Monthly Archives: March 2023

Post Content

To create professional-looking infographics and captivate your audience, you can benefit from learning how to create your own infographics in PowerPoint.

PowerPoint can be a marketer’s best friend when it comes to visual content creation, including infographic design. 

But it can be intimidating to create your own infographic when you don’t have a design background. You could always commission an agency or hire a designer, but that can get pricey fast.

So you may be thinking, where do I start? We’ll guide you through how to create your own infographics and even give you examples of different types you can work with using our 15 fabulous infographic templates for free within PowerPoint.

Use Cases for PowerPoint Infographics

PowerPoint infographics are a powerful tool to present data-heavy information in an accessible, digestible format — no matter if you plan to disseminate the infographic digitally or in person. You can also simply use PowerPoint as an infographic maker if it’s your preferred design software.

Here are some of the ways you can use PPT infographics:

1. Presenting a Case Study

Designing a beautiful, readable case study is no easy task. You can create a PowerPoint infographic that showcases the key facts of your case study, such as the problem your customer experienced, the solution you served, and the outcome. You can include beautiful graphics, as well as dynamic typography — something you may not be able to include in a traditional, one-page case study.

2. Presenting Research

PowerPoint infographics are an excellent medium to present data, trends, and research. You can use all the data visualization options PowerPoint offers to present your data in a digestible way.

Since the infographic will be larger than a typical slide, you can be as descriptive as you’d like. But if you’d like to reuse the same information, you only need to copy it into a new PPT presentation.

3. Presenting a Pitch

You can PowerPoint infographics to present a pitch to stakeholders or potential buyers. You can include data points, testimonials, expected results, and even descriptions of the prospect’s problem to emphasize the importance of purchasing your solution.

Images and graphics can be more effective than just words, and since you’re in PowerPoint, you can create an infographic of any size, including the horizontal 16:9 dimensions.

4. Presenting a Multi-Step Process

Whether you’re onboarding a new team or informing stakeholders on a new process, a PowerPoint infographic is an effective medium to communicate your message. PowerPoint comes packed with plenty of “process” graphics, such as text-filled arrows, cascading charts, and grids.

5. Presenting an Announcement

A complicated company announcement — with many moving parts or components — merits an infographic to make it easier for stakeholders to read and understand. You can create one right in your PowerPoint presentation and include all pertinent information in one convenient slide.

Alternatively, you can use PPT as a design tool and simply download your infographic for easy saving and sharing.

Infographics are an oft-used type of content marketing. And it’s plain to see why. Marketers who align the topic, content, and style of their infographics with the needs and preferences of their target audiences find success among their audience.

Now, let’s walk through how to make a simple timeline infographic in PowerPoint so you can reap these benefits.

1. Download HubSpot’s free infographic templates.

Download This Free Template (and 10+ More) Here

If you’d like to skip some of the steps below, download a kit of free, premade infographic templates you can edit right in PowerPoint. Choose from data infographics to image-heavy templates to timelines, then customize the colors and fonts to reflect your brand.

Plus, the kit includes Adobe Illustrator versions in case you prefer editing your infographic in Illustrator instead.

2. Identify the purpose of your PowerPoint infographic.

Prior to sitting down and designing the infographic, think about what your audience should take away from it first. Do you aim to share research, deliver a pitch, or explain a concept? Will it be included in a presentation, or will you want users to download it?

Depending on your goals, you’ll choose different designs and typographic elements that will best convey your message. For instance, if you plan to present the infographic in person, you should aim to use a larger font for easy reading. If you aim to include data, you should first gather all the numbers and create the charts in a more sophisticated tool such as Excel.

Now, let’s get into the tutorial.

3. Create a new PowerPoint file.

First, open up PowerPoint, tap Blank Presentation in the Home or +New screen, and click Create.

If PowerPoint is already open, tap File in the top menu bar, then click New Presentation.

4. Change the Slide size to your preferred dimensions.

To begin making an infographic from scratch, you have to readjust the size of the PowerPoint Slide to give you more space to work with.

