Let’s be real: sending emails and building journeys doesn’t make you strategic. If you want to grow in CRM, you need more than channel skills. You need business acumen.

And no, it’s not just for execs or the people in the boardroom. It’s for anyone who wants to understand how their work impacts revenue, retention, and customer value, especially in CRM.

What is Business Acumen (in CRM terms)?

It’s that ability to zoom out. To understand how the work you do in email, push, in-app or WhatsApp isn’t just "sending comms" it’s moving business levers. It’s knowing how your lifecycle strategy influences revenue, CAC payback, LTV, and customer experience.

3 Traits CRM Marketers Need to Develop:

1. Foresight:

   You’re not just launching a campaign. You’re solving for churn. For onboarding drop-off. For trial-to-paid conversion. That means asking: What does success look like? What are the downstream effects? Planning isn’t sexy, but it’s what separates strategy from noise.

2. Creativity:
   Customer behavior shifts. Tech evolves. Budgets tighten. Creativity isn't just writing clever copy, it’s finding new ways to drive value. Ever turned an FAQ doc into a retention series? Or reused product release notes as education emails? That’s creative business thinking.

3. Adaptability:

   Not every campaign hits. Not every idea gets approved. Not every flow works the first time. Strong CRM marketers pivot fast, rework their hypotheses, and try again. Strategy is a living thing so is your roadmap.

Competitive Advantage Starts with Context. Many marketers think competitive advantage is "we send better emails." Nope. It’s about:

• How you use customer data better than others

• How you create more relevant, higher-converting experiences

• How your CRM efforts reduce acquisition pressure on performance

Think: What are the CRM activities that reduce cost? Does that increase the user’s willingness to convert or stay?

Know Your Cost + Revenue Drivers. Let’s break it down:

• Cost Drivers: Time spent building manual journeys, inefficient tools, unsegmented sends (aka wasted impressions).

• Revenue Drivers: Personalized upsells, win-back flows, abandoned cart nudges, referral campaigns.

Want to be valuable? Know which of your actions cost the business, and which drive the margin.

Understand Your CRM Value Chain. In CRM, the value chain looks like this:

1. Data Ingestion: What events and attributes are you collecting?

2. Segmentation: Are you targeting behavior, lifecycle, or just demographics?

3. Content & Comms: Is the message timely, useful, and on-brand?

4. Delivery: Channels + timing

5. Measurement: Are you tying it back to business KPIs?
   
   

Weakness in any part = break in value. Business acumen means zooming into each part and asking, “Where are we leaking impact?”

Strategic Thinking Isn’t Optional Anymore. To grow in CRM, you can’t just "execute." You need to:

• Think across departments

• Ask better questions

• Understand what levers matter to the business

Learn from what didn’t work

That means spending time outside your CRM tool. Sitting with a product. Reviewing cost reports. Listening to sales calls. Thinking. Not reacting.

Because business acumen isn’t something you "have" it’s something you train.

So... What Can You Do Today?

• Pick one campaign and map its cost vs. revenue impact

• Join a product or finance sync this month

• Ask: What do our highest-value users do differently? Can CRM support that?

  
  

You don’t need an MBA. You need curiosity, context, and the willingness to think beyond "what should I send next?"

Because the CRM marketers who win aren’t the ones who send the most. They’re the ones who understand why it matters.

See you in the next one, Salam 👋🏼