Sales & Marketing Effectiveness for Sustained Growth

Let's Hope We All Are Heading In The Right Direction For 2010

Have a great holiday and a Happy New Year!

 

Mastering Customer Intelligence Data is a Marketing Mandate

Data is great if you’re a marketer.  More data is better.  That is until you’re drowning in it.  Are you drowning yet?  A lot of us are. According to Andreas Weigend, the former chief scientist of Amazon.com, “In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through 2008.”  

 This is the first paragraph of a marketing must-read article, titled “Be Smart About Customer Intelligence.” Written by Josh Bernoff, a  vice president at Forrester Research, it was published in the 11-30-09 print edition of the American Marketing Association’s magazine, MarketingNews. 

Josh’s colleague, Dave Frankland, explains in his latest report, “The Intelligent Approach to Customer Intelligence,” the problem is not the data.  The problem is how marketers set themselves up to use the data.  There are many marketers using the data piecemeal. The true potential comes from organizing your business to use data across the organization, across products and channels.  Most marketers aren’t there yet. 

Forrester surveyed more than 300 customer intelligence professionals and a few of the marketing issues and questions pointed out in this eye-opening article are:

• Product-centric companies collect data but don’t share it across product groups.
• Every new initiative generates more data – data that is usually hard to integrate. Are your direct mail and e-mail data in separate databases? Is the same customer in both? Do you know?
• Whether a customer Twitters about poor service or another blogs about great products, do you know if these customers have been contacted before?

Dave Frankland’s report provides an integration solution that most companies have not obtained yet. This solution combines three elements that make it work. Those are culture, technology and people.

• Culture: In mature marketing organizations, marketing is the key customer advocate. Customer value becomes central to business decisions across marketing functions and product groups. Good data and analysis will show which customers will have the highest lifetime value. Marketing goes after these customers.   (Visit InfoGrow for more information on Customer Lifetime Value Analysis.) 
• Technology: Marketers are struggling to adapt old customer databases built for direct mail to support sophisticated cross-channel media campaigns.  The analysis technology must now support cross-selling, upselling, loyalty and lead generation planning.  An automated plan that works across channels has to be based on a clean database and technology foundation that can do this now and is ready for future integration. 
• People: You need the right team, which includes data, marketing, and sales.  After that, marketers can find and combine the actionable nuggets of customer intelligence and use them in ways to move the company forward and beyond.  (Also, find more information about this report at destinationCRM.com)

As Josh Bernoff states in the last paragraph of this article…”the efficient marketers aren’t going to be the ones with the most data.  They will be those who can turn that data into intelligence that is actionable for market plans, channel plans and product decisions.  For the marketer who wants to gain power within the organization, mastering customer intelligence is about to become mandatory.”

How are you managing your customer data?  Have you come up for air yet? 

Reasons to Contact Web Leads Within 5 Minutes

A business partner, David Svigel, Senior Consultant at MAARK Cleveland, pointed me to an interesting study that shows why web leads should be responded to ASAP. 

This study indicates that the odds of contacting a web lead by phone within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drops 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drops 21 times.
The study also provides data suggesting the best follow-up trends by days and time of day. However, possibly the most interesting point in the study, was that additional follow-up attempts after 20 hours may actually hurt your ability to make contact to qualify a lead.

Thank you, Insidesales.com/MIT for an interesting and thought provoking study.  The nine page study summary is worth the attention of anyone with a web lead form on your web site.

Learn More

 

Beyond Ring Analysis for a Dynamic Trade Area Definition

Scott Dewar, our good friend and colleague form SitePerfect Research has prepared a comprehensive white paper for those of you that need a better understanding of trade area analysis around your retail sites, Trade Area Definition & Demographic Analysis.

While the white paper is written primarily for those involved with site selection, I found Scott’s examples highly effective as a solid primer for gaining a deeper understanding of trade area formation.  Retailers need to move beyond demographics and factor in competition, market flows and site factors for understanding the dynamic trade area around an existing or proposed site. Scott’s organized approach has produced superior results for numerous regional and national brands. You owe it to yourself, before you rely on a demographic only analysis or spend money on that 3 mile radius mailing, to read this white paper.

Will Sales and Marketing Ever Get On the Same Page?

According to a recent article in the American Marketing Association’s publication, Marketing News, experts say complete alignment is unlikely, but point out that key objectives are imperative
Those objectives include:

• Determining and agreeing on what constitutes a qualified lead
• Defining the responsibilities of sales and marketing to one and other
• Collaborating on setting goals and building a consensus on key metrics
• Creating a system for marketing and sales to share customer data and leads’ progress

My opinion is that Marketing should be taking the lead – they drive lead development and customer loyalty.  and every company should keep striving to align their sales and marketing teams.  See previous blog post.

