Important CRM Fields for Sales and Marketing Success in 2024

Implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution can be a daunting task for any organization as many considerations need to be taken to achieve success. The things to consider will include Technology, Business Operational Processes, Strategies, Management, Budgets, etc. and a well-planned CRM program can go a long way in boosting your company’s Sales and Marketing Campaigns and allow you to reap the benefits involved.

In this age, every company must invest time and money into Sales and Marketing to keep and acquire new customers. Businesses these days can not survive without such investments. With well-defined systems and processes, Databases of your contact details can be well managed and used to enhance your relationship with them and keep track of Sales and Marketing data to ascertain your Return on Investment (ROI).

This article introduces you to useful CRM Fields that need to be included in your CRM Campaigns to help indicate prospects and direct you to Leads where you can engage Sellers, Retailers, Customers, etc. to increase the value of your company. First, you will understand CRMs and their importance. At the end of the article, you will learn the relevant CRM Fields to be included in your CRM. Read along to gain insights into CRM Fields.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to CRMs
• Significance and Use of CRMs
• Understanding CRM Fields and CRM Data Types
• Types of CRM Fields for Sales and Marketing Success
  • Contact Type
  • Contacts
  • Lead Source
  • Lead Status
  • Life Cycle Stages
  • Purchase History
  • Characteristics of the Business
• Conclusion

Introduction to CRMs

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) simply refers to the technology used in the Management of your company’s Relationships and Interactions with your Customers and Potential Customers. CRM technologies help in the Automation and Management of the Customer Life Cycle for Sales and Marketing as well as consolidates Customers’ information into a single repository to ease the organization and Management process, providing essential tools for monitoring Performance and Productivity.

A CRM aims to improve the Business Relationships that exist between Consumers, Clients, Potential Clients, Suppliers, Colleagues, and the company as it helps everyone involved to stay connected to each other, get wind of new Developments, streamline Processes, and ultimately improve Productivity.

A veritable CRM tool helps analyze your organization’s Relationship with individuals throughout their Life Cycle and provides avenues for reaching out to new Customers. It gives a better way of managing external Interactions and Relationships that will drive success for different departments in the company like Sales, Marketing, Customer services, Business Development, and Recruiting units as CRM Feedback mechanisms will highly influence future decision making.

To learn about CRM Automation you can read Ultimate Guide to CRM Automation.

Significance and Use of CRMs

Essentially, CRM provides a platform for your business to manage customer Interactions, provide Support, and maintain Relationships through reliable systems and processes. It also integrates your organizational processes across the various departments from Sales, Marketing, to Customer Service with features that will serve as strategic keys to growth and overall success.

A CRM tool does this by letting you store a Customer’s and Prospective Customer’s contact information, identify relevant Sales opportunities, record Service issues, and manage Marketing campaigns effectively. This is all carried out in a central location and the information held can be reached by anyone in the various departments found in your company.

The CRM system collects both Customers’ and Potential Customers’ Websites, Emails, Telephone, Social Media data, etc. across multiple sources and channels. In collecting this information, CRM makes it easy to have access to Customer’s data, streamline processes through Automation, and provide actionable Insights into your Business Performance/Customer behavior to create visibility and increase productivity.

Understanding CRM Fields and CRM Data Types

CRM Fields are used to define the individual data items that can be used to store data in an entity and they are sometimes referred to as Attributes. CRM Fields can be defined as an individual data point within a record where each entity is made up of records and each record is made up of fields. For example, where you have account records made up of phone numbers, contact addresses, email, etc. these attributes are referred to as fields on the account record.

There are three categories of CRM Fields namely Simple, Calculated, and Rollup fields. The Simple CRM Fields are the traditional field that holds data such as email, names, phone numbers, etc. Calculated CRM Fields are defined as the field with calculations based on formulas that use fields from the current entity or related parent entities, while Rollup CRM Fields, is defined as a field with an aggregate value computed over a hierarchy.

There are various CRM Data Types which include the simple line of Text, Option Set, Currency, Lookup, Customer, Decimal Number, Image, File, etc.

Types of CRM Fields for Sales and Marketing Success

To have a successful CRM system where your Sales and Marketing strategies will yield efficient results, you will have to identify and capture important Customer information as this information will amplify your Marketing effectiveness, provide high-quality Leads, and ensure you have a platform that will suit your ideal Customers.

