How dApps Fit into CRM…
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tl;dr: If you are a marketing practitioner, there’s enough evidence to support the notion that the time to start exploring Crypto Mar-Tech is upon us.
Thanks to my friend, Brent Leary, who is one of the world’s leading analysts on CRM (Customer Relationship Management), I was invited to speak at the CRM Evolution event in DC in late April.
I went through the same slide show that I had presented the previous week in Toronto at Blockchain Revolution Global.
As I wrote the other day, I think there are many ways that Blockchain-based dApps Will Change Customer Expectations.
However, in a great reminder of how audiences can be different and, along with it, opportunities for learning, the conversation took a very different turn.
Whereas Toronto had been more C-level, the audience in DC was more focused on the practical implementation of the MarTech stack.
One woman, Svetlana, asked a great question:
“All of this new crypto mar-tech looks great, but HOW will it work with CRM?”
She intuitively understood that two paradigms were at odds with each other.
CRM A Very Short History
I remember when CRM first became a thing around 2000.
It’s an industry that did not exist before that and, if you think about it, really only became necessary with the arrival of the commercial Internet.
Today, it is a $40 billion industry with some forecasts reaching $80 billion by 2025.
CRM is predicated upon having a “universal view of the customer.” Ideally there’s one identified, an email address or a phone number, for example, that is connected to a Universal ID.
Once you have that, you can start attaching all types of information such as order history, location, social media accounts (hopefully), and much, much more.
The idea is to have an understanding of how any given customer interacts with a brand at each one of those touchpoints.
With that, you get a better understanding of the customer journey and where in those experiences, a customer has either a good or bad experience.
How dApps Might Work with CRM
But what happens when the customer doesn’t need to trade information (phone or email) in order to have access to your product or service?
What happens when the only thing a customer (or a bot, for that matter) needs to provide is proof of ownership of a digital wallet?
This is what Svetlana recognized.
If anyone can interact with a dApp and the only requirement is having a valid Web 3-compatible wallet (e.g. MetaMask or Dapper) without the need to provide any other identifier, what is a CRM manager to do?
My first answer was the honest one: “I don’t know.”
My second answer was possibly more nuanced and finessed and it went to my larger point.
On the one hand, no one really knows how dApps will or won’t work with traditional CRM systems.
I am of the mindset that there will be a “crypto-Salesforce.” It will offer a type of decentralized CRM with modules such as DAO proposal management that a traditional CRM simply will not support. This is what we are starting to spec out at the Genesis DAO.
On the other hand, there is an opportunity for an existing CRM to integrate with a dApp.
Just because I am using a dApp with a Web 3 wallet doesn’t mean that I am not willing to make a trade. I may be willing to trade the privacy of my Ethereum (or EOS or Tron or Blockstack) address in return for something of value.
We know people are willing to trade their privacy for free, so it stands to reason that they will trade it for something of value.
What could that item of value be?
A token, of course.
Perhaps it is a straight up cash payment.
Maybe it’s a unique collectible a la CryptoKitties. Remember how people went crazy for Beanie Babies or, heck, the toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals?
If a brand decided to give a provably unique collectible to a customer in exchange for connecting a Web 3 wallet address to an email address, you’d have an even larger, more expansive view of the customer.
Perhaps it is a token that represents access to premium content (like Cheddar is doing with Brave) that is in force for the length of the relationship.
Now, there are all types of privacy issues here and they aren’t insignificant, but the point is: someone will figure out a way to make a compelling offer that enables traditional CRM systems to connect the dots with Web 3.0/blockchain dApps.
Time to Get Started
What got me excited about the presentation in DC was the fact that the practitioners in the room recognized the challenge and the opportunity ahead of them.
This wasn’t the “blockchain is BS” or “there’s nothing there.”
It was “ok, I see that this is going to be a thing and it’s worth my attention today.”
And THAT was the point.
I don’t have all the answers, but I think there’s enough evidence now that, if you are in the world of MarTech, it’s time to start testing and experimenting.
Svetlana and the others in the room already are.