Top 10 CRM for Marketing Agencies in 2023
Cecily Giancaterino
Aug 15, 2023
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14 min read
CRM
As part of an agency, you may be familiar with the need to streamline your marketing efforts while trying to stay on top of client-facing duties.
Scattered and siloed data usually eat into your team's time. A lack of a centralized hub haunts your preparation time for weekly reporting meetings. Or maybe your account executive is on the brink of quitting because of endless Excel spreadsheets and tedious tasks defining their day-to-day.
And this is maybe why you're here, looking for CRM solutions.
We have curated a list of the top 10 CRM solutions for marketing agencies in 2023. Learn about various features that can help your agency streamline its marketing efforts.
Here are five things to know when considering CRM options for your marketing agency:
- Customer Relationship Management or CRM for marketing agencies is a powerful software that helps streamline marketing efforts and client management.
- CRM tracks prospects and leads' data and level of engagement with your marketing efforts, all while nurturing relationships with your current customers.
- Marketing agencies use CRMs to manage customer interactions at every touchpoint of the buyer's journey.
- Marketing teams also use CRM to automate repetitive tasks and streamline processes.
- When choosing the right CRM for your marketing agency, consider its features, pricing, and customer support.
Table of Contents:
Here are the top 10 CRM software options for marketing agencies in 2023:
- FiveCRM
- Pipedrive
- Salesforce
- Keap
- Insightly
- HubSpot
- Copper
- Nimble
- Drag
- Apptivo
What Is a CRM for Marketing Agencies?
Customer Relationship Management or CRM for marketing agencies is a powerful software that helps streamline marketing efforts and client management. CRM provides the centralized hub for all customer- and client-related data. It tracks prospects and leads' data and level of engagement with your marketing efforts, all while nurturing relationships with your current customers.
How Do Marketing Teams Use a CRM?
Marketing agencies use CRMs to generate leads with potential B2B clients and manage customer interactions at every touchpoint of the buyer's journey. They use CRMs to drive customer engagement with your platforms, increase retention, build brand loyalty, and increase sales growth.
Because CRMs have features like a central hub or dashboard containing customer-related information — say, emails and their engagement with your website, email, social media, etc. — marketing teams can create and manage targeted campaigns and personalized messages to specific customer segments.
Marketing teams also use CRM to automate repetitive tasks and streamline processes, freeing time for sales and marketing teams so they can enjoy the creative side of marketing more.
Instead of an account executive poring over hundreds of customer information on an Excel spreadsheet, CRM software does this for them. It consolidates customer contacts and data from multiple sources like email marketing clicks, website visits, social media engagements, and more.
Agencies then use data-based insights on client preferences to develop targeted and niched marketing campaigns or enhance the customer-agency relationship. They can segment the audience, schedule automated email marketing drips, and adjust strategies using real-time, data-based insights.
How to Evaluate CRM Software for Marketing Agencies
CRMs designed for marketing agencies vary in price, features, and customer support. Be sure to dive deep into each of these to ensure your team will have a seamless user experience.
Price
CRM options have varying features and functionalities and thus differ in pricing. The focus shouldn't be on finding the cheapest CRM but on whether it has the features you're looking for and shows the best value for money. Consider how the software's price can impact your marketing efforts' ROI and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
Features
Do the CRM's features align with your agency's needs and objectives? Spend more time trialing CRMs with lead management, campaign management, analytics and reporting, robust integration with other tools in your marketing tech stack, automation, and customization options.
Customer Support
Go for a free trial and evaluate the CRM's customer support in terms of how responsive and knowledgeable they are. Look into availability, response times, support channels (do they have a live chat?), user reviews, and availability of downloadable guides or how-to videos.
1. FiveCRM
Rating: 4.4/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Enhanced Customer Engagement: Create tailored marketing campaigns while enhancing customer satisfaction by responding to customer needs quickly and efficiently thanks to advanced features.
- Real-time Analytics: Make informed, strategic decisions and drive a targeted marketing campaign with real-time analytics. Gain insights into customer behavior, sales trends, and key performance metrics.
- Seamless Integration: Ensure a smooth data flow across your marketing tech stack, eliminating silos and enhancing your agency's overall performance.
Expand your market reach and create meaningful client engagement using FiveCRM's automated and flexible email marketing feature. FiveCRM offers a wide range of benefits to transform your marketing efforts — from generating solid leads to engaging with your audience and monitoring performance. Make data-driven decisions with customizable, real-time reports that inform tailored marketing campaigns and enhance your telemarketing efforts.
FiveCRM's competitive pricing is simple and all-inclusive. It allows you to choose depending on seats starting from $70 per seat monthly or $63 per seat if billed annually.
