10 Things to Keep In Mind When Integrating CRM and Marketing Automation

Both CRM (Client Relationship Management) and MA (Marketing Automation) at the first glance seem to be similar, but in reality they are a lot different.

CRM  tools aim at maintaining client - vendor relationship by managing database related to company’s clients, in turn, aiding in understanding customer needs, gathering feedbacks, retaining old clients and building a good rapport between the company and its clients.

On the other hand, marketing automation tool deals with the automation of marketing campaigns by lead nurturing, utilizing mass media platforms, tracking emails, testing, etc.

Thus in short, CRM is Sales-centric and MA tool is marketing centric.

As both Sales and Marketing technologies get evolved, it improved the scope of ROI by integrating CRM and MA tools.

The integration of CRM and MA software provides a dual benefit of lead generation capability of MA and the capability of CRM tool to convert those marketing qualified leads into Sales opportunities. This helps in keeping track of the achieved Sales targets from marketing leads.

So, let me share the top key points which you need to consider while integrating CRM and MA (marketing automation) tools.

1.      Assessing the Software and its potential

To get the best out of any software, all the capabilities of the software should be understood from a broader viewpoint. CRM and MA tools have huge potential to grow the business. Gather as much information as possible for the technologies and how they interact with each other and their future expansion scope.

Most platforms offer similar functionalities but utilizing them to their full potential is a rare case.

Also familiarizing with the existing MA tools used by the company will lead to understanding the challenges faced while integrating them with a CRM software. If there are no existing MA tools used by the company, a CRM consultant can help marketing team select the MA tool according to the CRM software architecture. The budget criteria also play an important role in selecting the software packages.

2.   Know the data to be synchronized

There is an ocean of data stored by the CRM and MA tools about the client; it is wise to know which data is relevant for Marketing and Sales team to generate revenue. The data on which the lead-cycle relies should be accurate, updated and well organized to ensure minimum glitches after integration.

3.   Ensuring Two-Way Data Flow

The integration should ensure seamless communication between Sales and Marketing. The data flow should be bi-directional. Any changes made on the Marketing side should be reflected on the Sales side and vice-versa. A well-integrated system helps in notifying the Sales team of highly qualified leads generated by Marketing by applying lead routing techniques. This leads strings to the analysis of data on a single platform by creating a centralized data hub.

4.   Target audience

Being aware of the target audience helps. One should know which type of leads are expected from the Marketing side, and that should be worked upon by the Sales team and turned into opportunities, helping in ease of data filtering.

5.  Method of Integration

There are various modes of integration for CRM and SFA Software:

●       Most MA tools offer in-built integrators that allow automated integration with leading CRM platforms via an application program interface (API). This is called Native Integration.

●       Third Party Integration method refers to use of alternative tools when native integration is not supported. Third party tools are preferred for small enterprises as they have limited features and data fields.

●       Custom Middleware helps the Marketing team customize objects or entities within the CRM software. This method is generally used by medium and large businesses that deal with a large amount of data.

While implementing the integration, one should ensure a suitable test environment and data mapping.

6.  Integration Timeframe

The integration time frame is decided based on the size of an organization, integration methods used, the amount of data to be handled, etc. A well-planned integration methodology comprising of risk mitigation techniques will lead to successful completion of the integration process of CRM and MA software within the anticipated timeframe.

7.  Accurate cost estimation

The most important factor to be decided is that of the cost of the system integrated including implementation, running and maintenance costs. The cost parameter is to be decided considering prices incurred by each software components. In some cases, training of organization staff is also required to get familiar with the new environment.

8.  Utilization of Resources

Integration of CRM and MA tools should allow the Sales team to seamlessly utilize the resources created by Marketing team like email templates, graphics, campaign data, etc. This will help the Sales team to easily make the client aware of the services provided by the Enterprise.

9.  Generating Reports

Data analytics and reporting are an essential requirement of keeping a track of the changing market scenario and also to make Marketing and Sales processes more efficient. Each platform has different analytical strength. The reports reflect the ROI achieved after implementing the integrated system.

10.  Timely Monitoring

After the successful integration of CRM and MA tools, supervising the system performance by monitoring the Marketing and Sales processes helps in discovering the scope for any further improvements needed. And helps enterprises boost their success stories!

Wrapping Up

CRM and Marketing Automation Tool can help make better customer relationships and maximizes the sales of any business with proper planning and integrations.

Wakeupsales is a smart, agile and Ranked #1 CRM software of the Year 2017 to make everything easier relating to sales and customer management.

Wakeupsales CRM completely free. Get Started Now!

