How to use your CRM as a customer loyalty tool?

28
March
2022
  Reading time:  
6
min
Share:
linkedin
Do you already have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), this solution that unifies your prospects’ and customers’ personal data (name, age, email, phone number…) with their status regarding your brand (active/inactive, last purchase date, Premium/not Premium, subscribed to your newsletter…)?

If companies tend to know how to use their CRM quite well when it comes to customer relationships or selling, this tool’s power regarding customer loyalty is often underestimated. 
Discover in this article the programmatic advertising strategies that can help you boost customer loyalty through your CRM.

How do you onboard your CRM the right way?

Before using your CRM software as a customer loyalty tool, you need to conduct a proper onboarding. The goal is to connect your customers’ offline data to the online world.
This CRM onboarding involves three key-steps, which are detailed below by our experts.

Pseudonymization

The first step in onboarding your data to your CRM is pseudonymization by hashing. This consists in transforming a text (email, first name, last name…) into an irreversible digital footprint, which cannot be decrypted, while guaranteeing the uniqueness of this footprint.

Cookiefication

Second step of your onboarding: cookiefication, which consists in reconciling the database with your users’ browser cookie.
This cookiefication can be done in two different and complementary ways:

  • Internally, thanks to the user data that your company already possesses. But note that the matching rate between your customer data and the cookies can be low, and that this process can take a while.
  • Through a third party, like LiveRamp, ERMES, Graphinium, Signal or Neustar. These solutions help you capitalize on big existing databases, and ensure you have a higher matching rate.
  • Through activation platforms, like Meta For Business, TikTok, Google Ads, Amazon DSP… These DSPs offer to onboard your CRM data directly onto buying platforms, through the reconciliation of the hashed email and other IDs (Device ID, Platform ID…). We can then talk about “digitalizing” your CRM database. 

Distributing your data to your other marketing tools

Last step before launching your customer loyalty project with your CRM: distributing your data to your other marketing tools.
Depending on which kind of loyalty campaigns you want to launch, you’ll want to include these data in tools such as… 

  • A DMP (Data Management Platform) like Easyence, Mediarithmics, Eulerian, Commanders Act, or Adobe Audience Manager.
  • A DSP (Demand Side Platform) such as the Display & Video 360 network, Facebook, Amazon, Xandr or theTradeDesk
  • A DCO tool (Dynamic Creative Optimization), like Engaged! by Gamned! or Adventori
  • An attribution tool such as Easyencc or Eulerian
  • Tools for your website, like the ones that enable you to do A/B testing, such as Kameloon or A/B Tasty

These tools, coupled with your customer relationship management software, will enable you to carry out your customer loyalty strategies.

An illustration of a CRM and its fonctionnalities.

4 strategies to use your CRM in customer loyalty campaigns

“CRM tools have a power that many companies don’t use to its full potential, especially in terms of customer loyalty! Once your data has been reconciled between the online and offline worlds, you will have an extremely detailed knowledge of your customers, which will help you make your programmatic advertising actions much more effective. What are the keys to a successful loyalty strategy using your CRM? Personalizing your campaigns and monitoring their performance to obtain an optimal ROI.” Benjamin Badé, Executive Board at Gamned!



Once your CRM is set up, it’s time to launch a marketing strategy to retain your existing customers! Depending on your goals, your internal sales processes and the type of audience you address, several strategies may be relevant.
Here are four of them that have proven to deliver results while looking after your user experience throughout the buyer’s journey.

Tailor your strategy to your customer engagement

The first customer loyalty strategy that you can launch through your CRM consists in segmenting your audiences according to how they engage with your brand, how “warm” they act towards your products or services.
Once your audiences are segmented, you can tailor both the ad pressure and the bidding level of your campaigns to that customer engagement.
For instance, if a customer has been inactive for a very long time (more than 6 months), you will put them onboard in a campaign with less ad pressure than a customer who has been inactive for less time (less than 3 months). You will also spend less on campaigns directed at them, since they are less likely to be converted quickly.
The benefit of this strategy? Get a stronger ROI, since the most engaged targets are the most likely to buy your products or services again in the short term.

Suggest relevant up-sell or cross-sell

Does your sales team struggle to up-sell or cross-sell? Good news: your CRM is an ideal tool to help them achieve these goals. 
The idea is quite simple. By reconciling personal data and purchase history in your CRM, you can present in your ads high-end products and/or related products relevant to those your customers have already purchased. Your target audience then sees ad campaigns that include offers that are likely to appeal to them.
To maximize this strategy’s effectiveness, couple your CRM with a DCO tool. This tool allows you to automate the creation of your advertising banners, and integrate the most relevant products for cross-selling and up-selling to them.
Your banners end up way more personalized, and your ads are more relevant to your audience, which increases your click-through and conversion rates.

Customize your website finely

The data contained in your CRM also allows you to embed the most relevant banners or content pieces to your website pages, according to your visitor’s profile.
For instance, you can adapt the header of your website according to the type of products your target is most interested in. Why not present them with products related to those they have already purchased, and which they might need?

Deploy a Research Online, Purchase Offline (ROPO) strategy

Many of your customers research products online, but then go and buy them in a physical store: this is called the ROPO phenomenon - Research Online, Purchase Offline.
How do you master this ROPO, and act on it to build loyalty among your targets, thanks to your CRM? By reconciling the online and offline data of your customers. This reconciliation is done between the CRM ID and the cookie ID of the customers. Thus, when they use their loyalty card when purchasing in a store, the information goes back to your CRM, allowing you to launch relevant marketing actions. 
This strategy is particularly useful to track sales in physical stores linked to online product searches or exposure to an online media campaign.
CRM and customer loyalty go hand in hand, and can allow you to generate additional revenue in a simple way.
But your CRM can also help you to go further in customer acquisition. For example, why not implement a lookalike targeting strategy, via activation tools like Facebook Ads? This strategy consists in creating a list of profiles similar to those of existing customers in your CRM, to target them in your campaigns. 
In short, it's in your best interest to become a CRM marketing expert, both to acquire new customers and to nurture the experience of your existing customers.

Want to go further with your CRM? Contact a Gamned! expert now to set up your own customer loyalty strategy, via a CRM tailored to your brand's needs.

Article

Boost your performance with Celebrity Marketing

Find out more

Article

Six Steps to Sustainable Digital Advertising

Find out more

DO YOU HAVE A BRIEF?
A PROJECT? QUESTIONS?

CONTACT US!

Tell us who you are, we will tell you which digital activations to adopt!