Begin by opening a new PowerPoint, in the top navigation bar, click on Design and select Slide Size.

Then in the drop-down menu, select either one of the predetermined sizes or click Page Setup.

Input your preferred width and height dimensions and click OK.

5. Browse SmartArt options from PowerPoint’s library.

To make a timeline graphic in PowerPoint, suitable for any infographic, open PowerPoint and click Insert from the top navigation bar, then select the SmartArt icon beneath the navigation bar, where you’ll find several categories of graphics to choose from.

6. Choose the right SmartArt graphic that fits your data or message.

There are two categories of graphics that make effective timelines. The first is the Process category. Click this option to expand the graphics menu shown below.

Creating Graphics for Timelines

If you’re working to create a timeline infographic, we’ve highlighted in red a few of the most fitting timeline-related graphics.

Aside from the Process menu of graphics, you’ll also find a viable timeline graphic in the Picture category. Select this category and you’ll find the Alternating Picture Circles option near the center of the graphics menu. We’ve highlighted it in red, below.

7. Add or remove elements from the SmartArt graphic.

We’ll use the Alternating Picture Circles graphic from the Picture menu. Once you’ve inserted this graphic into your first PowerPoint slide, you can add or remove circular icons to match the types of data and inputs you’re presenting.

8. Insert your data points and edit the text.

At this point, the size of your timeline graphic should match the amount of data you have. Begin to fill your timeline with the information you plan to report on using this timeline and explore PowerPoint’s excellent drag and drop features to help arrange graphics as necessary.

As with the other graphics available in PowerPoint’s SmartArt, you can edit the text and the images associated with your timeline to your liking. As you can see below, we’ve edited the years and the images to better represent what happened at each point in time.

To insert images into your timeline graphic, right-click the square landscape icon, select a graphic From File and upload an image from your computer onto your PowerPoint slide.

To tell your story, you can update the time periods in the center circles, replace the placeholder text, and adjust the visuals and colors to your liking. For those latter adjustments, you can choose Insert > Shape in PowerPoint to add in different visuals and use the paint bucket (a.k.a. Color Fill) icon to change the colors of different elements.

9. Add your logo, desired images, and background colors.

You now have the perfect bare-bones infographic, but to truly make it pop, you’ll need to add more imagery and background colors. Doing this from scratch can seem daunting, but even changing the slide color from white to a light yellow can immediately make your design look more polished and cohesive.

Prior to taking this step, review color theory to choose the right palette. You should also add your logo, so that if people download the infographic alone, they will know where it comes from. (If you’re presenting it in person, you should still do this in case your audience takes pictures.)

10. Download your infographic or create a slide-friendly version.

Now that you have your infographic on hand, it’s time to save it to your laptop. To do so, tap File in the top menu, then click Save As. Ensure you save only the infographic slide, and not the entire presentation.

Alternatively, in this step, you may choose to create a 16:9 version of your infographic that you can easily integrate into any presentation. You may even divide the different parts of the infographic into several slides. This would be useful if you want to “zoom in” to different sections as you present.

If you’re looking for something more convenient, you can download our infographic templates that open directly in PowerPoint so you can get to creating faster.

PowerPoint Infographic Examples

1. Data-Centric Infographic Example

Infographics and data visualization are the peanut butter and jelly of the visual content world.

When you have new data to reveal to the world, you can use an infographic to display that data as part of a cohesive, visual narrative. And that’s exactly what the Data Geek template is for.

We’ve loaded this template with a variety of different charts and graphs, which you can easily update with your own data. (Just right-click on a graph, choose Edit Data, and you’ll be able to customize the values in an Excel spreadsheet.)

What to Add to a Data-Centric Infographic

Column chart: Use for comparing different categories or for showing changes over time (from left to right).

Pie chart: Use for making part-to-whole comparisons. (Note: They work best with small data sets.)

Line graph: Use for showing data that changes continuously over time. Ideal for displaying volatility, trends, acceleration, or deceleration.

Doughnut chart: Use a pie chart. This stylistic variation allows you to put a number, graphic, or other visual in the center of the chart.

