The Indispensability of CRM in Digital Marketing

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have gained significant importance in professional sales organizations in recent years and are now considered indispensable. At goTom, we have been placing a strong focus on advancing our CRM features within our software, with upcoming updates planned in the roadmap. But why is the use of CRM software essential in a marketing organization, and what features are particularly crucial from our perspective?

Benefits of CRM

As the name suggests, CRM is used for managing customer relationships and associated data. It primarily focuses on storing master data, interactions (such as emails), and other customer-related information. Useful for sales teams are pipelines (visual representations of potential buyers in the decision-making process), potential analyses, and revenue reporting. The overarching goal of a CRM solution is to improve the customer experience for existing customers and streamline sales processes, often achieved through the integration of sales and marketing.

Challenges in the Media Business

However, traditional CRM systems face challenges in the media business. Creating offers, handling orders, and invoicing become challenging due to complex media campaigns and large volumes. Traditional CRMs struggle with setting up products and prices, especially when dealing with various advertising formats in different environments with different pricing types and targeting surcharges.

Moreover, CRMs lack support for essential processes in the media business, such as inventory management, campaign handovers to the ad server, detailed revenue analyses at the product level, and client billing for third-party marketers.

To address these gaps, larger marketers often complement their CRM with specialized Order Management Systems (OMS) like goTom. These systems facilitate efficient order disposition and automatic synchronization with production systems, ad servers, and ERP software for accounting. Connecting CRM and OMS combines the advantages of a comprehensive CRM solution with the specialized workflows and interfaces of the Order Management System.

In conclusion, a CRM is indispensable in large marketing organizations as it significantly improves internal processes and data processing while optimizing the customer experience. However, it’s crucial to recognize that Customer Relationship Management and Order Management are distinct areas. Efforts to integrate complex OMS workflows into an existing CRM often result in inefficient processes and high costs. Therefore, deploying a robust CRM seamlessly connected to an Order Management System is essential for efficient business operations.

Expansion of CRM as a Key Element in goTom’s Roadmap

In view of the market demand, goTom is placing a strong focus on the further development of its existing CRM features within the software. Dominic Karpf, Team Lead of Product Management at goTom, considers this particularly important from a strategic perspective for the software:

Remaining competitive requires not only staying abreast of market needs but also actively responding to what customers require and expect from CRM software. To ensure goTom customers continue to benefit from the best possible customer experience and the holistic capabilities of the software, the following key focus areas are on the roadmap for 2024:

• Target Reports: A comparison of performance goals (e.g., specific teams or employees).
• Activity Expansion: New user experience and potentially applicable to other objects such as campaigns.
• Notification Center: In-app notifications within goTom (e.g., regarding changes to the campaign).
• Email Logging: Tracking emails from Gmail and Outlook within goTom.
• Pipeline Feature: Lead Management within goTom