The leading vendors of CRM tools comprise of Salesforce, Pipedrive and Wakeupsales software’s provide outstanding customer relationship whereas Marketo, Silverpop, Pardot, and Eloqua are some of the best marketing automation tool. Have you started with a CRM yet!

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Things You Must Know on Ruby on Rails Single Page Application

Ruby on Rails is improving and becoming popular amongst many popular technical communities as well as being implemented by Startup’s to Giants to build up their applications.

Single page application (SPA) is a website or an application which shows all information in a single page with dynamic actions, with an objective to provide great user experience to visitors and end users.

Ruby improves the performance of application by reducing the loading time of HTML, CSS and JS files and that helps the end users to take more advantage of the app plus allows them to use it to the fullest.

There is huge demand of SPA and webmasters are moving their sophisticated and complex web applications from classic web architecture (CWA) to a single-page application (SPA). This will actually change the way people manage business with these applications.

Let me tell you the key differences between SPA and CWA,

First client request

• CWA: The server returns a full HTML page
• SPA: The server returns a set of templates and data which is then rendered to the full HTML page, by JavaScript, on the client side.

Subsequent requests 

• CWA: The server returns a full HTML page
• SPA: The server returns only the data needed to display the request. Since all templates are already on the client side from the first request, no HTML/CSS/JS should be delivered.

(Source: railsadventures.wordpress.com)

Application developer can use various technologies to build SPA but with my experience I will prefer to go with Ruby on Rails as this is one of the useful frameworks to build single page application.

“Rails can easily serve HTML to web browsers and JSON to API requests from the same controller action, making it possible to power SPI web apps today right out of the box. The asset pipeline and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) handling are a huge boon to developers that just want to build cool apps without a ton of yak shaving to get started.”

Pete Forde, Co-Founder of Unspace

At one point of time this questions came to my mind and I am sure it must be coming to you too – that, “How Rails help to develop and maintain applications, is it easier and robust?”

Well, by the time you reach to the end of this article, this question will be clear and answered.

Before moving your app to SPA you must know about the good and bad part of Ruby on Rails. The objective of this article is to let you know some of the most important-awesomest features Ruby on Rails nurses and bad parts while planning to build SPA with Rails.

Ruby on Rails web development framework is built with top Ruby Programming Language and it’s completely free as Opensource and runs in Linux server.

Lets starts with the Good Part

• The assets in Rails terminology handles static resources and integrates with Webpack.
• Default safe HTTP headers and CSRF protection.
• Default SQL injection protection with bundled ActiveRecord.
• Traditional website optimizations through Turbolinks.
• Default separate configuration for each environment like development, production and testing.
• Jobs, e-mail integration and integrated database migrations.
• Automatic and high capabilities to code reloading in the development environment.
• Quick booting can be made possible compared to other frameworks.
• Quick and massive community support of your questions.
• Huge numbers of gems are available in community and for all kind of tasks.
• Heavy security with specialized experts, quick solutions of issues and quick new releases made possible for leaks.
• Quick solution of Github issues.
• Huge numbers of generators, models, controllers including test are available.
• Performance-related data are high in the application's logs.
• highly configurable, easy websockets API through ActionCable and flexible routing made possible
• bundles with test runners solutions for both Ruby-land tests and full-feature tests through Capybara (it still lacks an integrated bundled JavaScript test runner though)
  

Let’s look at the Bad Parts:

• The individual part can't be upgraded by RoR App developers and you will get actionable support by upgrading the framework.
• It’s very difficult to follow code base at the time of debugging edge cases and the tasks debugging weird issues estimation also became very hard.
• Lack of active support at the time of implicit auto loading and their problems. Full action_view is must require even if you only need action_view/helpers/number_helper.
• Automatic or transparent params binding.
• Its slow to boot as compared to other Ruby frameworks, spring is not perfect and shouldn't be required in the first place.
• At the time of individual test, the test load time increases.
• The API documentation is incomplete and takes more time to look into, exclusively in all parts of the API.
• Boot process and requests cycle are not clearly understandable.

Winding up…

Ruby on Rails is indeed a great framework to develop any type of web application and SPA. It’s very important to think how your application is and how that is performing with the end users.

No doubt you can develop single page application with Ruby on Rails in the easiest possible manner.

For a user-friendly Ruby on Rails single page application you need to gather some information like understanding the database, HTTP verbs and RESTful styles, use of Heroku or Engine Yard.

Do not get bogged down with the bad points listed above – the reason is, it’s very important to know the weaknesses (and I am sure the updated versions will be removing these loopholes gradually).

So start building wise. 

Hope I have shared enough information about Ruby on Rails for single page application development. Share your thoughts with comments below, if anything I have missed out or if you think should be part of this article. Will be happy to add in. 

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