Bar chart: Use a column chart. (The horizontal bars make it easier to display long category names.)

2. Timeline Infographic

Telling the history of a particular industry, product, brand, trend, or tactic can be a great topic for an infographic. And while there are a variety of different ways that you can visualize time — including in a circle, which is what we did with our Google algorithm updates infographic — the timeline is by far the most common and easiest design method to use.

Timeline Infographic Best Practices

Research. Research. Research. The best timeline infographics aren’t just beautifully designed — they also tell a great story based on extensive research. So before you start the design phase of your infographic, put in the time to surface the best information possible.

Narrow the scope: Timelines that cover hundreds or thousands of years can certainly be interesting, but they can also require weeks or months of research. To keep your sanity, stick with shorter time periods.

Keep your copy concise: Infographics are supposed to be visual. If you find yourself writing 100+ words for each date on your timeline, a blog post may be the better content format.

3. Modern Design Infographic

For this infographic template, we wanted to do something that reflected modern design trends, including using banners and arrows.

In terms of content, we provided plenty of space for both stats and copy. There’s also a column chart at the bottom. But remember, you can always add different charts and graphs to the template wherever you see fit. Just select Insert > Chart … and you’ll have several options to choose from.

Modern Design Infographic Best Practices

Experiment with new color palettes. There are tons of free color palettes online. Don’t believe me? Do a Google image search of “Color Palette”. When you find a palette you like, drag the image directly into your PowerPoint presentation. Next, select the Color Fill bucket, choose More Colors … and click on the eyedropper icon. With the eyedropper tool, you can select colors from your palette and use them for elements in your infographic.

Take the time to manipulate shapes. PowerPoint has an extensive library of shapes — including banners, ribbons, and arrows — that you can use in your infographic design. By clicking and dragging on the little yellow diamonds that appear on these shapes, you can customize them. For example, you can make the pointy ends of a ribbon longer or shorter, or make the body of an arrow thinner or thicker.

4. Flowchart Infographic

While on the surface a flowchart infographic may appear simple and fun, a lot of thought and planning needs to go into making sure the different sections logically flow into each other.

In our flowchart PowerPoint template, we created a basic flowchart structure, with positive responses guiding viewers to a conclusion at the bottom left of the infographic and negative responses guiding viewers to a separate conclusion at the bottom right of the infographic.

Flowchart Infographic Best Practices

Draw out the branches beforehand. Before you dive into PowerPoint, get out a pen and paper and do a rough outline of your flowchart. Test for weaknesses in your logic by answering questions in every possible combination and seeing where you end up. For best results, have a friend or coworker run through the flowchart, too.

The smaller the scope, the easier the execution. The more questions or stages you add to your flowchart, the more difficult it will be to create (and the harder it will likely be for viewers to understand). So try to narrow the focus of your flowchart.

5. Image-Heavy Infographic

So far, the infographic templates we’ve looked at have relied primarily on illustrations that you can create within PowerPoint. But of course, there’s no reason why you can’t bring external photos and other images into your infographic design.

We’ve created this image-heavy infographic template for that exact purpose. It’s great for comparing different categories, ideas, or results, and since you don’t need to create or customize a lot of shapes, it’s a lot less work.

Image-Heavy Infographic Best Practices

Use high-quality images. It’s better to scale down a big image (e.g. 2,000 pixels by 2,000 pixels) than to scale up a small image (e.g. 20 pixels by 20 pixels) to fit a particular space. The latter approach will result in images appearing pixelated and grainy.

Use borders. Adding borders to your images will help make them feel like their part of a cohesive design. In PowerPoint, you can control the size, style, and color of borders under the Format Picture tab.

Save your infographic as a PNG file. This is a best practice for all infographics but is particularly relevant when publishing an infographic that contains photographs. The PNG extension offers better quality than other options. To save your finished infographic as a PNG file, you simply need to choose File > Save As … and select PNG from the dropdown.