But, when all is said and done, the article states that probably the most important step is:
Don’t dwell on the differences between marketers and salespeople; instead, celebrate
the similarities.

Marketers and salespeople play different but complementary roles to accomplish shared objectives: attracting and retaining customers, says Lisa Dennis, president of Knowledgence Associates, a Cambridge, Mass.-based marketing, sales and customer service consulting firm with clients such as Mutual of Omaha and Unica. Dennis also is board president of the Boston chapter of the Sales and Marketing Executives International association.

With every customer interaction, sales reps are marketing the brand. Therefore, you want your sales team to feel a sense of ownership over the brand message they’re conveying, Dennis says, so get buy-in from your sales team before launching a new campaign. And as a marketer, you should be well-versed in your company’s sales process, so spend time in the field familiarizing yourself with what customers want and what sales reps need to get the job done. “As a marketer not knowing how sales works, I’ve got one arm tied behind my back,” Dennis says. “Your first customer is your sales team, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If I give them what they need, they’ll do well and I’ll do well, and we’ll both get closer to the customer.”  Read Lisa's previous guest article, Cure “Deal-Blindness” by Applying a Territory or Account Map

I invite you readers to let me know what you think?  What are the chances of sales and marketing ever getting on same page? 

Shopping for E-mails

E-marketing is fast becoming one of the most effective, low-cost marketing vehicles of choice. But how do you find those e-mail addresses to expand your efforts?

Guest Author – Kristy Amy

 
The answer is tricky. More and more list vendors are working to add e-mail lists to their service offerings. Vendors like infoUSA.com, edithroman.com and termedia.com do have lists for sale.

But before you start emailing, you need to fully understand the legal aspect of the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003  and the subsequent modifications / clarifications made to the Act in 2008.

The Act specifically tells you to whom you can send e-mail. For instance, you can only send commercial e-mails to individuals that your company has a relationship with or is currently engaged in a transaction. It also prohibits sending to harvested e-mail lists, meaning you can’t cherry pick addresses from various Web sites and add them to your list.

But there is a gray area. The law does not specify regulations related to purchasing an e-mail list. When you buy a list, you don’t technically know the individuals on the other side, nor do you know how the list was harvested in the first place.

Bottom line, the best way to expand your e-mail marketing is to simply build your list one address at a time. Collect everything you can from customers and prospects. And make sure to allow everyone the opportunity to opt-in to your e-communications.

There are few other issues you need to watch out for related to the CAN-SPAM Act.
Unsubscribe:
    * Include a visible unsubscribe mechanism in all e-mails, and make sure it works 
    * Hone consumer opt-out requests within 10 days
    * Use opt-out lists, also known as suppression lists, for compliance purposes
Content Standards:
    * Design accurate “from” lines describing the sender that doesn’t mimic others, including “friendly froms”  
    * Create relevant subject lines, meaning that it accurately describes the body of the e-mail 
    * Provide a legitimate physical address or a PO Box registered to the USPS
    * Label adult content

E-mail marketing is powerful, but without these standards in place, you may be walking a fine line—fines can soar into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So definitely utilize e-mail communications, but fully understand the legal and technical complexities.

For more information, feel free to contact:
Kristy Amy / President, OnMark Solutions
kristyamy@onmarksolutions.com or call 440-463-2183
Also, visit their website at http://www.onmarksolutions.com

Lead Scoring and Data Quality: How Much is Dirty Data Costing You?

Qualifying, coding and ranking your leads so the hottest opportunities are the first to get distributed to your sales teams is vital to your company’s sales and marketing success. That’s a given.

Yet, what many companies fail to understand is that data quality is core to an effective lead scoring system.  

A SiriusDecisions study, “The Impact of Bad Data on Demand Creation”, shows that following best practices in data quality generates a 66 percent increase in revenue. 

The study summary cited in a CRM Magazine article, “Looking to Score”,  offers some key insights for B2B organizations, such as:

• 10 to 25 percent of customer and prospect records contain critical data errors.
• The amount of data doubles every 12 to 18 months.
• It takes $1 to verify a record as it is entered, $10 to cleanse and de-dupe it, and $100 if nothing is done, as the ramifications of the mistakes are felt over and over again.
• From inquiry to marketing-qualified lead: A data strategy that solves conflicts at the source can lead to a 25 percent increase in converting inquiries to marketing-qualified leads.
• From marketing-qualified lead to sales-accepted lead: Unifying the data, whether into one database or by using technology for virtual integration, can lead to a 12.5 percent uplift in conversion rates to the next stage.
• From sales-accepted lead to sales-qualified lead: Clean data can reduce by 5 percent the time spent conducting the kind of additional research that precedes initial contact with a prospect.
• From sales-qualified lead to close: Given that the average field-marketing function spends no more than 10 percent of its budget in support of this final conversion, accurate data is a must for applying the right tools and resources to the right audience at the right stage of the buying cycle.

