting to take customer satisfaction to the next level, good data is imperative to help identify and understand your customers. The more you know, the better equipped you’ll be to deliver the kind of positive experience that sees them coming back for more of your product or service. After all, it’s a relationship not just a sale. Many customers cite the main reason for moving to a competitor is “feeling unloved”. By identifying, recording and documenting every interaction, you can accurately quantify and categorise data. By storing it in the cloud, this data becomes easily accessible for future reference and available across departments. Employees can provide the same consistent high level of service no matter who it is that’s servicing your customers. In addition, money can be saved through improved productivity, since staff will spend less time reconciling inaccurate data and more time meeting the needs of your customers.

More effective marketing
By collecting digital trails left by prospects and customers, digital ecosystems can be created to help determine what users like or don’t like and what they respond well to. Such trails, or digital footprints can consist of anything from social interactions to website user activity. These insights can then be analysed to refine campaigns in accordance to your customers activity, needs, and preferences. Utilising data from social channels – such as LinkedIn user connections – gives you the ability to build a network of contacts. It also tells you how your customers like to communicate, leading to a better understanding of which softer marketing techniques will potentially be most effective.

Keeping your customer information updated and accurate will not only help reduce costs and improve customer experience, it’ll enable you to make smarter business decisions – while complying with regulatory requirements such as GDPR.

There are many benefits that Microsoft Dynamcs CRM (now part of Microsoft Dynamics 365) can bring to a company. Microsoft Dynamics CRM improves business relationships, bolsters customer service and strengthens marketing campaigns which in turn improves an organisation’s sales.

Get in touch with HSO today to learn more about how to enrich your accounts, find new customers and close deals faster – from anywhere in the world. Use the right tools that can help you have meaningful insights and make faster decisions about your company.