Email marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) are essential to the success of cannabis and cannabis-related businesses. Together, they help sales and marketing team do three critical things:
- Get new customer leads
- Close deals to generate revenue
- Reduce churn to retain customers
While it’s true that using CRM can boost every cannabis business and following email marketing best practices ensures you’ll see positive results from your investments, the results are even better when you integrate CRM and email marketing.
The primary reason is because together, email marketing and CRM allow you to create highly targeted and customized communications that meet people where they are in the sales and marketing funnel, so they’re more likely to follow your calls to action and less likely to unsubscribe.
Don’t just take my word for it that email and CRM can help your company get more leads, close more deals, and reduce churn. The data from numerous research studies speaks for itself:
- Sales increase by 29% for businesses that use CRM. (Source: Salesforce)
- Sales conversion rates increase by up to 300% when CRM is used. (Source: Cloudswave)
- 65% of salespeople (on average) who use mobile CRM meet their sales quotas compared to just 22% of sales people who don’t use mobile CRM. (Source: Salesforce)
- Sales cycles shorten by 8 to 14% for salespeople at companies that use CRM. (Source: Nucleus Research)
- The accuracy of sales forecasts increases by 42% when businesses use CRM. (Source: Salesforce)
- 24% more sales representatives achieve their annual sales quotas when they use mobile CRM. (Source: Aberdeen Group)
- A company’s marketing costs can decrease by 23% when CRM is used. (Source: Cloudswave)
- 79% of leads fail to convert without CRM. (Source: Pardot)
- Leads nurtured in a CRM convert 47% of the time. (Source: Annuitas Group)
- Businesses that use CRM experience a 65% boost in sales quotas. (Inopple Technologies)
- Average purchase value can increase by 40% when a CRM is used. (Source: Cloudswave)
- The cost of a lead decreases by 23% when a CRM is used. (Source: Cloudswave)
12 Email Marketing and CRM Statistics B2B Sales and Marketing Teams Should SeeClick To Tweet
Using Email and CRM to Get More Leads
Using advertising, content marketing, and other tactics, you can fill the top of your funnel with leads, store the data in your CRM, and leverage email marketing to connect, engage, and nurture those leads into sales with the right messages sent at the right times.
If you own a B2B company that markets its products or services to cannabis license holders, then using the CRM and email marketing tools in the Cannabiz Media License Database gives you instant access to information on more than 80,000 cannabis license holders in the United States and international markets.
That means the top of your funnel is instantly filled! You just need to start communicating with all of these leads through email marketing and tracking those interactions in your CRM.
RELATED READING: 5 Email Marketing Messages to Move People from Prospects to Customers
Using Email and CRM to Close More Deals
Once you’ve identified your leads, you need to categorize them so you send personalized offers that most appeal to each person. It’s easy to segment your leads in a CRM and send them highly targeted messages through email marketing.
For leads in the middle of the funnel, your goal is to engage them with useful, interesting information and messages that keep your brand top-of-mind and build trust in your brand.
Through email marketing and CRM integration, you can track how each lead interacts with your messages, identify what appeals to them the most, and send the best messages at the perfect times so they move to the bottom of the funnel and buy.
Your sales team can also use the data you collect in your CRM to optimize and prioritize sales calls. For example, when you can identify that one of your leads opened every message you sent in the past several months, you can be confident that they’re much more interested in your business than someone who never opens your messages or only opened one message.
Hotter leads should receive very different future email messages from you than colder leads. In addition, the hottest leads should be passed to the sales team for direct, personal contact. By personalizing your communications in this way, the number of closed deals should go up.
Using Email and CRM to Reduce Churn
Using the data you collect in your CRM through email marketing and sales, you can develop detailed buyer personas to send the right offers to the right people in the future. Ultimately, the return on your marketing investments will go up, and your sales team will be more productive and successful.
The key is to leverage email and CRM to improve the overall customer experience with your brand and use the data you collect to better predict customer wants and needs. According to research by Capterra, customer service improves by 47% when a CRM is used, and research by Software Advice found that 74% of businesses that use CRM report better customer relationships.
Again, the data shows that email and CRM can have a significant impact on your cannabis or cannabis-related business. We all know that happy customers are more likely to become repeat customers and to refer new customers to a business.
Also, studies have shown that repeat customers buy more than first-time customers. In fact, some studies have reported that repeat customers spend up to 33% more than new customers.
Therefore, it’s imperative that businesses prioritize customer engagement and brand visibility through email marketing and customer relationship management in order to boost repeat purchases and reduce churn.
Key Takeaways about Email and CRM for B2B Sales and Marketing Teams
Email and CRM drive measurable value for every business, including B2B companies, cannabis businesses, and cannabis-related businesses. If you’re not already using it to its fullest extent, you’re missing opportunities that could have a significant effect on your brand’s future.
If you’re looking for an email and CRM tool combined with essential contact information for cannabis industry license holders across the United States, Canada, and international markets, the Cannabiz Media License Database gives you all of the information and tools you need to get more leads, close more deals, and reduce churn! Schedule a demo and see how it could give your business a significant boost.
Originally published 8/27/19. Updated 4/24/20.
Susan Gunelius, Lead Analyst for Cannabiz Media and author of Marijuana Licensing Reference Guide: 2017 Edition, is also President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company offering, copywriting, content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and strategic branding services. She spent the first half of her 25-year career directing marketing programs for AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more as well as small businesses around the world. Susan has written 11 marketing-related books, including the highly popular Content Marketing for Dummies, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps, The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing, and she is a popular marketing and branding keynote speaker. She is also a Certified Career Coach and Founder and Editor in Chief of Women on Business, an award-winning blog for business women. Susan holds a B.S. in marketing and an M.B.A in management and strategy.