Jonathan Block, author of the report and senior director of research at SiriusDecisions, writes, “A best-in-class data strategy is shared by marketing and sales, and is focused on quality from [inquiry] to close. Although it is a job that consumes both money and time, paying more attention to data quality is not only worth it, it is something that your organization simply can’t afford not to do.

I couldn’t agree more.  Have you reviewed the quality of your data lately? 

Getting New Business: Adapting to Current Market Conditions

Guest Author - Richard G. Melecki

 
In virtually every industry today, businesses have to do more with less.  This includes all of the marketing activities necessary to get new business in a challenging economy. 

In past recessions, marketers have concentrated their efforts on market segments, geographies, and customers which have proven profitable in the past.  But the current world economic situation is changing virtually every market.  Just doing what worked in the past to acquire new business risks wasting scarce marketing dollars and increasing your cost of new business acquisition.

To reduce your marketing costs and to increase your return on dollars spent to get new business, follow these steps:

1. Examine every current geographic market, market segment, and customer to determine if they are in fact viable prospects in the current economy.  Ask yourself how your products and services might sell in markets and in geographies you have not previously served.

2. Concentrate on no more than one to three profitable markets or market segments at any given time.  Like an army on the attack, your business must achieve strategic focus in order to maximize the use of scarce resources.

3. Fine tune your product/service design and your pricing strategy for each market in which you do business. 

4. Make sure you have identified the real buyers in each market segment.  Buyers are individuals who have the authority to make purchase decisions and who own the budgets used to make the purchase.  Concentrate your marketing and sales efforts on reaching these individuals.

5. Profile each buyer type for every one of your products.  At a minimum you should know their titles, their professional background, how they find out about products and services like yours, and how they make purchase decisions.

6. Use communication channels that have the best chance of reaching buyers for the least cost.  Active business acquisition methods, such as business-to-business referrals, direct mail/e-mail, and cold calling usually are the most cost effective.  Other less direct methods, including Internet and print advertising, can also prove effective if selected carefully to reach your targeted buyer

For more information, feel free to contact:
MPI Achieve, Ltd.
330-622-4038
info@mpiachieve.com
http://www.MPIAchieve.com

Retain and Grow Market Share - a Major 2009 Marketing Mandate

According to the 2009 Marketing Outlook Survey, the largest independent assessment of senior marketing executives today, conducted by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, an astounding 48% of marketing respondents indicated that “senior management is mandating that marketing contribute to the bottom line by retaining and growing market share.”

Great directive, as this will increase profitability. But, after 20 years of conducting comprehensive Market Analysis projects for all types of companies, I find that too many companies base their market share knowledge on “gut feelings” instead of a real analysis.

For example, I hear explanations like “We’ve been in business for 50 years, and everyone who needs our product knows us, so we feel we have a big share of the market”. 

This is almost always not true. Just because a consumer, whether it be B2B or B2C knows a company or their brand doesn’t mean they will purchase nor does it mean they are a qualified prospect. Branding does not equal sales or effective lead generation. And, it does not enable you to retain or grow market share. 

I have yet to run a basic analysis for any company and not found at least 30% more prospects than their sales reps were contacting.  Plus, this missed 30% were prospects like their best customers – not just anybody qualified for their product. More . .

It’s one thing to have a feeling for how your company has penetrated a given market. It is quite another thing to actually analyze and understand your share and potential, then see the results on maps and charts, and be able to effectively act upon the information. Unfortunately, many companies, even large ones, don’t have the internal expertise or resources to effectively perform the necessary analysis. 
   
You Can’t Retain or Grow What You Don’t Know
 
Before you can retain and grow market share, you must first thoroughly analyze and understand your current share and potential.  You must be able to, at least, answer the following basic questions:

* How much of the market currently belongs to you?
* How much more is out there?
* How profitable are your existing customers? 
* Which existing customers are the most and least profitable?
* Who are your most profitable prospects? 
* How do you get a bigger share of current customers, profitable prospects and market? 

For those marketers who are looking for ways to retain and grow market share, I invite you to visit the following sites for advice and solutions:

Market Analysis - previous blog on topic
Want to analyze your market share and potential?  Contact us info@infogrowcorp.com

Driving Sales & Marketing Effectiveness with Customer and Prospect Proximity Reports

One of the most beneficial pieces of knowledge marketers can have is knowing where your customers and prospects are located in relation to your stores, branches, or distributors. Recognizing where your customers and prospects come from and how far they are willing to travel for your specific product or service adds considerable precision to your targeted marketing efforts.

Proximity knowledge is also the first step toward understanding your trade areas plus driving more business to your physical locations. Learn More

Ordinarily I don’t directly promote InfoGrow’s services on this blog but, in this case, I made an exception. Why? Because I keep seeing marketers in both the B2B and B2C industries save time, save money and win more sales by using our Proximity Reports – Plus tool and felt my readers should know about these benefits. 

