Saturday, June 18, 2016

Why Integrating Google Analytics in your CRM System Makes Sense

            In the last several years it has become clear customers have gained significant power when it comes to relationships with businesses and organizations. With a constant connection to the internet and their social networks, today’s customers are better informed, smarter, give feedback that can go viral and are therefore more empowered than ever before (Meisner, 2013). Caring for existing customers is a key component to enhancing the customer relation and minimizing client churn can negate the costs of acquiring new customers which can be five times greater than the cost of maintaining current clients.
           Approaching consumers and the public from this perspective is a key factor today for organizations to be truly successful. From this perspective developing an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a relevant and comprehensive method not only to successfully engage these consumers, but the public and the marketplace in general. From this viewpoint collecting actionable data from customers and prospects as they engage with your business can be an effective strategy in enhancing the customer journey.

Customer relationship management has become a major force of many enterprises in managing interaction and relationships with organizations clients.  Today many companies are realizing CRM provides the tools to fit the customer relationship needs of an organization. Customer Relationship Management is not just a software program that automates and reports, it is a business strategy to acquire, grow and retain profitable customer relationships, with the goal of creating a sustainable competitive advantage (Microsoft Corporation, 2012). The customer relationship management business strategy helps organizations improve their image, differentiate from the competition, helps minimize price sensitivity and can significantly improve customer retention.
          
           A Customer Relationship Management systems inherent functionality is to gain enhanced customer visibility across all product families, thereby creating the ability to streamline sales tasks and engagement processes. The target state for the Customer Relationship Management system is to utilize all of the customer touch points with Microsoft Dynamics CRM (or your preferred CRM system) at the center of how and where you can track and align client preferences (Ahuja & Alavi, 2014). Web engagements, Social Media, Customer Service, Marketing Campaigns, Email, and other data all roll up to the individual client to signify their preferences and their needs.




Today more than ever, analytic data from web and other owned digital properties is a significant and valuable tool organizations need to use to enhance sound customer engagement strategies. Integrating web analytics data into a Customer Relationship Management system accelerates and augments that strategy by providing deeper insights into the customer journey.

Power Analytics

Power Analytics is a plugin application for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The software connects Google Analytics to the CRM platform and allows the integration of web analytics data between Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013/2015 and the Google Analytics Platform. Marketers using this application can track over time movements and clicks customers and prospects are executing on an organizations website and other digital properties (SBS, 2015).

By incorporating Google Analytics into the data available in an active Customer Relationship Management system marketers can improve the effectiveness of an organizations web and mobile presence. The integration can also enhance the ability to track and understand the behavior of online visitors and how they interact with digital properties including website and mobile applications (Ezzedin, 2014). Power Analytics enables marketers to track campaign activity of individual customers and prospects as they navigate owned digital media properties, which enables the ability to better understand the customer experience and allows the opportunity to deliver a more customized experience.

Pulling a website visitor’s source information can be very powerful for a sales team. For example, if a sales representative has the ability to identify how a sales lead found the website before picking up the phone and contacting them, it could significantly aide in how best to approach the lead on the call. Understanding whether the source was referred from a specific email with a certain offer or knowing if they came from a search and, if so, what was the keyword they used. This type of information can help a sales team understand the intent of the prospect and where they are in the buying process. Another example can center on existing customers when an organization uses a newsletter as part of its marketing communications strategy, as customer are placed in a marketing campaign to receive this newsletter. As the recipient engages with the content the analytics system can record the activities, preferences and interests of the customer (Ezzedin, 2014). This data can be further enhanced by gearing future content that is focused more on those preferences.

The web analytics data collected can also be also be aggregated with other digital metrics including activities from social engagements through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites to provide the marketer with even deeper profiling capabilities. When online visitors convert to leads, marketers use the Customer Relationship Management platform, to track the history of prospects and customers offline and online interactions as well. Tracking every conversation possible including other engagements such as emails, calls, meetings, cases and documentations as well as nurture campaigns assists in the continuation of data building at the customer and contact level (Cutroni, 2007).

In the increasingly competitive marketplace organizations have demonstrated clear benefits of focusing on the customer through quality and excellent service. Utilizing a Customer Relationship Management system and enhancing it with web analytics can help nurture and care for existing customers and assist in minimizing client churn. Enhanced web analytics can also provide significant opportunity in new customer acquisition streamlining the sales lead process and creating an improved customer experience. This essentially quantifies how starting with the customer involves collecting and analyzing information to determine who the customer is, what the customer needs, and how a business can meet then exceed those needs. The logical conclusion clearly postulates the Customer Relationship Management technology with enhanced web analytics can provide the platform to accomplish the customer relationship management goals of the organization.               










Works Cited

Ahuja, V., & Alavi, S. (2014). Digital Marketing Analytics: The Web Dynamics of Inside Blackberry Blog. International Journal of Innovation in the Digital Economy (IJIDE) v5 n4, 50-65.
Cutroni, J. (2007, October 29). Integrating Google Analytics With a CRM. Retrieved from Cutroni: http://cutroni.com/blog/2007/10/29/integrating-google-analytics-with-a-crm/
Ezzedin, A. (2014, October 14). The Ultimate Guide to Universal Analytics Integration with SalesForce. Retrieved from e-nor: https://www.e-nor.com/blog/google-analytics/the-ultimate-guide-to-universal-analytics-integration-with-salesforce
Meisner, J. (2013, November 5). The future of business in the era of the customer. Retrieved August 23, 2015, from Microsoft Blog: http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2013/11/05/the-future-of-business-in-the-era-of-the-customer/
Microsoft Corporation . (2012). What can CRM do for your Business . Retrieved November 10, 2012, from Microsoft.com: http://www.microsoft.com/canada/smallbiz/themes/build-your-business/what-can-crm-do-for-your-business.mspx
SBS. (2015). Google analytics connector for microsoft dynamics crm. Retrieved from Poweraddon: http://www.poweraddon.com/google-analytics-connector/?utm_campaign=app_listing&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=ga_partner_gallery




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