Do you know your CRM from your CDP?
In the charity sector we’re very familiar with CRM systems and their role in helping charities better manage and communicate with supporters. Increasingly though, we’re hearing about CDPs, which also help charities with their supporter relationships.
So what’s the difference, and what should you be using? If you’re considering investing in new systems, understanding both the terminology and your organisation’s requirements is essential. Here’s a quick guide to help.
What are CRM and CDP?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, while CDP stands for Customer Data Platform.
What do they do?
In reality there is some crossover, both help charities communicate more effectively and build stronger relationships, but in different ways.
A CRM system focuses on an organisation’s internal data, collating data sources – for example from different departments – into one database, and tracking interactions with supporters such as calls and emails, direct responses to campaigns, and financial transactions.
Its role is to help you better understand who your supporters are, how they’re engaging with you and their preferences, and to manage their journey in a timely and more effective way that strengthens that relationship.
A CDP goes further and deeper into supporter insight, collecting and unifying data from all touchpoints, from all corners of the organisation and across all channels – from websites to apps, social media, ad clicks, and offline interactions. This includes data that’s behavioural, transactional, motivational, interactional, and more.
With this, a CDP creates the complete picture of so much more: a 360 real-time view of your supporters and prospects, and their journeys with you, and of anonymous visitors (through cookie data for example), joining the dots where relevant. For example: linking an anonymous website visit to a supporter profile when further action, like signing a petition, identifies them, or linking data on a supporter who, as well as donating, volunteers or is a service user, with insight into their motivations for doing so. Through these unified profiles, users gain the insight needed for greater levels of personalisation; for analysing and predicting behaviour and trends; and for developing long-term marketing strategies.
There is further crossover where many CRMs can bolt on functionality to enable them to work more like a CDP, but this functionality is not at their core.
Which one do I need?
With different but complementary purposes, what you need depends on your requirements.
A CRM system might be sufficient – if yours is working for you, you may not need anything else at the moment. If you're starting completely from scratch and at that stage of moving from Excel spreadsheets, or your organisation is small, or only seeking support with managing the supporter journey, then a CRM is also likely to be more appropriate. You can get an off the shelf CRM system running overnight, whereas CDPs are bigger, more involved, and as such more expensive.
However, if you want to be more strategic with greater insight, more personalisation and real-time activity, if you have a lot of data coming in from multiple sources, or your organisation is growing rapidly, a CDP can take you to that next level. It can help you understand ALL your data and its likely implications, so you can make informed, strategic decisions about next steps and the future.
But it doesn’t have to be an either or. CRMs and CDPs can also work very well together so you can integrate the two. In fact, many organisations do so, helping them both manage existing relationships and gain a broader view. CRMs can feed data into CDPs, and CDPs can also provide CRMs with data, helping to make interactions with supporters more personalised and relevant.
So, if you’re looking at investing in a new system, or wondering whether you should, first assess:
Whether what you’re currently using is sufficient for your requirements
What kind of data you need to manage
Where it comes from; and
What your main goal is
This will help you work out the best route for you, and of course, if you’d like to discuss this topic further, please get in touch!