2. Pipedrive
Rating: 4.2/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Custom Fields: While CRM systems provide default fields, they may not always cover all your requirements. With Pipedrive, you can tailor your CRM system and customize the fields to meet your marketing agency's needs. You can organize and filter your data whether you need single or multiple options.
- Switch Off Features for Efficiency: Pipeline allows feature switching. You can remove distractions like the "Products" button when irrelevant to your current offerings and turn entire modules on and off to have clear visibility into your sales pipeline.
Pipedrive allows your marketing team to monitor and manage workflows, streamline marketing and business development efforts, identify bottlenecks, and increase productivity.
Price plans start at $14.90 per user per month, billed annually. However, marketing agencies can get more bang for their buck with the Power plan, designed for larger teams with flexible collaboration and support at $64.90 per user per month, billed annually.
3. Salesforce
Rating: 4.3/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Lead Management: Streamline lead management and analyze the effectiveness of your marketing efforts across multiple channels, including social media.
- Forecast Management: Keep tabs on leads, conversion rates, and all aspects of your sales and marketing pipeline. Stay in the know about your team's performance using customizable dashboards, reporting tools, and forecasting reports.
Salesforce CRM enables you to capture leads from multiple sources and effortlessly guide them through sales. With advanced marketing automation features, your marketing agency can create highly targeted campaigns, prioritize leads, and closely monitor performance.
Salesforce has various pricing available for how you plan to use it for marketing, whether for data cloud, loyalty management, account engagement, advertising, or intelligence.
4. Keap
Rating: 4.2/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Simplified Sales Activities: Manage leads, automate follow-ups, and track conversions to nurture leads and improve overall sales efficiency.
- Marketing Automation: Create targeted campaigns, send personalized emails and track engagement.
Keap's CRM helps agencies to qualify and distribute leads efficiently, ensuring that suitable leads are assigned to the right team members. It provides detailed sales and conversion reports, giving agencies valuable insights into their sales performance.
Keap offers plans starting at $159 monthly, making it an affordable CRM option for small businesses and marketing agencies.
5. Insightly
Rating: 4.2/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Marketing Automation: Insightly's CRM automates email marketing and lead management.
- Sales Force Automation: Insightly's robust sales force automation capabilities, including contact and account management, opportunity and pipeline management, and task/activity management.
Insightly enables agencies to manage leads and track opportunities throughout the sales pipeline effectively. With Insightly's project management, marketing agencies can centralize project-related information, collaborate with team members, and stay organized.
Insightly offers different plans starting at $29 per user per month, making it an affordable CRM option for marketing agencies of all sizes.
6. HubSpot
Rating: 4.4/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- All-in-One Solution: HubSpot CRM offers a comprehensive suite of tools that cover marketing, sales, customer service, and operations.
- Marketing Automation: HubSpot CRM provides robust marketing automation capabilities, enabling agencies to automate repetitive tasks, personalize communication, and nurture leads at scale.
HubSpot CRM is a highly recommended CRM product for marketing agencies due to its powerful features, benefits, and competitive pricing. It integrates seamlessly with other HubSpot tools, allowing marketing agencies to leverage the full suite of HubSpot's offerings for a holistic approach to customer management.
HubSpot CRM offers a free plan to access its core CRM, marketing, sales, and customer service tools. This makes it an attractive choice for small to medium-sized marketing agencies looking for a budget-friendly CRM solution. Paid plans start at $50 per month for the Starter plan.
7. Copper
Rating: 4.5/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Email Sequences and Drip Campaigns: Automate nurture sequences and follow-up communications by sending emails automatically tailored to your prospects' account status, website engagement, and more.
- Marketing Integrations: Copper seamlessly integrates into and syncs your contacts with all the other tools in your tech stack.
Copper is a user-friendly CRM platform that seamlessly integrates with Google Workspace, allowing you to log all customer interactions and emails. It offers essential features like deal tracking, automated sales tasks, contact organization, and customizable reports.
Pricing starts at $23 per user per month if billed annually.
8. Nimble
Rating: 4.5/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Accessible Contact Records: Nimble CRM provides a 360-degree view of customers and leads, allowing your agency to locate contact information and view the team's interaction history.
- Social Media Integration: Nimble CRM offers a social scrape feature and autoaggregation of social media accounts so your agency can better understand its audience and personalize outreach.
Nimble streamlines contact management by providing a centralized database and search and segment options. Agencies can easily organize, categorize, and access relevant contact information. It also integrates smoothly with other tools, so your agency can sync contact data, emails, and calendar events.
Nimble offers different monthly plans starting at $24.9 per user, providing flexibility for marketing agencies of all sizes.
9. Drag
Rating: 4.5/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Streamlined Email Communication and Collaboration: Eliminate the need for cc'ing or forwarding emails. Simplify the process by connecting shared inboxes or Google Groups, such as sales@ or hello@, to Drag boards.