Make an Eye-Catching Infographic Today

The possibilities are endless when you discover how to start creating infographics. You’ll be able to expand your skills as a marketer and create more elaborate content that your audience will be intrigued by and engage with. We hope you found this article useful and that you’ll take the initiative to build your own infographics in PowerPoint.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in October 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

While branding can feel like a vague concept, it’s one of the most important elements of a marketing strategy.

Why? Consistent branding leads to increased brand awareness which can then help build brand salience, gain investors, and drive revenue to your business. Consistently presented brands are 3.5 times more likely to have excellent brand visibility than those with inconsistent branding. Additionally, 82% of investors say name recognition is an important factor guiding them in their investment decisions.

In this post, we’ll review what brand salience is, how you can increase your brand visibility, and how to measure it.

Skip to:

What Brand Salience Is
Brand Salience Marketing
Increasing Brand Salience
Measuring Brand Salience
Brand Salience Model

If you have high brand salience, then you have a strong brand presence that consumers recognize and think about when they need a product.

If you have low brand salience, then consumers might not know your brand exists and therefore won’t think of your brand when they need to make a purchase.

Essentially, brand salience is a similar metric to brand awareness except it’s focused on measuring awareness during the actual purchasing decision instead of overall brand visibility.

For example, when someone wants to get a cup of coffee and is driving around, what’s the first brand they think of? Probably Starbucks. When they want to buy tissues, they think of Kleenex. When they want to search for something online, they Google it.

All of these brands have transcended the perception of being a random company, and are now household names in their own right. Most people think of these brands and know of them whether they’ve been there or used those products before. These brands have high brand salience.

Importance of Brand Salience

To have high brand salience, your customers need to think about your brand as the first solution to their wants or needs when they have to make a purchasing decision.

The concept of brand salience is actually psychological in nature. According to research done by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp, brand salience is “a brand’s propensity to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations.”

This means that you have to capture people’s attention and be memorable enough for consumers to recall your brand when they’re purchasing something.

For example, when a consumer has a choice of brands to purchase from, they’ll rely both on their memory and attention salience. This means they’ll recall brands they know and then see what captures their attention.

This process is actually scientific. People who have studied brand salience have studied the human brain — how do people recall information and how does a brand associate positive memory structure with their product?

When they want to buy an item, people are far less likely to run through a list of options and do the mental gymnastics of figuring out the pros and cons of each.

Instead, they’ll choose the option that first comes to mind as it’s often the one they are most confident about. Having a high brand salience increases the odds that the brand they choose is yours.

To increase your brand salience, some of your marketing campaigns probably won’t even focus on persuading consumers to buy your product. The goal of many branding campaigns is to constantly reinforce positive associations with your brand.

Familiarity is important. Constant marketing messages from a brand ensure that the brand is top-of-mind when a consumer is making a purchasing decision.

Next, we’ll discuss how brand salience impacts marketing efforts.

Brand Salience Marketing

Brands create high brand salience by using distinctive brand assets that capture attention and create positive memories for their audience.

This means your marketing assets promote positive storytelling and create a meaning associated with your brand. When you promote your values, you’re differentiating your brand from the competition and increasing brand salience.

Your strategy should be two-pronged, capturing both the attention and memory of your target audience.

Memory: Being top of mind for customers when they make purchasing choices.
Attention: Being able to capture the customer’s attention at the time of purchase.

To create campaigns that will improve brand salience, think about the emotional impact of your assets. Your campaigns should be meaningful, authentic, and portray your values as a company.

All of this will help customers create a positive association with your brand and remember your brand when it comes time to make a purchase.

For example, let’s say I want to buy some gum. When I think about gum, one of the first things I think of are the commercials for Extra. I’ve never forgotten those commercials because they were emotional and created a positive experience for me.

Now, when I think about gum, I usually buy Extra even though that brand has never been my favorite gum company (I used to buy Orbit). But since those commercials, I’ve leaned toward Extra because of the positive association and it’s one of the first brands I recall.

Ultimately, brand salience is a combination of brand awareness, familiarity, relevance, frequent communication, and emotional connections between brand and consumer.

How to Increase Brand Salience

Creating brand salience takes time and a carefully crafted strategy. Let’s go over a few methods to boost your brand salience.