If your Business is going to stand the test of time, you need to focus on the future by setting targets for Sales, Business Objectives, and Profitability. Arriving at logical conclusions can be confusing as you ponder on how to make the most of the different data you are getting from Sales, Marketing, Customer service, and Social Media monitoring. This is where a CRM system comes in as it gives you a clear view of what you need in a simple and enticing dashboard. Though, for it to be most effective, you have to include relevant CRM Fields that will boost your company’s productivity.

Not carrying out a thorough analysis of relevant CRM Fields to be in your CRM, your Sales and Marketing campaigns will be constantly missing the mark and costing your Business money and lost time due to reduced productivity. Below are a few important CRM Fields that must be included in your CRM for maximum success:

• Contact Type
• Contacts
• Lead Source
• Lead Status
• Life Cycle Stages
• Purchase History
• Characteristics of the Business

1) Contact Type

The first essential CRM Fields to be included in your CRM should be the Contact Type as you will have a variety of people in your Contact list. It is useful to separate them into various units such as Prospects, Customers, Vendors, Partners, Resellers, Employees, Subcontractors, etc as you may deem fit for streamlined relationships that meet your needs and situation.

2) Contacts

This is one of the CRM Fields where you have detailed records about your Contacts and this may include a Picture, First Name, Last Name, Title, Contact, Current Status, etc. Having personalized details such as Email Address, Department, Interest, etc. can also be included in your Contact details. The status of the Contact in your CRM Fields will give a clear indication of the current relationship that exists between the Contact and the company whether Active, Deactivated, or even Deceased, and this will prevent you from sending random messages to Customers which may be deemed as inappropriate in some cases.

3) Lead Source

Records for the Source of Leads, Accounts, Contacts, etc. should be taken note of and put in a field for easy identification. This will enable you to know the origin of a Lead and the CRM can keep track of the Lead information, Marketing channel the lead was gotten from, Campaigns, or Marketing events. The Lead Source CRM Fields further describes who referred the individual to the company, the Campaign name, specific Trade, Marketing events, etc. The ability to analyze and keep track of this field is essential in measuring your ROI.

4) Lead Status

The next important CRM Fields in your CRM should be Lead Status as this shows the validity of the Contact. Some of the relevant Lead Statuses that may be used include Open, In Progress, Unqualified, Nurture, Dropped, Not a Prospect, etc depending on your choice. Each of these definitions will help your Sales and Marketing teams to know how to approach each Contact in your CRM.

5) Life Cycle Stages

These CRM Fields display your Contact’s varying stages of Purchasing from your company. This will be helpful as a key indicator to know how effective your Sales and Marketing performances. You will see at a glance the stages each Contact is at getting a product or service from you be it at the beginning where more convincing is required or at the point of closing a deal. Some of the options you can have in this field are Subscriber, Lead, Opportunity, Customer, Sales Qualified Lead, Marketing Qualified Lead, etc.

6) Purchase History

In your CRM, after a Sales opportunity has been declared as won or closed, these products and services should be added to a Customer’s history as this information will greatly enhance targeted Marketing in the future. Since a Customer’s history is visible, it will help you when sending subsequent messages containing Product Information, Upgrades, Advances made, and similar Products to specific users instead of generalized messages to all Customers.

7) Characteristics of the Business

Having CRM Fields that give details about a Business is very useful as this will show the Industry Code, Industry Classification, Account Type, and Subtype of Business. This will in turn help in your decision making and how to approach the Business depending on the various industry classifications such as Advertising, Banks, Construction, Insurance, IT Companies, Manufacturing, Production, Distribution, etc. The relationship your company has with the Business can also be included in the account like Customer, Prospect, Competitor, Partner, Referral source, etc. for greater accessibility and efficiency.

Conclusion

To have a successful CRM Campaign for your organization, it is important to have specific CRM Fields where deductions can be made of the kind of information you need to know and if you are on the right track to make much-needed improvements for a better result.

This write-up has pointed out a few of such relevant CRM Fields and shown why they need to be included in your CRM to amplify your Marketing and Sales demands and give you a high prospect of increasing your ROI.

Setting up an efficient CRM requires a lot of skills and can be discouraging when it is not yielding the needed growth. But not to worry, Hevo Data is a solution that can be used to set up and manage your CRM needs as required. This is done in a simplified and code-free manner.

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You can use Hevo to connect many CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot to transfer data for Free (among 30+ Free Sources) to your Data Warehouse for analytics. It provides you with a consistent and reliable solution to managing data in real-time, ensuring that you always have analysis-ready data in your desired destination. Your job will be to focus on key business needs and perform insightful analysis using BI tools.

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