Proximity Reports – Plus is a web service that provides quick, accurate, inexpensive, pay-as-you-go reports that append your closest locations, by air miles, to your customer/prospect records.  It can be the closest one location or all of your locations within your specified radius and maps can be added to the reports. 

Various Industry Applications

Commercial Printers / Ad Agencies / Marketing Consultants
Often, these groups are in charge of their clients’ direct mail programs.  Using the Proximity Reports - Plus tool they can match clients’ customer/prospect locations to their clients’ locations.  This information enables them to easily add their clients’ closest addresses to their mailers, which steers more customers and prospects to their clients’ physical sites, increases the marketing campaign ROI, plus boosts their value to their clients.   

Chain Retailers and Franchises  
Businesses such as restaurants, beauty salons, tax services, grocery stores, and many others, use Proximity Reports – Plus to tailor their in-house direct mail content. By understanding customer and prospect proximity, they can include local information such as: closest addresses, hours, phone numbers, coupons, and special promotions or events. Proximity knowledge enables them to improve foot traffic and drive revenue. 

Banks/ Hotel Chains/ Healthcare Providers
Service companies, such as the above and others, that are trying to win new national accounts often need to respond to RFPs (Requests for Proposals) from prospective clients. These RFPs usually include their ability to show that their locations are in a convenient proximity to the prospect’s locations, proving they can effectively meet coverage needs.  Proximity Reports – Plus accelerates the process by delivering immediate, accurate on-line proximity reports into their sales reps’ hands, providing a competitive advantage and more corporate account sales. 

Real-Life Examples

Huddle, Inc. - Huddle is a marketing company that specializes in helping national retailers, through their High School Ticket Program, to connect  with the local high school marketplace.  They currently uses Proximity Reports – Plus to localize the match of these retailers to specific schools. See Press Release  

Grainger, Inc. - Grainger is the leading broad-line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving business and institutions in North America.  A recent promotional mailer that I received from Grainger, included their 2 closest locations to my address.  It localized the marketing campaign for them and provided convenience to me. See the following example.  

Try Proximity Reports – Plus Demo
Think about your own possible applications and benefits.  Then, see how easy it is to use our on-line Proximity Reports – Plus tool to help you develop effective target marketing campaigns, assess new opportunities and increase your marketing ROI. 

Wisdom from Marketers for Marketers

Once again, I must point out that nothing beats getting solid, down-to-earth advice from successful real-life marketers.  Well, except, maybe getting it for free!

Earlier this year, Marketing Sherpa released their 7th annual “Wisdom Report”, so if you haven’t heard about it yet, check it out and download it now. Their Marketing Wisdom for 2009 is packed full of real life stories, lessons learned and tips gathered from 101 marketers for marketers. 

The topics include email, search engine, B2B, lead generation, direct mail, metrics, customer service issues, and much more. 

You definitely don’t want to pass this up.  Plus, you don’t want to pass up logging onto the MarketingSherpa site at least once a week to review their marketing case studies, research, surveys, and access to free reports.  If you’re in the market for some great marketing advice and ideas, this is the place to go. 

Marketers Take Wrong Route to Revenue Opportunities

It appears that lack of existing customer insight and the tools to leverage that insight is creating a revenue roadblock for many marketers. 

Despite the critical need to leverage current customer knowledge, especially during this recessionary period, many marketers are throwing up their own obstacles to reaching solid, ready-and-waiting opportunities. 

Instead of concentrating on and maximizing their existing customer potential, too many marketers are spending their limited resources on acquiring new customers, while allowing their existing customers to fall by the roadside.  What a huge waste. 

According to a recent study titled, “Routes to Revenue”, conducted by the Chief Marketing Officer Council (CMO), and based on a survey of more than 650 senior marketers, an astounding 75.9% of these senior marketers believe they are not realizing the full revenue potential of their current customers.  Only 46.5% of the surveyed marketers feel they have good insights (note, not excellent) into retention rates, customer profitability and lifetime value. 

Additional study findings include:

• 22.3% lack real-time data and analytics from across all customer touch points

• 21% say that selectively gathered information is inaccurate or incomplete

• 15.5% cite problems with data silos and restrictions in availability and use across the organization

Marketers were also asked what strategies they are using to realize greater revenue and profitability from existing customers.  Top responses were:

• 60.1% - becoming more personalized, relevant and precise in customer communication

• 44.5%  - finding new ways to cross-sell or up-sell current accounts

• 41.0% -  addressing under-penetrated markets or new customer segments

• 32.20% - using more efficient channels or alternative media to engage customers

“Many marketers, and in most cases, the larger organizations, don't have the insight into their customer data to be able to determine what the opportunities are The constrained environment we have today will force marketers to do more analysis, get more data, get more insight and intelligence into their customers, and map strategies to up-sell, cross-sell, partner and be more inventive in the ways they engage with existing customers,” noted Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. 