1. Establish an emotional connection.

Humans are emotional creatures. What better way to create customer memories than to trigger an emotional connection to your brand?

Just like the Extra gum commercials have cemented themselves into my consciousness making it my gum of choice, you can use storytelling to do the same for your brand.

Take the vacation rental company VRBO. Instead of just persuading people to use their service based on how nice the available rentals are, they built a narrative around the moments created while staying in one of their rentals.

From family reunions to holidays to game nights, VRBO’s commercials instill memories of togetherness with our favorite people.

2. Create a brand that stands out.

It’s difficult to cultivate brand salience if your brand gets lost in the crowd. Being unique and most importantly, authentic goes a long way in setting you apart from the competition.

What are your brand’s values? Does your product aim to solve a major problem in your industry or market? Whatever drives your company, lean into it. Having a brand that conveys authenticity will help build trust with customers and gain their loyalty.

3. Expand brand awareness.

Increasing your brand awareness will aid your efforts to improve brand salience. After all, you can’t build a connection with customers if they are unfamiliar with your brand in the first place.

What challenges or obstacles are your customers facing? Focus your messaging on these obstacles and how your brand solves them. Communicating that you understand the customer’s pain points will make them more likely to want to learn more about your brand and the products you offer.

4. Keep marketing efforts consistent.

Distance may make the heart fonder in romantic settings, but it has the reverse effect when it comes to marketing. In order to build brand salience, you’ll need to get your brand in front of prospects over and over again.

Presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%. You can use a variety of touchpoints:

Social media ads: Use video and other visuals to help build a narrative that connects customers to your brand.
TV commercials: This is a pricier option, but a great way to reach a large audience if your budget allows it.
Email marketing: Create a newsletter or email campaigns that will keep you in contact with potential customers and keep your brand top of mind.

5. Test and make adjustments.

Your advertising campaigns aren’t set and forget tasks. You’ll need to continue to monitor and make changes based on the results you find.

Use Google Analytics to check the performance of not just your website, but also your promotions. What is resonating with customers? What can be changed?

Are you seeing increased revenue? That’s a sign of success. Conversely, if you see a drop, that could mean you need to tweak your marketing efforts. Surveys and focus groups — more on those later, are also excellent tools for testing brand salience.

Get creative. The methods above aren’t your only option. For example, if your goal is to educate customers, using a podcast format or video may be more useful to your brand.

Now, you might be thinking, “This all sounds great, but how can I measure this and prove its effectiveness to my managers?”

Let’s dive into that below.

How to Measure Brand Salience

Brand salience is rather conceptual in nature. Unfortunately, it’s not a mathematical metric that is easily measured. So, what do brands do?

Use Surveys

Well, one of the only ways to measure brand salience is through surveys. It’s important to ask your customers when they think of you, what they associate with your brand, and if they recall your company when making a purchasing decision.

Your survey can include descriptive assets to track your brand’s distinctive assets. For instance, what tone of voice, logo, color, or slogan comes to mind when users think of soda. They might say red, because they’ve associated Coca-Cola branding with soda in general.

To measure this, you can present survey respondents with a randomized list of cues and attributes by asking them which brands they associate with each statement.

It could be questions like “when I want to eat something quick and healthy” or “I know I will not overpay there.”

Use Focus Groups

Focus groups allow you to ask similar questions to those in your surveys, but also the bonus of digging deeper into their responses. The dynamic is more of a discussion among customers rather than having them quickly rattle off answers to a list of questions.

You can ask customers whether they recall or notice your brand relative to competitors.

Then, ask whether your brand is just thought of or sought after to determine how favorably your brand is judged. The more they talk, the better insights and feedback you’ll receive.

Using a survey or focus group will help you determine how high your brand salience is compared to competitors.

Now, let’s look at the brand salience model that you can use to strategize your brand positioning.

Brand Salience Model

In his book, Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, Kevin Keller developed a model for brand salience that has become popular in digital marketing.

In the graphic below, Keller creates a pyramid of building blocks to pay attention to when you’re trying to increase your brand salience.

