Building Our CRM Future: The Journey and Learnings Behind Our 2023 Plan

Like many marketing departments, we’re constantly striving to be more effective, more customer-centric, and more data-driven. Our overarching Marketing OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, Measures) set a clear direction: boost cross-selling, leverage data to optimize the customer journey, and secure a top-of-mind position with our target audiences. However, achieving these ambitions required more than just intent; it demanded a hard look at our existing processes and technology, specifically our Sage CRM system.

This realization sparked the creation of our CRM Plan 2023, a foundational step in a larger 2023-2025 roadmap. Crafting this plan was a journey in itself, filled with discussions, analysis, and some crucial learnings.

From Ambition to Vision: Setting Our North Star

We knew what we wanted (based on the OGSM), but we needed a clear how. In collaboration with internal stakeholders, we formulated a CRM vision – not just a technical goal, but a strategic philosophy.

Our CRM Vision: To leverage deep customer insights to optimize relationships with our most valuable customer groups. Supported by trained teams, streamlined processes, and enabling technology, we aim to maximize customer value and conversion. Over the next three years, we will strengthen our market position by increasing data-driven up-selling and cross-selling, connecting target groups, and embedding personalization more deeply into the customer journey. Continuous analysis and monitoring will provide a complete customer view, driving optimization across all segments.

We deliberately set an ambitious vision. It serves as a constant challenge, pushing us to continually evolve and improve.

The Planning Journey: Confronting Reality and Prioritizing Foundations

Translating this vision into an actionable 2023 plan required confronting the current state of our CRM ecosystem. We quickly learned several key things:

1. Foundations First: We couldn’t jump straight into advanced personalization or complex cross-selling campaigns. Our existing data structures within Sage weren’t designed for the kind of analysis we needed. Processes across different marketing target groups were siloed. Building a solid foundation became the non-negotiable priority for 2023.
2. Silos are Real Barriers: The separation between different target groups (like Wageningen Academy & Professional Education, or potentially Pre-University & Student Recruitment/Alumni Relations) within our systems wasn’t just an organizational quirk; it actively hindered our ability to identify cross-sell opportunities, map a truly integrated customer journey, and even led to potential inefficiencies (like contacting the same lead multiple times from different angles). Addressing this “de-siloing” (ontschotting) emerged as a major, complex, but essential task.
3. Data Structure is King: You can’t be data-driven without good data. Our analysis revealed the need to redesign the Sage data model to support scalable analysis and reporting. We also identified gaps in capturing crucial contact moments across the entire customer journey within CRM. Without this structured data, insights remain superficial and hard to obtain.
4. Integration is Crucial: CRM doesn’t operate in a vacuum. We recognized the critical need for better integration, particularly a live, two-way connection between Sage CRM and our email marketing platform. This allows us not just to push data out for campaigns, but to pull engagement data back into the CRM, enriching lead profiles and enabling genuine personalization based on behavior.
5. People and Process are Paramount: Technology is only one of the three CRM pillars. The plan also necessitated thinking about standardizing campaign processes for a segmented approach and identifying where marketing automation could free up valuable time for our teams to focus on strategy and innovation, rather than just execution. Training and change management are implicit needs as we shift our approach.

Charting the Course: The 2023 Plan

Based on these learnings, we prioritized the absolute ‘need-to-haves’ for 2023, focusing on building that essential foundation. Our plan crystallised around three core project areas:

1. Enabling Cross-Selling: This involves the complex but vital work of de-siloing key target groups within Sage and establishing a preference center. This gives leads control over their communication preferences and provides us with richer interest data, while breaking down internal barriers allows for a unified customer view and smarter engagement.
2. Establishing Robust Customer Analysis: This focuses on redesigning the Sage data model for better analytics and ensuring all significant contact moments (from web forms to specific conversions) are captured systematically within CRM. This is the bedrock for understanding funnel performance and journey effectiveness.
3. Optimizing the Customer Journey Foundation: This includes investigating adding more relevant lead attributes to Sage, developing that critical live link between CRM and email, setting up proper segmentation within Sage, and automating routine CRM processes to gain efficiency.

We recognized that this requires significant effort and specific expertise. We’ve estimated the resource needs (around 650 hours from our IT team and 50 days from consultants) and secured/requested the necessary budget allocations. Further analysis in Q1 will refine these estimates.

Looking Ahead

Drafting the CRM Plan 2023 was an illuminating process. It forced us to be honest about our starting point, articulate a clear vision, and make tough choices about priorities. We learned that building a sophisticated CRM capability is a marathon, not a sprint, and that getting the foundations right is the most critical first step.

The real work begins now as we execute these foundational projects. It’s a significant undertaking, but one we are confident will unlock tremendous potential for more effective, data-driven, and customer-centric marketing in the years to come.

Feel free to connect or reach out if you’d like to discuss data strategies for CRM optimization, tackling data integration challenges, or building foundations for marketing analytics further!