Neale-May said there are three core areas marketers should be focusing on to improve their overall performance: customer insight, customer experience and customer advocacy.

“That is all about retention marketing and more individual retention management,” he said. “Most creative groups tend to see value in external programs, rather than looking at the customers they already have, the cost of acquiring customers, the value of the deal and whether they are targeting customers that are most predisposed toward the company or brand.

“These do not all require outside media or marketing dollars. They require much more drilling and integrating with the customer database and sales organizations.”

So, are you leveraging existing customer insight to maximize your revenue potential?
If not, then why not?

If you want some guidance on these issues, then take a few minutes to review the following. I am sure it will help. Download Sales & Marketing Effectiveness Overview 

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Number One Marketing Tip for Any Economy

Over the past several months, I’m sure you’ve read more than your share of tips and advice on how to market during a recession, depression, tough economy or whatever term best defines our current economic state.  Much of this advice is valuable and can possibly help you hang on and, just maybe, pull yourself up above our current sales and marketing doom and gloom. 

Yet, if you were to ask me - as I asked myself - what is the top marketing tip, the number one piece of marketing advice that I would offer to B2B marketers in 2009, or anytime, it is this:

Know Your Best Customers

Why?  Think about the following: 

• Your best customers are the foundation of your current and future success – your key to success in any economy, good or bad. 

• If you lose just 3 of your best customers, how would that impact your profits; indeed the very life of your company? 

• Your best customers were probably once your best prospects and it is likely much of your marketing strategies and efforts were built around finding and attracting them. 

• Current and past studies show that it costs about five times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to keep an old one. Chances are, most of your old customers include many of your best customers.

• Best customers provide cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.  If you know them, you’re aware (or should be) of their other departments/divisions/units that may need what you have to offer. 

• Without knowing your best customers, you can’t effectively retain them, keep them loyal or turn them into advocates and referrals for your company.

• If you don’t know your best customers, you don’t know your best prospects and, therefore, don’t know how to effectively find and add more best customers. 

•  Best customer knowledge provides the vital focus of your campaigns, messages and sales reps. 

Knowing

Some people ask me, what does “knowing” your best customers really mean? It means finding every piece of vital information about their company that might help you to build, solidify, keep, and leverage your current relationship with them to find more customers like them.

Knowing your best customers is much more than a simple spreadsheet of your key customers’ names, addresses and phone numbers. Everybody has that basic information. It is learning all you can about them and includes details such as: their primary and related products/services; what they buy from you and how often; their annual revenue, employee size, SIC code; their parent company, divisions/units; their market share and current industry challenges; how often you communicate with them and their preferred method; what else they should be buying from you.  The list goes on and on and on.  You can find a more complete list here.

Whether your recession marketing strategies are customer retention, customer acquisition, or a combination and regardless of your various media choices such as; SEO, Direct Mail/Print Marketing, Internet Marketing, Tradeshows, Public Relations, Social Networking, Mass Advertising, or others…without a best customer focus, chances are you’ll be hanging by a thread from your 2009 marketing efforts.  Or just hanging out.  

Best customers are your sales and marketing treasure map to your best prospects and if you read it accurately, you’ll get to the right destination - your next best customers. 

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Still Flying Blind in 2009?

The new year is already tick-tocking away. You, now have only 11 months to identity and solve your biggest sales and marketing challenges.  

How well you leverage, integrate, share and view your customer data, marketing analysis and resulting reports will likely predict your company’s position in the marketplace at the end of 2009 and into well into 2010. 

Are you equipped with the right tools, customer intelligence and focus to succeed?   

If you can’t definitely say “Yes!”, then I suggest that you review the following: MARKETERS ARE FLYING BLIND WHEN IT COMES TO LEVERAGING CUSTOMER DATA AND ANALYTICS. Lack of Customer Data Sharing, Integration and Insight is Impacting Competitiveness, Retention Rates, Revenue and Profitability.

Next, check out The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council website at http://www.cmocouncil.org
and start tooling up with their free executive summary and/or full report, titled Business Gain From How You Retain.  This is an impressive study that surveyed more than 450 senior level marketers across the globe, with 72% being in North America. 

Although, the study was conducted and reported on several months back, I think it’s safe to say the issues and obstacles addressed remain a huge problem for companies of all sizes, in all industries, everywhere. The summary alone is extensive and packed full of value, while the full report provides significant ideas on how to succeed in 2009, 2010, 2011…you get the picture. 

Consider the following stats:

• The average company loses more than 10 percent of its customers each year.

• Acquiring new customers can cost five times more than satisfying and retaining current customers.

• A two percent increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10 percent.

