There was a time when media and publishing businesses relied heavily on traditional methods to manage their customer relationships and operations. It included:
- Physical paperwork, spreadsheets, and rudimentary databases to manage content and customer data.
- Communication with customers and within departments was often conducted via emails, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings.
- Sales and marketing efforts were often disjointed, with limited visibility into customer interactions and preferences.
All of these fragmented and inefficient approaches slowed down their day-to-day operations and hindered the ability to provide a personalised and engaging experience to customers. Smarter and successful publishing businesses quickly switched to Salesforce CRM to meet the demands of the fast-paced industry. In this article, we will understand why Salesforce CRM is the perfect partner for growing media and publishing businesses. But first, some basics.
What is a CRM?
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a specialised system designed for media companies to manage interactions with their audience, clients, and advertisers. It helps these companies track and analyse customer data, manage sales and marketing campaigns, and improve customer engagement. The market is flooded with a myriad of tools, but the most popular CRM for media and publishing businesses is Salesforce because of its rich feature set tailored to the needs of the industry and the ability to customise the software to the precise needs of the business.
What does a good CRM system promise?
Salesforce CRM offers the following benefits: –
1) Data Unification
Salesforce promises complete data unification by consolidating customer information from various channels into a single, centralised database. This ensures all departments, from marketing to sales, content to editing, have access to up-to-date and accurate information, automatically improving cross-functional collaboration in publishing businesses.
2) Shifting Dependencies (People to Processes)
By implementing standardised processes and workflows, Salesforce reduces reliance on individual employees’ expertise and actions. This shift from people to processes ensures that there are no hiccups in managing customer relationships, sales, and content distribution due to employees leaving the company.
3) Better Pipeline Planning
Salesforce CRM offers a myriad of functionalities and features for better pipeline planning. As a result, you get clear visibility into sales stages, perform accurate forecasting, and measure key performance metrics for improved decision-making. Ultimately, media and publishing businesses become better equipped to identify sales bottlenecks and allocate resources strategically to drive conversions.
4) Laying a Foundation for Automation and AI
Salesforce lays the groundwork for automation and AI in publishing businesses by streamlining routine tasks, such as data entry, subscription renewals, and follow-up reminders. For instance, Salesforce’s Einstein enables you to create and deploy assistive AI experiences natively within Salesforce. Your customers and employees can interact with Einstein and solve issues faster.
5) Meeting Growth Objectives
Salesforce supports and helps in meeting the growth objectives of your business by enhancing your team’s acquisition, retention, and upselling efforts. With detailed audience insights and targeted marketing capabilities, media and publishing businesses like you can drive revenue growth and achieve strategic goals more quickly with Salesforce
Avoiding “technical debt” with the right investment
Technical debt, arising from shortcuts in software development, can lead to increased costs and reduced productivity. Due to lack of awareness, many small and medium-sized media and publishing businesses fall into this trap. Investing in Salesforce helps mitigate this by offering a scalable ecosystem with the following benefits:
- Salesforce’s cloud-based architecture allows for seamless integration, extensive customisation, and efficient performance, reducing the need for costly custom solutions. Its tools, like Process Builder and Flow, enable complex automation without code.
- Regular updates keep systems current, minimising the financial burden of maintaining outdated technology.
- Salesforce offers automated maintenance and monitoring tools, such as Salesforce Shield and Einstein Analytics, to ensure proactive issue resolution. They prevent technical debt that typically arises from neglected maintenance tasks and unaddressed bugs.
- The platform fosters continuous improvement through resources like Trailhead for training. This ensures that users are well-informed about the latest features, best practices, and efficient ways to use Salesforce, reducing the buildup of outdated practices and technical debt.
How to assess CRM tools?
To assess CRM tools, consider the following key factors:
- Functionality: Evaluate the core features such as contact management, sales automation, marketing integration, customer service, and analytics. Ensure the tool meets your specific business needs and can be customised to suit the publishing industry.
- Scalability: Check if the CRM can grow with your publishing business, handling increased data and users without compromising performance.
- Usability: Assess the user interface and ease of use. A user-friendly CRM will encourage adoption and maximise productivity within a short span.
- Integration: Ensure the CRM integrates seamlessly with your existing systems and tools, such as email, marketing automation, and ERP software.
- Support and Training: Consider the quality of customer support, training resources, and community forums available to help you and your team effectively use the CRM.
Our recommendation
Salesforce is one of the very few tools that checks all the above points. It is scalable, intuitive, and offers integrations with almost every known platform on this planet. However, we understand implementing Salesforce CRM is not easy, especially if you are new to the whole CRM space. And that’s where a Salesforce expert like Brysa steps in. We are the UK’s leading Salesforce consultant with rich experience in the implementation and maintenance of Salesforce services in the media and publishing industry. To start your Salesforce journey, contact us now.
