Working with Marketing

Effective Customer Relationship Management will support the process of developing, maintaining and growing the customer base. These aims work hand-in-hand with the aims of marketing strategies.

One of the challenges faced by BCE professionals is that colleagues in marketing departments have a strong focus on student recruitment with very little resource available for BCE marketing. The organisation’s CRM strategy should map out the products and services which will be promoted through a ‘Business to Business’ route and those that will go through the traditional ‘business to consumer’ route. 

On a practical level the promotion of CPD products to both employers and employees should be discussed and planned so that the message to the market is clear. This will influence the scope of the CRM system and its use. Links between the two agendas should be considered and exploited in the CRM strategy. An example of this would be, the overlap between the alumni group and potential BCE clients.

For example:

Should the BCE CRM System be used to undertake mass communications and promote CPD?

The advantages of this approach:

• The system shows the whole process of the client - from what has been promoted, through to what has been purchased
• No confusion about events, which can be both a product and a promotional activity
• It enables the evaluation of marketing activity, following campaigns through to products purchased
• Data cleansing can be undertaken using marketing software

The advantages of separating customer relationship and marketing functions are:

• It may allow more detailed customisation of a separate system with richer information
• It may enable the integration of BCE contacts and alumni

Getting the best out of a CRM System for B2B marketing

To prepare well-targeted e-campaigns, the key ‘segmenting’ information needs to be entered on the system. This information should be complete and up to date. Regular checks of these fields and, of course, the email address field are essential.  

Consideration should be given to whether fields should be made ‘mandatory’ so the system will not allow progress unless the field is completed. To many, mandatory fields may make system users less inclined to enter details or may encourage’ work-arounds’ such as filling the fields with spurious information.

Key segmenting information could include:

• Type of organisation eg private, private SME, public, etc
• Location of organisation
• Job title of contact
• Nature of business

Some HEIs use the national ‘standard industrial classification’ (SIC Code) to describe the nature of the business. The advantage of this is, for a small fee, a third party can complete the data periodically. The company chooses a code when entering details onto the Companies House database. However, the SIC code is a very broad-brush tool that may not reflect the HEI’s target segments.

An alternative would be to define bespoke classifications, which are meaningful to the institution’s markets. The disadvantage of this is that very clear guidance is needed so that errors do not occur and the job of completing the field has to be done systematically in-house. If the plan is to import lists of organisations this may be prohibitive.

There is a very useful toolkit developed by Teesside University that addresses some of the practical issues of CRM for Marketing for Business Engagement. 

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Working with IT

Working in the Education sector, you are probably already aware that every University and College operates differently with complex and different structures. It is good practice that no matter what the structure of your institution, you recognise that your IT, IS or Computing Services department is one of the key stakeholders in your CRM journey.

This is particularly important if you plan to implement a CRM system at your institution. It is essential that you bring your IT department on board as early in the process as possilble.

Dependent on your IT department, it may be able to bring a range of the skills to the table including:

• Ensuring the CRM system is identified and adopted as a ‘key operating system,’ which means it is included in priority lists of IT system back up, support and in their disaster recovery plan
• PRINCE II, or similar project management methodologies should be adopted and IT Departments will hopefully bring this expertise
• A system analyst - the majority of IT departments will have a system analyst who can discuss other new IT developments and their implications for the CRM system
• Advice and support for technical elements required in any requirements specification
• Integration support to other key operating systems
• Advice and support on working with external commercial suppliers

JISC have an infoKit on working with commercial suppliers that might be of help.  

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Working With Human Resources

The CRM strategy at your institution should be underpinned with appropriate HR strategies, this can take many forms, however, good practice would involve the following: 

• Inclusion of BCE CRM in job descriptions/person specifications
• Mention of BCE CRM in staff inductions
• Reference to CRM in personal development reviews

Staff development programme focusing on the necessary skills. It is important that you ensure that your HR department understands the importance of CRM so that it can ensure that the above practices are adopted.