• Loyal customers are 15 times more likely to increase spend than high-risk, intermittent customers.

Then consider some of the study findings:

• Only 50 percent of global marketers report having a strategy for further penetrating or monetizing key account relationships

• A surprising 45 percent rate the effectiveness of customer relationship management (CRM) systems as deficient or needing more work

• Only 15 percent of companies rate themselves extremely good or effective at integrating disparate customer data sources and repositories.

• Just 50 percent report they have fair, little, or no knowledge of the customer.

• While more than 35 percent of respondents report that the CMO or marketing department (38.9 percent) has primary responsibility for the customer analytics function, they are not leveraging its value. Over 31 percent of those surveyed do no data mining at all and 63 percent are only doing moderate levels of data mining for intelligence and insight.

• Key initiatives to increase customer retention include improving customer communications (65.2 percent); addressing complaints, problems and pain points (51.8 percent); and enhancing the customer experience (54.8 percent). Unfortunately, fewer marketers noted their companies’ willingness to modify busin  ess practices and policies to accommodate customer need

According to the study:

The research demonstrates a disconnect between what marketers say they want to do and how well they are equipped to do it. For example, close to 50 percent of the respondents say they are improving customer retention by enhancing front-line customer service, while at the same time, only 55 percent report that their customer service and support teams have access to real-time customer data.

A fair number of survey participants (23 percent) say they’re able to acquire a sufficient amount of customer data but don’t have the ability to share the information, while 33 percent think that there is insufficient data as well as an inability to share.

Another way to put it is: If you don’t retain, you don’t gain.

Are you equipped to succeed in 2009?  What about 2010 and beyond?  Is your company still wearing blinders or are you flying with vision?

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InfoGrow Turns 20! Join Us in Celebrating!

2009 marks our 20th year of success and commitment as a leading sales and marketing solutions provider. This fantastic achievement is due to a combination of my dedicated employees, loyal customers, supportive business partners, along with our mission of being central to all of our clients’ sales and marketing success. 

November 6, 2009 is the official date, but we are going to CELEBRATE all year long.  In the spirit of celebration, I invite everyone to take part in, and enjoy, our monthly Anniversary 20/20 Trivia Contest.  Test your trivia knowledge and get the chance to win a great prize. 

Oh, by the way, categories change each month, so you have many chances to win.

HAVE SOME FUN!

Application Hosting – What it is and Why Use it?

I’ve often had clients and prospects ask me what exactly does hosting an application mean?  It is a fairly easy concept, but not so easy to explain given today’s technologies and rapid change of definitions, so here goes my try at explaining it. 

You may know it as Application Hosting as ASP (Application Service Provider), SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), On-Demand software, or simply Outsourcing.  Though all of these terms are closely related to each other, they are not completely interchangeable, but the concept is the basically the same and fairly simple. 

What Does Hosting Mean?

Hosting is a software application distribution system where your application - CRM, Location Intelligence/ Mapping or others, are maintained and managed by a qualified service provider and made available to you, as a service over the WWW.  Essentially, this means that an application resides on the provider’s servers instead of your in-house servers. The application can be instantly accessed and shared by your sales/marketing and other company staff, through a web browser. In most cases, this means that the hosting provider is responsible for support, maintenance, installations, upgrades and security on a 24x7 basis. 

What is a Qualified Provider?

Generally, a qualified service provider is a company that has either developed the application and/or is certified by a software manufacturer, such as Microsoft.  Qualified Providers have worked extensively with your application and understand all the ins and outs.  They know exactly how to make the application work and are able to support you with best practices.

What are the Highlights:

With a good hosting service, you should experience the following

• No loss of data security or control
• Quicker implementation and quicker ROI
• No steep learning curves, plus ease of use
• Reduced Sales, Marketing and IT support
• Lower software and hardware costs
• 24x7 maintenance and support and security
• Automatic and frequent upgrades
• Ability to implement enhancements on an ongoing basis

What are the Benefits:

The biggest benefit is that you are sharing and accessing vital information with all your sales and marketing teams, instead of it all residing on your separate desktops.  In addition, you should get:

• Sales & Marketing on the same page, sharing the same information all the time
• Enhanced company image and customer loyalty
• Reduced costs and increased revenue and ROI

Bottom line is: You get to concentrate on your core competencies, and increase your sales and marketing effectiveness.   

What Companies are Using Application Hosting? 

CRM Magazine’s January 2009 Special Supplement, Best Practices Series: Software-as-a-Service said, “according to Analyst Perspectives, 55 percent of businesses based in North America will have deployed at least one SaaS application by the end of 2008.  They further stated that, “in fact, if industry forecasts can be believed, by 2012 nearly 30 percent of business software will be deployed and delivered via the SaaS model”.
 
So, do you now have a better idea of what hosting is?  Are you using it?  If so, what are the results?  If not, are you considering it?  I welcome you comments. 

