So the question I hear talked about a lot – around WordPress developers – is whether to build their own custom CRM directly inside of WordPress. It's a “eat your own dog food” kind of thing. And of course, many developers even think that maybe it's a product others would buy.
So I thought I would just answer the question right now.
No. Don't. And here's why.
In the end, the benefit of using real marketing automation is much better than using custom post types, a spreadsheet, or trello.
So no, don't build your own crm. It's going to miss out on all that you can get from marketing automation tools.
But I know what you're going to tell me. You'll say that it's a lot less expensive than the market leaders today:
- HubSpot
- Act-On
- Pardot
- SalesFusion
- Marketo
- Eloqua
What I'd tell you is to look at the micro-market, where players like these are.
But even that may be too expensive for right now. In that case, check out:
Either way, using systems like these will help you much more than building your own.