When it comes to marketing technologies, marketing automation and CRMs are two of the most complementary tools out there. When paired with a CRM, marketing automation can unlock much of the key functionality that top-performing sales and marketing teams now rely on — like the ability to run reports on campaign performance, jumpstart lead generation efforts, and increase ROI.

While a CRM is primarily a sales tool, marketing automation acts as its marketing counterpart. Together, the two systems create a single sales and marketing funnel, with marketing automation acting as a gatekeeper at the top of the funnel, bringing in new leads and moving them through the funnel.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the differences between these two tools, as well as some of the ways that marketing automation can help unlock your CRM.

Control your lead management process, from lead generation to conversion and beyond.

Poor lead management can pose a huge risk to the health of your sales funnel. Fortunately, marketing automation combines lead scoring and grading, automated lead assignment, and streamlined data collection to help you optimize your lead management processes. The combination of these features ensures that sales reps always have a store of prospect data at their fingertips, the marketing-to-sales lead handoff runs at peak efficiently, and high-quality leads are being passed to the right reps at the right time.

Fill your pipeline with sales-ready leads.

It’s more important than ever that your buyers are getting the information they need, when they need it. Using the lead nurturing capabilities of a marketing automation solution, marketers can automatically send valuable content to leads over time, nurturing them to a sales-ready state. This reduces the heavy lifting for sales and prevents reps from wasting time pursuing leads who aren’t yet ready to buy. Marketers can in turn increase the value of their database by preventing cold leads from slipping through the cracks. Data from these lead nurturing campaigns, like emails sent and opened, can be viewed in your CRM so that reps can stay up to date on how their prospects are engaging with these campaigns.

Arm sales reps with a store of prospect and buyer data.

By pairing marketing automation and a CRM, you can go beyond basic demographic information — you can view detailed behavioral data like which pages your prospects are visiting, what types of content they’re interested in, and where they are in the buying cycle, all within your CRM. You’ll be able to see a log of all touch points with your prospects, from files downloaded to email correspondences and more. This real-time prospect activity history provides unparalleled insight into exactly what your leads are interested in, so your sales reps can easily tailor their phone calls and sales pitches to individual prospects.

Make sure your efforts get recognized.

The efforts of your marketing and sales teams are meaningless without a way to track and measure their success. Tying marketing automation to your CRM allows for more detailed reporting, from individual email tracking to closed-loop ROI reporting, opportunity tracking, and more. With these two systems working together, it’s that much easier to attribute revenue to the right team, reducing some of the gray area between marketing and sales. You can also gain additional insight into the opportunities in your pipeline and the overall health of your sales funnel — making it possible to optimize your sales process for maximum speed through the pipeline.

Want to see more ways that marketing automation can unlock the full potential of your CRM? Take a look at our new white paper by clicking on the banner below.