- Delegate Emails and Tasks With a Few Clicks: Guarantee that each message is assigned to someone responsible without any hassle. Alternatively, automate the process by assigning incoming emails based on specific keywords, the sender's address, or the recipient's address.
Drag supercharges your email communication by automating most of the manual tasks done within your inbox. It serves as a centralized hub to streamline customer support, task management, and deal closure that all happen in Gmail, so you don't have to switch between different tools.
Drag offers various pricing plans, from a limited Free plan of up to three seats to $16 per user monthly if billed annually.
10. Apptivo
Rating: 4.3/5.0 (G2)
Key Features:
- Email Campaigns: With Apptivo Campaigns, you can enhance customer engagement through powerful email marketing integrated with the tool's online CRM software.
- CRM: Maximize sales and seal deals on the go with the tool's online CRM software for tracking the entire sales process.
Apptivo is a cloud platform that offers integrated business apps for companies of all sizes. Apptivo's Apps can handle almost any business task, from sales and marketing to billing and support.
Pricing starts at $8 per user per month if billed annually.
Improve Agency Efficiency With FiveCRM
FiveCRM is a comprehensive CRM that offers advanced features to streamline your marketing and business development efforts. From automating tedious tasks to managing customer interactions throughout the sales funnel, FiveCRM supercharges your marketing efforts.
See how FiveCRM can improve your marketing agency's efficiency. Request a demo today!
FAQs: CRM for Marketing Agencies
Q: What is a CRM for marketing agencies?
A: A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for marketing agencies is a powerful tool designed to simplify client management. It provides a centralized hub for all client-related data, including prospects, leads, and current customers. With a CRM, marketing agencies can gather new leads, nurture existing client relationships, uncover cross-selling opportunities, and more.
Q: Why do marketing agencies need a CRM?
A: Marketing agencies use CRMs to streamline their marketing efforts and client management. CRM software tracks prospects, lead data, and the success of marketing campaigns, while also nurturing relationships with current customers. CRMs help agencies manage customer interactions at every touchpoint of the buyer's journey, automate repetitive tasks, and streamline processes.
Q: How do marketing teams utilize a CRM?
A: Marketing teams use CRMs to generate leads and manage customer interactions throughout the buyer's journey. CRMs drive customer engagement, increase retention, build brand loyalty, and boost sales growth. With centralized hubs or dashboards, marketing teams can create targeted campaigns and personalized messages for specific customer segments. They also use CRM platforms to automate tasks, streamline processes, and develop campaigns using real-time, data-based insights.
Q: What should marketing agencies consider when choosing a CRM?
A: When selecting a CRM for a marketing agency, it's essential to consider each platform's features, pricing, and customer support options. Agencies should prioritize CRM platforms that offer lead management, campaign management, analytics, integrations with other tech tools, and customization options. It's also crucial to evaluate the CRM's customer support responsiveness and knowledge.
Q: Can you name some top CRM options for marketing agencies in 2023?
A: Some of the top CRM options for marketing agencies in 2023 include FiveCRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Keap, Insightly, HubSpot, Copper, Nimble, Drag, and Apptivo.
Q: How can a CRM improve the efficiency of a marketing agency?
A: A CRM can enhance a marketing agency's efficiency by centralizing client-related data, automating repetitive tasks, managing customer interactions throughout the sales funnel, and providing insights for data-driven decisions. CRMs also help in creating and managing targeted campaigns, personalizing messages, and streamlining processes, allowing marketing teams to focus more on creative tasks.
Q: How does CRM pricing work for marketing agencies?
A: CRM options vary in features and functionalities, leading to different pricing structures. While the focus shouldn't solely be on finding the cheapest CRM, it's essential to ensure that a solution offers the features the agency needs. Many CRMs offer flexible pricing plans, considering that agency revenue can fluctuate throughout the year.
Q: Can CRMs integrate with other tech tools used by marketing agencies?
A: Yes, many CRMs offer integrations with other tech tools, ensuring smooth data flow across the marketing tech stack. This helps in eliminating data silos and enhancing the agency's overall performance. For instance, FiveCRM and Copper both offer seamless integrations with other tech tools.
Q: How can marketing agencies evaluate the customer support of a CRM?
A: Agencies can opt for a free trial of a CRM and evaluate its customer support in terms of responsiveness and knowledge. It's beneficial to check response times, available support channels (like live chat or phone support), user reviews, and the presence of downloadable guides or how-to videos.
Michael King says...
"I can’t think of a time where a client has requested something that we weren’t able to do with FiveCRM. Unlike most systems, it has a lot of flexibility."
Managing Director, Senior Response
JAINE HUSBANDS SAYS...
“Each client, and each of their campaigns, has its own unique specifications. We essentially needed to set up mini CRMs on one platform to meet those requirements.”
Operations Director, Team Telemarketing
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