Marketing: Lists, Forms, and Campaigns

Beyond sales and service, StretchCRM includes a marketing foundation that turns your contact database into an engine for lead capture and outreach. This article explains the three building blocks — lists, forms, and campaigns — and how they relate to the rest of your CRM.

Where marketing stands today: Marketing in StretchCRM is a foundation that's rolling out. The data model below is real and drives how lead capture and segmentation work across StretchSuite. Some marketing surfaces populate from platform‑level configuration and connected apps like StretchForms, so what you see in your workspace grows as those connections are enabled for your organization. Treat this article as your map of how the pieces fit together.

Lists

A list is a saved audience of contacts. Lists come in two flavors:

• Dynamic lists define an audience by rules — for example, "contacts whose lifecycle stage is lead or opportunity and whose lead score is at least 50." Membership updates automatically as contacts change.
• Static lists are a fixed set of contacts you add explicitly.

Dynamic lists are ideal for segments you want to keep fresh, like Warm service leads (lifecycle lead/opportunity, lead score ≥ 50) or Active customers (lifecycle customer). Because they re‑evaluate against your live contacts, they always reflect the current state of your database.

Forms

A form captures new leads from the outside world. Each form has a type (such as lead capture) and a field schema describing the inputs it collects — for example an email field (required) and a company field (optional). When someone submits a form, that submission becomes the raw material for a new contact in your CRM.

Forms are the bridge between your public presence and StretchCRM: a "Request a consultation" form on your site can feed directly into your lead pipeline. StretchCRM's forms model also aligns with StretchForms, the suite's dedicated form builder, so submissions collected there can flow into the CRM as leads and support follow‑ups.

Campaigns

A campaign groups marketing effort toward a goal, with a type (such as marketing), a status (draft, active), and an optional budget. A campaign is how you frame an initiative — for example, "Q3 service growth: generate qualified service consultations from warm leads" with a set budget — and later measure it against its goal.

How the pieces connect

The marketing objects form a simple funnel:

1. A form captures a new lead → becomes a contact.
2. A dynamic list segments that contact into the right audience based on lifecycle stage, lead score, and consent.
3. A campaign targets that list toward a goal.
4. Responses show up as activities, and hot leads convert into deals.

Because every step points back to the same contacts and companies, marketing, sales, and service all work from one shared view of the customer.

A worked example

Planning a service‑growth push, you might:

1. Keep a dynamic list "Warm service leads" defined as lifecycle lead or opportunity with lead score ≥ 50.
2. Publish a "Consultation Request" lead‑capture form that collects email (required) and company.
3. Create a "Q3 service growth" campaign with the goal "Generate qualified service consultations from warm leads" and a $2,500 budget.
4. As consultations book, they become deals in your Sales Pipeline, closing the loop from capture to revenue.

Tips

• Respect consent. Always segment on consent status — target subscribed contacts and exclude unsubscribed ones. This protects deliverability and compliance.
• Prefer dynamic lists for living segments. Rules‑based lists stay current automatically, so "warm leads" always means warm leads.
• Keep required form fields minimal. Email is the one field you truly need; every extra required field lowers completion.
• Tie campaigns to a measurable goal. A campaign with a concrete goal ("qualified consultations") is one you can actually evaluate.

FAQ

Is the marketing area fully self‑serve in my workspace today? Marketing is a foundation that expands as connections like StretchForms are enabled for your organization; some marketing configuration is managed at the platform level. Your sales and service tools — contacts, companies, deals, tickets, activities, tasks, and sequences — are fully available now.

What's the difference between a StretchCRM form and StretchForms? StretchCRM's form model captures leads into the CRM. StretchForms is the suite's dedicated form‑building app; its submissions are designed to flow into StretchCRM as contacts and follow‑ups.

Can a contact be on more than one list? Yes. A contact can match many dynamic lists and belong to many static lists at once.