Digitization at redIT – Digital Marketing
(This post is part of the blog series “Digitization at redIT”, in which we regularly report on our digitization projects)
Digital marketing is nothing new at its core and has been high on every marketing agenda for years. With the Covid pandemic, digital marketing suddenly became an absolute must and many companies realized that their digital marketing implementation had some gaps that needed to be closed as soon as possible. At redIT, we also used the maturity analysis to evaluate the consistency and effectiveness of our digital marketing.
Below is an overview of the key findings and the measures/adjustments we have initiated based on the analysis:
1. Digital marketing needs a modern CRM
Digital marketing is only successful if you know your customers and their behavior very well. Customer data is the fuel for your marketing machine. Most of today’s CRM implementations are inadequate as they are far from a 360 degree customer view. With our 3E approach (simplicity in system, simplicity in operation, and simplicity in enhancement), we have created the basis with our redIT CRM that we can access and automate the use of current customer data – from profile data to project data – in all marketing activities. Since we use the D365 marketing module and all data is stored in Dataverse (= universal database of D365), we have a fully integrated system with “out-of-the-box” interfaces that do not need to be programmed, but only configured.
redIT CRM system: the heart of our digital marketing strategy
2. The website as an information and interaction hub
The «anchor» for all marketing activities is our website and every marketing action has a «digital twin» on the website. This is the only way to ensure that we can track what our customers are interested in and how we can best support them in the next step. To this end, the website is directly connected to our CRM and all interactions, such as inquiries, are transferred directly to the customer record, as all web forms have a direct connection to the CRM. We have also consistently designed our website to allow visitors to easily contact us at any time using their preferred means of communication (phone, email or chat). Since all communication channels end up in our CRM, it is ensured that inquiries are handled quickly and competently by the appropriate employee.
3. Simple extensions have great effects
An example of a simple extension is our newsletter. Before the CRM implementation, we used a common newsletter tool that was based on its own member database and was only connected to our customer database via a “manual interface”. The effort required to manage the member list was very high and error-prone. The D365 Marketing Module offers comprehensive newsletter functionality – from creation to sending to analysis – and also an excellent user experience due to the integration with Dataverse. With the new setup, we were not only able to reduce the newsletter management effort by 40%, but also increase the usage metrics such as open rate or click rate by 25%. Another example is the use of Microsoft Bookings for online appointment booking directly on the website. The setup for this tool is simple and the feedback from customers and employees is very positive.
4. «Always-on» and «Customer Journey» are no longer buzzwords
Today, customers decide when and how they want to communicate with a company. A core task of digital marketing is therefore to make suitable communication channels available regardless of time and place. “Always on” must therefore be firmly anchored in the core strategy and requires that information is available as self-service. The basis for this is a customer portal that is directly linked to the CRM system. Our redIT CRM system uses the modular D365 customer portal for this purpose, which offers comprehensive functionality without extensive programming. For marketing automation, we use the D365 Marketing Module. In contrast to classic marketing automation systems, which are complex and can only be managed with great effort, D365 Marketing is much easier to implement and is also suitable for SMEs.
5. A new mindset is needed among management and employees
Unfortunately, marketing is still not widely enough anchored in many companies and is often regarded as an uncritical “nice-to-have”. However, digital marketing is only successful if the management is 100% behind it and every employee is also a marketer. Especially the latter is only possible if all employees are involved in the marketing activities and trained accordingly. We therefore hold regular team meetings at which we present the marketing activities and prepare role-specific information. The redIT CRM system helps us with this, as we make all relevant customer interaction data available to all employees in almost real time. Digital marketing must be lived throughout the company and experienced by our customers.
We have implemented many things in the field of digital marketing over the past few years and have learned a great deal in the process. We are happy to share this experience with you, both in IT setup and in marketing implementation. Contact us if you want to discuss your digital marketing with us.