Image Source

This model focuses on increasing deep, broad brand awareness by creating an identity that customers remember. At the foundation of the pyramid is salience, which you can increase by defining your brand in detail, frequently communicating with your audience, and using creative assets to tell a story.

Then, you create meaning and authenticity to differentiate your brand from the competition. And then, you use frequent messages to create positive, accessible reactions in your customers. And then you create loyalty by building a relationship and emotional connection with your audience.

With this model, you can increase brand salience, drive revenue, and even attract investors.

Brand Salience is Key to Success

Needless to say, branding is important for your business to succeed. Although brand salience isn’t the easiest metric to track, the science proves that focusing on it will help your company become a household name for your customers.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in July 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Access to relevant information is, without a doubt, the number one requirement for making good business decisions. For this reason, most companies use tools that help them gather and analyze customer data.

There are three types of platforms that are particularly popular — CDPs, CRMs, and DMPs. But what do these abbreviations stand for? How do these solutions differ, and which is best for you?

This guide shares the key features of each platform, as well advantages and disadvantages. Let’s get started.

CDP vs CRM vs DMP

CDPs: How do they work?

CRMs: How do they work?

DMPs: How do they work?

Before we dive into details, let’s take a quick look at what CDP, CRM, and DMP are.

Customer Data Platforms

Customer data platforms (CDPs) are tools for gathering first-party data from various sources to gain a full view of each customer. The data is then used by marketers to create personalized marketing campaigns. CDPs are specifically designed for marketers.

While HubSpot’s known for its CRM, some customers can use it as a CDP alternative as some packages track data like:

Contact-level interactions with your site, landing pages, emails, social posts, and reps.
Website and various inbound marketing analytics.
Payments or deal progress of those purchasing products.

Customer Relationship Management Platforms

Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms track and manage interactions with customers and prospects throughout their entire lifecycle.

CRMs have a positive impact on improving business relationships, which translates into the company’s growth. It can be used by sales, marketing, and customer success alike.

For example, CRMs like HubSpot help sales teams automate processes like data entry, email sequences, logging interactions, and customer service.

For more on CRMs, check out this guide.

Data Management Platform

Data management platforms (DMP) collect and organize data from first-, second-, and third-party sources including online, offline, and mobile. It includes data like demographics, browsing behavior, location, and device.

DMPs enable businesses to effectively segment customers, which in turn helps with creating a more personalized offering.

All of the above-mentioned platforms share the same goal: Improving the customer experience through data. However, they each use a different approach to achieve it.

While both CRMs and CDPs collect customer data, the former focuses on customer interactions with your team and the latter collects data on customers’ interactions with your product or service.

Similarly, CDPs are often confused with DMPs, as both of these platforms focus on gathering information. DMPs, however, usually anonymize customer data gathered from second- and third-party sources.

Customer Data Platforms: How do they work?

A CDP is a platform for collecting data from online and offline sources. This information is then used to build a 360° view of customers. The data can be stored for as long as necessary.

When it comes to data updates, you don’t have to do them manually in the platform. A CDP pulls data automatically from other systems and aggregates it.

Now, let’s explore the advantages and disadvantages of working with a CDP.

Advantages of CDPs

1. Building Unified Ideal Customer Profiles

A CDP comes in handy when building ideal customer profiles (ICPs) as it stores all your customer data. Regardless of your campaign source — be it social media, email, or search — you can gather all the data in a single place. This helps with two things:

You can gain a better understanding of each customer’s journey.
You can create effective strategies for reaching them.

CPDs have become even more important now that companies use multiple touchpoints to communicate with customers. Using various platforms to collect data and make sense of it can be counterproductive and confusing. Turning to a CDP is a much better option.

2. Better Personalization

The more data you have, the more personalization opportunities you get. As marketers, we know that that’s exactly what customers want. In fact, 60% of customers admit they’ll become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience.

While the stakes are high, a lot of businesses struggle with personalization due to insufficient customer data. A customer data platform can be a solution to this problem.

