Contact Relationship Management (CRM) software is an essential component of effective digital marketing efforts – whether that’s for a political campaign or multi-billion dollar business. While you may not be familiar with the term CRM, chances are you already have one (or multiple) in your campaign’s technology stack. Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp have a CRM for email contacts and WinRed has a CRM for donor data.
More important than the software you decide to use for your campaign’s CRM is actually committing to using a CRM. Like any new tool or platform there is a learning curve and habit shift that must be overcome before reaping the benefits.
Here are five benefits of using a CRM for your campaign.
Unify Your Data
A CRM will help you organize all of your data in one place no matter where the data came from. Your volunteer signup form might be on a different system than your donation platform, but a CRM can bring it all together with the right integrations.
Eliminate Data Silos
When you bring your data together into a CRM, you begin breaking down the data silos that plague most campaigns. Instead of each team member having one piece of the puzzle, now everyone has a clear picture of and access to the campaign’s data.
Your fundraiser can invite volunteers to an event or your campaign manager can quickly get in touch with someone with up to date information. Your campaign gets smarter as its data becomes more connected.
Make Better Decisions
When you have a full picture into your campaign’s relationship data via a CRM, you can make better, more informed decisions. Instead of wondering where the best place to have a rally with high attendance will be, you can see where most of your supporters live. Which Facebook ad generated the most donors over the cycle? It’s in your CRM.
Gain Efficiencies, Avoid Waste
If someone on your team is working on recruiting attendees for an event and has access to email and donor data, they can reach their goals quicker and focus on something else. Similarly, you can avoid the time and expense of data collection if you’ve already got it accessible in your CRM.
Prepare For What’s Next
The campaign doesn’t end on Election Day. Win or lose, the data you collected has value whether your candidate runs again or not. Having it all organized in a CRM gives you options, whether that’s sharing the data with the state party or building on it for the next campaign.
Conclusion
Having – and using – a CRM is essential to running an effective campaign. There are plenty of options to choose from, including several made specifically for politics, but the benefits are only unlocked fully when everyone on your campaign commits to the culture of data syncing.
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