For many reasons, software solutions that combine CRM and marketing automation are useful for small businesses. Functioning in one platform, the software allows businesses to manage their customer processes and campaigns in one place.
Small businesses can benefit from combined solutions in several ways:
- Streamlining marketing efforts: With combined CRM/marketing automation software, a small business can track customer interactions and automate marketing campaigns, making it easier to coordinate marketing efforts and target the right customers with the right message.
- Improving lead generation: A CRM system can help a small business capture leads, while marketing automation software can help nurture those leads and move them through the sales funnel.
- Personalizing customer communications: By integrating customer data from the CRM system into marketing automation software, a small business can send personalized messages and offers to customers based on their behavior, interests, and preferences.
- Increasing customer engagement: With a combined CRM/marketing automation system, a small business can create targeted campaigns that engage customers across multiple channels, including email, social media, and SMS.
- Gaining insights: A CRM system can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, while marketing automation software can help track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. A small business can better understand its customers and marketing efforts by combining these systems.
A combined CRM/marketing automation system can help a small business reach and engage its customers more effectively, generate leads, and drive sales.
Some of the best software solutions include the following:
- HubSpot CRM: If you’re looking for free CRM software with basic features like contact management and deal tracking, HubSpot CRM is a great option. They also offer paid plans starting at $50/month with more advanced features like marketing automation and customer service tools.
- Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM has a free plan with basic CRM features, but their paid plans starting at $12/user/month offer additional features like email marketing and advanced reporting.
- Salesforce: Salesforce has plans starting at $25/user/month for basic CRM features, but their more advanced plans include marketing automation, sales automation, and customer service tools.
- Pipedrive: Pipedrive’s plans start at $15/user/month for basic features like contact management and deal tracking. Their more advanced plans offer automation tools and reporting.
- Freshworks CRM: If you’re on a budget, Freshworks CRM has a free plan with basic CRM features. Their paid plans start at $29/user/month with additional features like marketing automation and advanced reporting.
- ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign’s plans start at $9/month for email marketing and basic marketing automation features. More advanced plans include CRM, sales automation, and SMS marketing.
- Keap: Keap’s plans start at $79/month for basic CRM features and marketing automation. More advanced plans include sales automation and e-commerce tools.
- Marketo: Marketo is a higher-priced option starting at $895/month for marketing automation and lead management tools. Their more advanced plans include account-based marketing and predictive analytics.
- Mailchimp: If you’re looking for email marketing tools, Mailchimp has a free plan and paid plans starting at $9.99/month. Paid plans include marketing automation, social media ads, and postcards.
- Autopilot: Autopilot’s plans start at $49/month for basic marketing automation features. More advanced plans include CRM, analytics, and A/B testing.
- Insightly: Insightly is a popular CRM software for small businesses with features like contact and project management, email tracking, and workflow automation. Their plans start at $29 per month for the Plus plan, $49 per month for Professional, and $99 per month for Enterprise.
- Agile CRM: Agile CRM offers features like contact management, deal tracking, email marketing, social media integration, and web analytics. Their pricing ranges from $8.99 to $47.99 per user per month.
- Copper (formerly ProsperWorks): Copper integrates with Google Workspace and has three pricing plans starting at $25 per month for Basic, $69 per month for Professional, and $119 per month for Business.
- Ontraport: Ontraport is a marketing automation software with CRM, email marketing, landing pages, and membership sites features. They have four pricing plans: Basic starting at $79 per month, Plus at $147 per month, Pro at $297 per month, and Enterprise at $497 per month.
Features
Most of these solutions offer basic and advanced features, including some or all of the following:
- A/B testing
- Account-based marketing
- Analytics and Reporting
- Appointment scheduling
- Contact and company insights
- Contact management
- CRM
- Customer service tools
- Customizable dashboards
- Customizable forms
- Deal tracking
- E-commerce integrations
- E-commerce tools
- Email marketing
- Email templates
- Integration with other tools
- Landing pages
- Lead capture forms
- Lead management
- Marketing automation
- Mobile app
- Opportunity management
- Postcards
- Predictive analytics
- Sales automation
- Sales forecasting
- Sales pipeline management
- SMS marketing
- Social media ads
- Social media integration
- Task and activity tracking
- Workflow automation
The prices mentioned above are subject to change and are only starting prices – they depend on the business size, number of users, requirements, and more. They are also per user per month.
Combining software solutions makes perfect sense, especially for small businesses, as it makes it easier to streamline business processes and keeps the cost down, not to mention saving time and effort and reducing the risk of errors.