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Market Smarter with Mapping

Given today’s unstable economy, tighter marketing budgets and highly competitive business environment, marketers are facing some incredibly difficult challenges. Now, more than ever, it is vital for you to find effective ways to:

• Do more with less resources
• Understand and use your sales and marketing information better
• Access and share your data faster and easier; you need answers now – not next week
• Get your sales and marketing teams on the same page

There is no better way to solve these challenges than through mapping technology and location intelligence. Why?  Because these tools provide an instant visualization of your sales and marketing information that Excel or other reports can’t provide.  They enable you to clearly see data relationships, trends and patterns that are basically invisible in the rows, columns and tables spewed out in spreadsheets.

By looking at one clean map of your customer / prospect / competitor data instead of a Niagra of numbers in dozens of unintegrated reports, you can see the whole picture clearly and make smarter, more profitable decisions faster and easier. 

Combining your sales and marketing information with location intelligence and mapping tools, allows you to effectively:

• Identify you best customers and prospects
• Determine your current market share and see/decide how to increase it
• Optimize your sales teams and territories
• Analyze, access and share your data faster and easier
• Discover new markets hidden in spreadsheet reports
• Reduce sales force travel time and increase customer contact time
• Enhance your company image
• Focus on your most profitable customers / prospects and find more like them
• Present your CEO with a clear picture of where the company is and where they need to be

Those are only a few of the benefits. The possibilities are endless.

So, given the above benefits, why isn’t every marketer in every company not taking advantage of these readily available, powerful sales and marketing effectiveness tools?  Especially now, when marketers need all the ammo they can get to fight the economy and competitors. 

As I see it, though most marketers are aware of mapping and location intelligence, they often view these tools as too costly, too difficult to learn and use, too labor intensive, and believe everything has to be built and maintained in-house.

But, that’s not the case at all.  There are easy, cost-effective options. 

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth offers an integrated set of location based services combined with best-of-breed mapping technology.  These services can easily be delivered across the Internet and/or through a company’s Intranet and maintained by an in-house team or outsourced to an experienced Microsoft Virtual Earth Certified Partner / Developer with hosting capabilities. 

So, if you don’t have the in-house resources, contracting with a qualified Virtual Earth Partner / Developer is a great way to go.  With this option, there is no need for internal hardware, development, staff resources or support.  You can get all of the benefits without any of the headaches. 

Virtual Earth delivers solid solutions to marketers in every industry to visualize and share sales and marketing information instantly, effectively connect with your customers, and efficiently manage your limited resources.

For all marketers who are looking for the best ways to overcome today’s complicated challenges and succeed in 2009 and every year after, I suggest investigating what Location Intelligence, Mapping and Virtual Earth and Hosting have to offer. 

Visit these sites and learn more:

http://www.microsoft.com/VIRTUALEARTH/
http://www.infogrowcorp.com/Home/Solutions+Index/Location+Intelligence/default.aspx
http://infogrow.typepad.com/sales_marketing_effective/2007/04/mapping_the_tre.html
http://infogrow.typepad.com/sales_marketing_effective/2006/12/location_intell.html
http://infogrowcorp.com/Home/Solutions+Index/Development+Services/Application+Hosting/default.aspx

Have a Great New Year!

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Have You Wrapped Up That 2009 Marketing Plan?

If not, there is still time, but not much, to wrap it all up.  Keep in mind, there is no Santa coming to deliver a nice tightly wrapped marketing package outlining your plans for success in the coming year. 

If your 2009 plan is still on the table and you’re yet trying to determine effective strategies and dollars, I encourage you to peruse the following links to 2009 marketing trends, surveys, advice and predictions.  These resources could help you finalize an effective marketing plan for the coming year. You need a plan that puts you ahead of the pack next year…and years after. 

And, even for those of you who have finalized your 2009 marketing plans, you might find some valuable ideas that you could integrate into those plans. 

Changes to Marketing Spending and Strategy Coming in 2009
For some excellent insight on potential marketing budget and strategy changes coming in 2009, you must read this post on 1to1 Media’s blog – Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog .  This article provides the results of a survey of their readers and LinkedIn members on potential changes to their 2009 marketing budget and strategy.  The survey conducted by Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief of Peppers & Rogers Group’s  1to1 Media, and article comments are a wealth of information that you can’t afford to miss.

How’s That 2009 Marketing Plan Coming?
Also, back in August, Ginger Conlon posted this article based on 10 trends offered by Richard Feldman, managing partner of Source Marketing that may impact marketing in 2009 and beyond. As Ginger stated, “Keeping tabs on trends can help”. 