3. Higher Revenue

CDPs can boost customer satisfaction and intelligent targeting, which results in higher revenue. By collecting data from a number of sources you get a full view of each customer. You can then adjust your offers and your messaging to match their preferences.

That should result in better brand recognition and customer engagement, all of which positively impact conversion rates and your revenue.

Disadvantages of CDPs

1. Hard to Scale

Not all CDPs are created equal. If you use a CDP designed to process smaller amounts of data, then you might face scaling issues when your customer base starts to grow. The processing speed decreases significantly and you might even come across redundancies.

Initially, it might not seem like a big issue. However, if you want to make the most of your customer data, it’s best to select a platform that can handle a growing data volume.

2. Difficult to Extract Data from Source Systems

As mentioned earlier, a CDP is priceless when it comes to creating ICPs, provided that it effectively extracts data from various sources. Unfortunately, some platforms lack key technology components to do that. They may not integrate with third-party software.

In such a scenario, the IT team has to manually extract structured and unstructured data from different sources and input it into the CDP. This is very time-consuming and inefficient. Alternatively, they can write custom code to automatically extract information.

To learn more about CDPs, look at our customer data platform guide.

Customer Relationship Management Platforms: How do they work?

CRMs are where your marketing, sales, and support teams enter information about their interactions with customers. These commonly include notes from all calls and video meetings, support request tickets, live chat conversations, and customer satisfaction survey scores.

In essence, CRMs are your single source of truth where you consolidate all the insights on a client. This allows everyone to stay informed and, ultimately, build stronger business relationships.

Advantages of CRMs

1. Improved Customer Service

Let’s begin with the goal CRMs were built for and, simultaneously, their biggest advantage: They strengthen the bonds between the company and the customer.

Let’s say there’s a new account manager at your B2B company about to contact one of your clients. To find out who they’re reaching out to, they open the customer’s profile in the CRM. They see a history of all actions, like purchases and when they last called your support team.

The profile also features firmographic information, like their industry, the primary contact person’s job position, and company size. There might even be information on when the company last received funding. And this is truly just the tip of the iceberg.

The easier it is for your team to learn about a customer, the higher the chances of keeping them happy. And this boosts the chances of selling.

2. Reduced Business Silos

Did you know that support agents who don’t have access to unified tools dedicate 15% of their time to searching for customer information? That’s about six hours a week, which could be spent more productively. A CRM counters this issue, but it also supports a higher company objective — minimizing business silos.

Teams that contribute to and use CRMs for information are better at collaborating. They understand where each team’s role starts, ends, and overlaps.

Plus, if they have a question regarding a recent interaction, they’ll know exactly whom to reach out to for answers.

3. Higher Productivity and Efficiency

CRMs leverage marketing automation, which makes your employees’ daily work much easier and more productive. These tools can help you with repetitive tasks like clicking “send” on emails to relevant customer segments on the right day and time. As a result, your team can focus on tasks that require creativity and human attention — for instance, attending a conference or writing a report.

What’s more, you can use it to spot any patterns that need more attention from the business. For example, if you see a drop in CSAT scores for a customer segment, you can look into the reasons and discuss how to address them.

Disadvantages of CRMs

1. Potentially High Cost

While CRMs are a data gold mine, those that offer advanced features and lots of integrations can be costly. There are a few factors you need to account for to figure out the total cost of CRM software:

Subscriptions.
Cost of upgrades.
Potential customization, especially if the tool lacks integrations.
Staff training.
IT resources required for software maintenance and implementation.

Additionally, data migration and potential disruptions in business operations might add to the total implementation costs.

2. Integration Problems

Truth be told, your CRM is as good as the data it collects. So if the CRM you use lacks integrations, it won’t properly fulfill its role.

You might also have to spend significant time and money trying to customize your CRM, which might result in a lot of frustration. It’s crucial to ensure that the CRM you’re planning to purchase integrates with the rest of your software before you implement it.

DMPs: How do they work?

DMPs allow for high-level data management, like collecting demographic info for better customer segmentation. As these platforms don’t need to bind data to specific customer profiles, all information is anonymized.

In addition, DMPs don’t retain historical data, unlike CRMs where keeping history is the main objective.

