Form of... a CRM/email-marketing ice hybrid!

July 8, 2009 9:05 PM

CRM and email-marketing software: Are they ever the same software? Should they be?

I'm a consultant for a client who is a professional musician with many business contacts of many different types (he's an educator, a producer, a performer, he does session work, he runs a summer camp, etc.). He has many different business contacts, which he sorts into many different categories. He likes to regularly send multiple newsletters (with different foci) out to the different groups of business contacts.

Right now, he's using Salesforce for CRM and Email Brain for the email marketing. Given that he's a small businessman (despite having a relatively complex business), I recommended moving from Salesforce to Hightrise, and it looks like we're going to give Highrise a try.

However, what he really wants is some comprehensive solution that will send the marketing emails right out of the CRM system. What we're trying to avoid here is the cumbersome process of exporting lists of email addresses from the CRM software and importing them into the email marketing software, then keeping track of how often that process needs to be happen so that the lists are synched, etc.

Any thoughts are much appreciated.

posted by bingo to computers & internet (5 comments total)

It's often done this way in politics. Blue State Digital provides that functionality, as does NGP.
posted by awesomebrad at 9:09 PM on July 8

Many non-profits do it this way as well. Although my overlords send out thousands of messages at one go (the monthly email to supporters, for example, goes out to over 200K non-bouncing emails).
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 10:40 PM on July 8

This thread (while slanted towards non-profits) may help.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 10:43 PM on July 8

SugarCRM offers several ways to do this.
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 AM on July 9

If you decide to stick with Salesforce, VerticalResponse integrates nicely with it. Through a plug-in, you can set up lists and send out emails directly in Salesforce without any tedious importing/exporting. They charge per email sent (something like a cent per email), so there are no flat fees. I'm in charge of marketing emails at my co, and I love the Salesforce-VerticalResponse combo.
posted by saturngirl at 4:46 PM on July 9