Hello to those of you who are new here! I am Cameron, the business development manager here at WeDoCRM. With nearly a decade of sales experience, I’ve encountered many different CRM and Martech systems. I’ve seen a common trend across businesses of all shapes and sizes: budgets are increasing, but performance isn’t. The truth is, bigger spend doesn’t mean better outcomes, especially when it comes to CRM.
Cameron Gibson – Business Development Manager
As we approach a new financial year, it’s the perfect time to flip the script. The UK CRM market is experiencing unprecedented growth, with revenue projected to reach £1.9 billion by 2028. Globally, the market is expanding at an impressive 11.64% annual rate, potentially reaching £57 billion.
With that, here’s how to make your CRM budget work harder and drive growth.
Smart Spending Over Big Spending
Too many businesses are stuck in a cycle of over-buying and under-using CRM tools. That shiny new platform, It might look good on paper, but if it doesn’t align with your sales, marketing, or customer retention goals, it’s wasted money.
Before renewing or upgrading anything, ask: What are we trying to achieve with this spend? Is it measurable? Is it scalable?
Real-world example: A professional services firm we worked with was paying for Salesforce Enterprise Edition when they were only using basic contact management features. By switching to a more appropriate tier, they saved over £12,000 annually while actually improving user adoption.
Before renewing or upgrading anything, ask: What are we trying to achieve with this spend? Is it measurable? Is it scalable?
The smartest CRM investments are focused, strategic, and directly tied to outcomes, not just functionality.
We are seeing more businesses migrating or adapting their CRM solutions by choosing platforms that match their actual needs rather than paying for bloated feature sets. You can read more about this in our article “Why Businesses Are Exploring Alternative CRM Platforms.”
Don’t Just Buy Software — Buy Strategy
You don’t need another tool. You need a plan.
We regularly support businesses that are spending thousands on disconnected platforms with overlapping features, and getting very little ROI.
Real-world example: One of our recent clients, a growing e-commerce brand, was using separate systems for email marketing, customer support, and sales tracking. They were able to reduce their tech stack costs by over 30% by consolidating platforms and introducing a single, well-structured CRM roadmap that eliminated redundancies while improving data flow.
Before investing in new tech, start with a CRM audit or expert-led consultation. It’s the fastest way to uncover inefficiencies, duplication, and untapped growth opportunities. Explore our CRM audit service or see how we helped a client optimise their HubSpot setup with a deep-dive audit in our latest case study (Enhancing our SME clients HubSpot performance with a detailed audit)
Focus on What Moves the Needle
Your budget should be directed toward CRM features that impact revenue:
- Email & SMS automation
- Smart segmentation
- Lifecycle and lead nurture journeys
- Seamless integrations
Are you paying for features you don’t use? If the answer is yes, our recommendation would be to strip it back and double down on what delivers results.
Empower Your People
One of the most overlooked CRM investments is to train your team.
Even the most powerful CRM platforms will underperform if your team doesn’t know how to use them. A few hours of structured onboarding or workshops can dramatically improve: User adoption, Workflow consistency and Campaign delivery speed. Platforms like HubSpot Academy, Trailhead (Salesforce), and Zoho Learn also offer free or low-cost resources that empower internal teams and drive long-term efficiency.
Build Dashboards That Drive Decisions
From my time working in Business Development for Digital Agencies, it is super important to utilise a CRM system and one thing I would always recommend anyone do is set up a Dashboard with certain metrics to help you make important decisions. This is the same for marketing, too; if you’re not measuring, you’re guessing. And guessing burns the budget.
At WeDoCRM, we help clients set up performance dashboards that track:
- Campaign performance
- CRM user adoption
- Lead conversion rates
- Pipeline velocity
Stop Flying Blind with Your CRM Investment
See the whole picture in real time. Whether it’s in your CRM dashboard, Google Looker Studio, or custom reports, complete visibility means you can optimise spend while campaigns are still running – not after the budget’s gone!
2025 is the year to end wasteful spending. Together, we’ll build a CRM ecosystem that’s lean, measurable, and directly tied to your business objectives.
Ready for a CRM that delivers real ROI?
Book a free 30-minute strategy session with me and discover how we can transform your marketing data into smarter, faster, and more profitable decisions.
Or email at hello@wedocrm.co – we are looking forward to hearing from you.