Advantages of DMP

1. Streamlined Data

The larger the company, the more platforms marketers need to use. In fact, those working at enterprises use an average of 52 tools. With so much technology, it’s virtually impossible to keep an eye out for all critical customer insights.

Here’s where DMPs step in. They allow you to collect data from numerous sources and create accurate audience segments. This means you can build your campaigns and other strategic work on cohesive data.

Image source

2. Gaining Access to Second- and Third-Party Data

When we compare CDPs versus DMPs, there’s one key difference — the latter collects and integrates data from second- and third-party sources. It’s also one of its biggest advantages.

This is ideal if you need more information for your personas than what you’ve collected internally. The insights you can access via DMPs come from reputable external sources, which also match your customer profile.

3. Efficient Budget Management

DMPs help you lower advertising spending. How so? You don’t have to run multiple ads simultaneously to boost your chances of reaching the right audience.

DMPs let you engage in re-targeting. For example, you can reach out to prospects who visited your “pricing” page. Or, if you aren’t a subscription-based business, you can even re-target those who bought your product or service in the past.

Each of these groups can be reached through the right channel with tailored messaging.

Disadvantages of DMP

1. Complexity

One of the potential downsides is that DMPs can offer complex functionalities and dependencies, particularly if it has tens or hundreds of integrations. This means that it might have a steep learning curve to use properly (or to its full potential).

Some platforms might also require help from technical teams, like administrators and developers, whenever you need to tweak settings.

2. High Maintenance

As you handle vast amounts of data, you must ensure high-end security to prevent data breaches or cyber-attacks.

That’s not to say that DMPs come unprotected. Quite the contrary — their developers are compliant with the latest protocols. However, you’ll need a security expert to make sure your internal systems are also bulletproof.

Image source

Making the Right Choice for Your Team

When it comes to deciding between CDP, CRM, and DMP, it’s not a matter of choosing one or the other. These platforms fulfill different roles and complement each other.

DMPs can help you with lead generation. CDPs are great for engaging with leads and prospects, while CRMs are made for managing the relationship with your customers. They work best when used together.

All of these tools help you better understand your customers and, as a result, create more personalized experiences, positively impacting revenue.

Whichever solution you go with, make sure it fulfills your needs and, most importantly, that it integrates with your software. Only then you’ll be able to make the most of your data and save yourself from unnecessary frustration and costs.

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team.

This week, fashion brand Telfar took its reputation for price accessibility to the next level.

During its latest clothing drop on March 27, the brand began testing a dynamic pricing model, letting customers determine how much they wanted to pay.

Here’s how it worked:

When pieces from the collection dropped, they were listed at wholesale prices (around 50% less than retail).
Prices raised incrementally each second, capping at the full retail listing.
The price pieces sold out at then became the final price.

In other words, the more popular an item was, the lower the price was for everyone.

This style of pricing could be a win-win for the brand and customers. The brand now knows exactly how many units to order from manufacturers and won’t have to rely on steep price cuts to move product, and customers are able to get designer pieces that fit into their budgets. With this model, Telfar can immediately gauge which items its customers like most and gain valuable insights that will help influence future designs and prices.

Affordability has been a part of Telfar’s ethos since the brand launched in 2005. Founder Telfar Clemons told Fast Company, “Many brands use price as a barrier for entry. I never wanted that for my brand.”

Telfar will continue testing the dynamic pricing model on its clothing drops through April 24. By allowing consumers to choose their own pricing, Telfar is emphasizing its commitment to accessibility in real time.

Elsewhere in Marketing

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

Levi’s is receiving backlash for using AI-generated models in its ads instead of hiring diverse human models.

Substack just announced its opening a community fundraising round to support platform growth.

Twitter’s For You page will soon only show tweets from Twitter Blue subscribers, per Elon Musk.

Instagram just introduced a collaborative collections feature, allowing users to share saved posts with up to 250 people.

Save time with AI: here are five AI-powered tools that make social media marketing a little easier.

Spotify is partnering with Creative Juice to invest in video podcasting.