CRM: Use Third-Party Data for Smarter Business Decisions

If you've read our ARISE™ GTM methodology content before, you know how thorough it is for GTM teams. Recently, we published an article on Assessing your tech stack, part of the “Assess” stage, the “A”, which is all about operational excellence and efficiency.

This post feeds on from there, as tech stack analysis is vital for figuring out if you have the right tech or “Frankenstein's” tech, a mishmash of tools that simply slow your teams down and add bloat and friction. The fallout is that businesses waste around $18M in subscription fees for tools that never get used, creating an additional cybersecurity risk.

What’s powerful for go-to-market teams is the ability to share customer data between the three revenue teams: marketing, sales, and customer success. The best way to do this is to use a single Customer Relationship Management (CRM), like HubSpot, to manage all three datasets. 

Plugging in additional third-party data and tools becomes an easy choice so that all the data generated can be easily broken down into bite-sized chunks that enable you to tell stories.

Integrating third-party tools into your CRM system can significantly enhance your ability to make data-driven decisions in SaaS and Fintech. By consolidating data from various sources, businesses can comprehensively view their marketing, sales, and customer success activities, leading to more informed and strategic decisions.

Enhancing marketing efforts with data

Integrating third-party marketing tools with your CRM allows for a seamless data flow, enabling more precise targeting and personalisation. For instance, integrating email marketing platforms like MailChimp or social media tools like Hootsuite with your CRM can help track customer interactions across different channels.

This integration provides insights into metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and social media engagement, which are crucial for understanding the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. By analysing this data, marketers can identify which campaigns resonate most with their audience, optimise their strategies, and allocate resources more effectively.

However, I advise starting with HubSpot’s tools and adding more, but you must choose per your budget.

Optimising sales processes

Sales teams can benefit from CRM integrations with tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or sales and forecasting software like Ebsta. These integrations allow sales reps to access comprehensive data on leads and prospects, including their interaction history and engagement levels. Metrics such as Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate, and Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) can be tracked and analysed to refine sales strategies. 

For example, integrating a lead management tool can help sales teams prioritise high-quality leads, streamline follow-ups, and close deals more efficiently. This data-driven approach ensures that sales efforts are focused on the most promising opportunities, driving higher conversion rates and revenue growth.

Naturally, with optimised marketing and sales funnels, you focus on retention and expansion, which I will cover next.

Enhancing customer success

Customer success teams can leverage CRM integrations with customer support platforms like Zendesk or Service Hub to monitor and improve customer satisfaction. By tracking metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Churn Rate, businesses can gain insights into customer health and identify potential issues before they escalate. 

Integrating these tools with your CRM allows for a unified view of customer interactions, enabling proactive engagement and personalised support. For instance, if a customer frequently contacts support with the same issue, the CRM can flag this for the customer success team to address more comprehensively, improving overall customer satisfaction and retention.

Understanding customer and buyer behaviour

Integrating third-party tools with HubSpot CRM significantly enhances the understanding of customer and buyer behaviour by providing a more comprehensive view of interactions and data. These tools can offer advanced analytics, social media insights, and customer feedback mechanisms that HubSpot might not fully capture. 

For instance, integrating a social media monitoring tool can reveal how customers engage with a brand across different platforms, while a customer feedback tool can provide direct insights into customer satisfaction and preferences. This enriched data allows businesses to track customer journeys more accurately, identify patterns, and predict future behaviours, leading to more personalised marketing strategies and improved customer relationships. 

By leveraging these integrations, companies can make data-driven decisions that align closely with customer needs and behaviours, ultimately driving better business outcomes.

Segmenting and personalising

Customer behaviour analysis tools integrated with your CRM can help segment your audience based on their interactions, preferences, and purchasing habits. For example, you can use data from web analytics, social media interactions, and purchase history to create detailed customer profiles. 

This segmentation allows for highly personalised marketing campaigns that address different customer groups' unique needs and motivations. Personalised content and offers are more likely to engage customers, leading to higher conversion rates and customer loyalty.

Predicting trends and improving retention

Businesses can identify trends and predict future actions by continuously monitoring and analysing customer behaviour. For instance, if data shows that customers who engage with a particular feature are more likely to renew their subscription, the customer success team can focus on promoting that feature to new users. 

Additionally, understanding the factors that lead to customer churn, such as poor user experience or lack of engagement, allows businesses to take proactive measures to improve retention. Implementing changes based on these insights can significantly enhance the customer experience and reduce churn rates.

Conclusion

Integrating third-party tools into your CRM system is a powerful strategy for leveraging collective data to make smarter business decisions. By enhancing marketing, sales, and customer success efforts with comprehensive data insights, businesses can optimise their strategies, improve customer engagement, and drive growth. 

Moreover, understanding customer and buyer behaviour through detailed analysis enables more accurate segmentation, personalised marketing, and proactive customer support, ultimately leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty. In the competitive landscapes of SaaS and Fintech, these data-driven approaches are essential for long-term success.

Talk to our team if your business wants increased customer insights from your first—and third-party data sources. We have a comprehensive list of tools that sync cohesively with HubSpot and enable you to incorporate sales, marketing success, and product teams into data streams. This can be particularly useful for PLG platforms in the SaaS and Fintech space, which can use user data to make business decisions.