Media Alert: ANA Reveals 2008 Annual Conference Polling Results
Check out the results of a poll conducted by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) during their 2008 Annual “Masters of Marketing” Conference.  The 1200 attendees, including a mix of B-to-B and B-to-C marketers, were polled about their marketing mix, budgets, plans and tactics for growth in 2009.  Learning what other marketers are planning may help you with your 2009 marketing strategies. 

What won’t fly in that 2009 marketing plan
For some great suggestions and additional resources to help you solidify your 2009 marketing plan, read this post published on the Red on Marketing blog built by Business Communications Group.  The post covers several specific 2009 marketing strategy questions along with some good answers, ideas and additional marketing links/resources.  You don’t want to pass this by. 

Survey Says: Nearly 43 percent of healthcare marketers plan to spend more in 2009
Details of the survey were posted by Mac McIntosh, president of Mac McIntosh Incorporated, a sales and marketing consulting firm.  While the survey is centered on healthcare marketing, healthcare is a huge growing industry and a glimpse into what some healthcare marketers are planning and spending in 2009 could provide some great insight into marketing strategies for any industry. It’s a great read and may show you how to apply their strategies into your own.  Mac’s post also includes a one-question 2009 marketing budget survey which provides a comparison between 2008 and 2009 marketing budgets. 

Marketing Into The Storm: How The Recent Crisis Will Create New Opportunities 
This article by Mike Gospe, Co-Founder of KickStart Alliance puts forth three marketing truths that companies need to embrace and act upon in order to achieve success and excel in 2009.  Great advice for the coming year and all the time. 

Strategic Thinking 3.0 - A media forecast for 2009 
These 2009 media predictions offered by Nick Brien is president and CEO of Mediabrands provide some valuable opinions about marketing in 2009.  Although, this forecast seems to embrace advertising firms, it is valuable for all companies since many B-toB and B-to-C organizations use ad agencies for much of their marketing efforts.  Definitely worth your time. 

InfoGrow Corporation Website and Blog 
Last, but hopefully not least, is my company’s website and blog. I invite you to visit both sites and look over the solutions we provide to all companies everyday in order to help them achieve sales & marketing effectiveness.  Solutions that worked 20 years ago, will work in 2009 and in the future. 

I hope these links/resources are of value to your marketing efforts in 2009 and years after.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year

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Some Industries Thrive During Hard Times

Good news!  There are those industries that actually grow during tough economic times, so opportunities still abound for your sales and marketing people. Just need to know where to look. 

I’m not sure any industry is what I would call recession-proof, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 72 industries that grew throughout the recessions of 1990, 2001 and, again, in 2007.  Based on the BLS statistics, these industries are the most likely ones to continue growth now and in the future. 

Among the industries that have typically thrived during recessions are:

• Healthcare
• DIY industry for hardware, supplies
• Debt management
• Consulting
• Energy

There are lots more and you can find a complete list at Career Hub.  You can also find more information on these recession-proof industries at BizChicksRule, Yahoo! HotJobs, Wikipedia, plus numerous other places. 

So, check out the links above and do your own search for other valuable lists.  No doubt, you will get some ideas on how to better focus your sales and marketing efforts, find new and better prospects, and most important, thrive also. 

As I stated in my last post, Hard Times Require Hard Work, a slow economy shouldn’t slow your marketing efforts. 

And, if you have an idea or suggestion of any other recession-proof type industries, add a comment and let us all know.  There is enough business for everybody, even during hard times.  We just need to know where to look and see the opportunities. 

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Is a Truism Holding True?

The software industry often expounds that you are 1st,  2nd or 3rd  in your category or simply out of business. The question I pose is whether the announcement that Entellium, makers of Rave CRM, has falled on hard times is an early warning of more fallout to come in the CRM space.

If you believe the numbers, that less than 20% of small and mid-size businesses are using CRM, you can understand the opportunity.  Yet, potential users need to show caution in their selection of a CRM product and vendor.  Another truism might be that the marketplace does not care about the “best technology”. 

A CRM project must be approached as a blending of strategy, process and technology for sales, marketing and customer service.  While selecting the right software that facilitates this blending is important, it is not the most important activity. 

Some pointers on the right way to approach CRM

A CRM implementation will have more chances of success if:

•  It is not considered a technology project

• There are clear and documented step-by-step processes for how you go to market, how you sell and how you achieve customer loyalty

• There is an implementation plan with clear, measurable, and phased objectives for each user group

• Management takes the time to determine the real ROI for a CRM implementation and evaluates each phase against the established ROI for corrective actions

• You don’t get overwhelmed by the features of sophisticated systems. Evaluate systems based on the features that will help you reach your current goals, plus potential for additional capabilities

• You consider hiring an expert for selecting and installing your solution and/or training if your company doesn’t have the necessary skills or resources

I cover all this, and much more, in an earlier posting “Building Customer Relationship – A Blueprint for Success” 

If you have not read that post, I encourage you to do so before venturing too far down the CRM selection path. 

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