Marketing vs. Sales Focus: The Best CRM Systems for 2025 to Manage Your Data

Choosing the right CRM can be a game-changer, especially as we move into 2025 with evolving business needs. A CRM’s data model shapes its functionality, and its focus on either marketing or sales can determine how well it serves your team. Here’s a deep dive into the top CRM options for business operations leaders—revenue ops, marketing ops, sales ops, finance ops, and customer ops—to help you find the CRM that best aligns with your goals.

Understanding CRM Data Models: The Foundation of Success

A CRM’s data model is its blueprint, organizing the way customer data flows and how various objects—like leads, contacts, and accounts—interconnect. The depth and flexibility of this data model directly impact how effectively you can manage workflows and capture key insights across departments.

For example, Salesforce and HubSpot offer complex data models that distinguish between marketing and sales activities, providing robust tracking of leads, opportunities, and campaigns. This setup benefits large organizations with diverse teams that manage both marketing campaigns and extensive sales pipelines. However, simpler systems like Close and Nutshell are designed for smaller teams, merging marketing and sales into a single customer journey.

As Brad Peters, CEO of Scoop, shared from his experience, “You can’t manage what you don’t track.” Ensuring a CRM’s data model fits your operational needs is key to gaining the clarity and efficiency that drive results.

Marketing vs. Sales Focus: Which CRM Aligns with Your Strategy?

A major differentiator among CRMs is whether they lean more towards marketing-focused or sales-focused activities.

1. Marketing-Focused CRMs
   CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot treat marketing as a distinct function, with features that streamline lead generation, nurturing, scoring, and campaign tracking. For marketing ops and revenue ops teams needing granular data on campaign performance, these systems are ideal. They allow you to track potential leads through various touchpoints, maximizing your ability to convert interest into action.
2. Sales-Focused CRMs
   Systems like Attio and Nutshell simplify the CRM model by consolidating marketing and sales activities into a single pipeline, streamlining customer relationship management for teams focused on high-efficiency sales processes. This approach can work well for smaller businesses or operations where marketing and sales activities are closely aligned and less complex.

For example, a revenue operations team managing both customer acquisition and retention might prefer Salesforce for its lead management and segmentation capabilities, while a smaller sales ops team focused on direct sales might find Close more fitting.

Customization and Flexibility: The Advantage of Custom Objects

One important feature that separates CRMs is their ability to allow custom data models through custom objects. For businesses with unique data needs, custom objects provide an essential level of flexibility.

Platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Monday.com allow users to build custom objects, making these CRMs highly adaptable. For instance, a finance operations team can track invoice statuses or manage subscription renewals, while customer operations teams could monitor service-level agreements (SLAs) and ticketing data.

With Scoop, you can integrate CRM data and external sources to create detailed reports tailored to your unique workflows, bypassing limitations found in more rigid CRM systems. Whether you need to augment a simple sales pipeline or build complex marketing reports, the flexibility of Scoop’s data blending enhances your CRM’s functionality.

Automation and Workflow Management: Efficiency that Scales

While automation is critical in any modern CRM, it’s most effective when aligned with the right data model. For teams managing multiple touchpoints across sales and marketing, CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot shine with their advanced workflow automation tools. These systems allow marketing ops to automate lead nurturing and scoring, while sales ops can set follow-up reminders and task automation.

However, if automation is limited to basic tasks, it may restrict operational efficiency. By leveraging Scoop’s data integration capabilities, businesses can automate more advanced workflows and reporting processes that pull in data from external tools, offering real-time insights without the usual hurdles of traditional CRM automation.

Making the Right CRM Choice for Your Business in 2024

Understanding the marketing vs. sales focus and customization capabilities of a CRM is crucial for making an informed decision. The best CRM for your team is one that aligns with your operational goals and data needs. Here’s a quick breakdown of popular options:

• Salesforce: Best for large teams with distinct marketing and sales functions needing deep customization and advanced workflow automation.
• HubSpot: Ideal for marketing-focused teams wanting robust lead nurturing and campaign tracking.
• Close and Nutshell: Simplified models focused on sales, suitable for smaller teams with direct sales objectives.
• Attio: Sales-focused with consolidated workflows for businesses needing a single entity to manage sales and marketing interactions.

With Scoop, you can take your CRM’s data model further by integrating data across tools, giving you a holistic view of operations, whether you’re in sales, marketing, finance, or customer success.

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As Brad Peters wisely puts it, “The future of CRM systems lies in their ability to predict, automate, and evolve with the business.”

Selecting a CRM that fits your data model and workflow needs not only optimizes your current processes but sets up your team for smarter, data-driven decisions. And by adding Scoop into the mix, you gain the flexibility to integrate and manage your data across systems—giving you a true competitive edge in 2024 and beyond.

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