Accelerating Growth Through Better Sales & Marketing Decisions

Your Best Shots for a Successful CRM Strategy

Fifteen years – at least – of CRM technology provides a heavy history and ample advice of best practices that will help guide you to successful CRM implementation and usage. 

Read some valuable excerpts from an article by David Myron, Editorial Director of Destination CRM, titled, “15 Years of Pocket Shots and Miscues”…

We’ve learned about and reported on quite a few of the best practices that have been developed since then. Some of my favorite time-tested tips, listed below, have appeared in many issues of CRM magazine.  He lists some of his favorite time-tested tips

1. Make a business case. Don’t simply buy a CRM system because your competitor has one. And don’t buy one because you think it will be a business panacea—it won’t. Be specific with your goals.
   
   
2. Get support from the top. If management doesn’t enforce CRM usage, then you’ll be relying on luck to increase user adoption.
   
   
3. Keep customers in mind. If your organization doesn’t think about your customers first when implementing a new process or technology, don’t expect your customers to return the favor when they’re looking to make a purchase.
   
   
4. Build a team. Create a group of stakeholders with representatives from each department that will use the system. Take notes on what their colleagues need the system to do for them. Make sure the system and/or processes address their concerns.
   
   
5. Take baby steps. Don’t try to do too much all at once. As Donna Fluss writes in her column, “The Siebel Effect—and Its Survivors,” “Complex projects should be broken down into manageable and measurable phases.”

More details on these great tips, along with other valuable CRM advice and articles, can be found in their July 2010 CRM Magazine issue, 15 Years of CRM,

In addition, read and download our guide, 16 Steps to CRM Success at http://infogrowcorp.com/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=28.

2011 Marketing Budgets - If You Haven’t Started Planning Yet, the Time is Now!

Time does fly and now that we’re soaring through the 3rd quarter of 2010, it’s none too soon to start planning on your 2011 marketing budget.

I’ll point you to some great advice that will definitely help your chances of getting your budget approved so you will have the resources you need to meet, and maybe exceed, your business goals.

Pat LaPointe of Marketing NPV provides a must-read checklist of 7 items that will help you win your marketing budget proposals.  Following is a brief summary of these tips:

1. Ensure that you are aligned to the proper goals and objectives.  Your recommendations need to be linked to specific ways they will help achieve company goals – revenue, profit, customer value, market share, etc.
   
   
2. Make sure you’ve squeezed every drop from the current spend patterns.  These days, zero-based budgeting is price-of-entry.
   
   
3. Have a plan for how you will prioritize the marketing funds strategically, not just tactically. If you get another $1, where will you put it?
   
   
4. Identify the points of leverage you can exploit. Results accrue when you place resources behind places of competitive leverage.
   
   
5. Demonstrate an understanding of how the business environment has changed. Even if you have clear leverage opportunities, the business environment is powerful enough to neutralize just about any unilateral effort a given company might make.
   
   
6. Proactively assess the risk of your plans. As marketers, we plan like matadors, but have the track record of the bull.
   
   
7. Propose “good” benchmarks and targets for your intended outcomes.  Every recommendation should come with expected performance outcomes.

For the full details of each above item, read Pat’s article, How to Get the Budget You Need.

Are you planning on next year’s budget yet?

Increase Productivity with Esri ArcGIS 10

Since geographic location is the key feature of 80-90% of all business data, effective organizations have come to realize the power of integrating their business intelligence with location intelligence and mapping technology.

As the largest provider of GIS/Mapping software, Esri has positioned itself to become a leader in business analytics with the introduction of ArcGIS 10, a complete system for creating, managing, analyzing, and disseminating geographic information. 

Esri is offering a free, daylong seminar, Increase Productivity with ArcGIS 10, that will benefit professionals in all industries, whether they are working in a desktop, mobile, server, or cloud environment.  This educational event will take place September through November of this year and will be held in more than 70 U.S. cities.

Attendees will

• See how ArcGIS 10 is a powerful system that facilitates the creation, management, analysis, and dissemination of information.
• Learn practical ways to achieve enhanced analysis, access imagery, make better use of the Web, apply ArcGIS in the field, and more. 
• Discover better ways to launch and manage geospatial projects as well as an enterprise geographic information system (GIS).
• Understand how to promote collaboration both inside and outside an organization.

The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esrii applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis.

Don’t miss out on one of these powerful and educational seminars near you. Register at http://www.esri.com/events/seminars/arcgis10/index.html .  Learn how mapping and spatial analysis can help you make better decisions quicker.  For more information on this technology, visit InfoGrow’s Blog at http://infogrow.typepad.com/sales_marketing_effective/business_intelligence/.

Ten Must- Read Marketing Research Blogs

Kathryn Korostoff, president of Research Rockstar, chooses her top 10 research blogs.  Kathryn states that “she selected 10 that stand out based on consistently producing thought-provoking, content-rich, relevant material.”  This article appeared in the August 23, 2010, edition of Quirk's e-newsletter.

For 25 years Quirk's Marketing Research Review has been providing practical applications in marketing research. Our mission is to be the marketing research information source for those that conduct, coordinate, and purchase research product and services.

Check out their site, packed full of research articles.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Industry Specific Solutions

There are now hundreds of certified industry specific solutions built upon Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Lauren Carlson, of Software Advice, lists their 15 favorite Microsoft Dynamics CRM Industry Solutions.  From a pharmaceutical rep needing to track FDA-related information to a cattle rancher tracking his herd, there is an application available.  Read her post and review the applications here - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Industry Solutions: Our 15 Favorites

CRM Dynamics 2011 Focuses on the Power of Productivity

As announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference on July 12, 2010, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 - formerly codenamed "CRM5" - will be publicly available as a beta release in September 2010 for both online and on-premises deployments.

"Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will further deliver 'The Power of Productivity' through familiar, intelligent and connected experiences for customers and partners," says Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "For customers, it offers new levels of user productivity and collaboration that meet their specific business needs with a low total cost of ownership.  For partners, it unlocks new opportunities and provides a single development environment for cloud-based and on-premise deployments. Together, this new release raises the bar in the CRM market."

Read and learn more about CRM Dynamics 2011 at destinationCRM.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Two Major Independent Research Firms Rank Microsoft Dynamics as a CRM Leader

Microsoft Dynamics CRM was recently named to the Leaders wave of Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites Customer Service Solutions, Q3 '10 and the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation (R. Desisto, July 2010).

“It is an honor to be recognized as a Leader in the CRM industry that is helping customers seize new opportunities and grow their businesses,” said Brad Wilson, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We deliver innovation and value to companies around the world through our focus on end-user productivity, business process flexibility and agility, and the ability of our customers to leverage public and private cloud deployment models.”

According to the Microsoft CRM Dynamics Blog, current customers using Microsoft Dynamics CRM are realizing the following benefits:

• Reduce labor costs dramatically
• Gain one additional hour of sales productivity per day for each salesperson
• Double sales efficiency
• Improve business insight
• Gain instant feedback on marketing investments
• Increase sales force productivity by 15 percent to 20 percent in 2 months

Learn more about these benefits by reading their case studies at the Microsoft CRM Dynamics Blog.

Forgotten Features Could Squeeze Out More CRM Value

Instead of seeing CRM as a constantly evolving discipline, too many companies and users see it as a set-and-forget tool. Once it's running, and once managers are happy with the reports it generates, people stop thinking about it. The thought may be "we've successfully implemented CRM." What the thought should be is "we've successfully implemented CRM -- for now."

For those of you who have implemented a CRM system, a periodic review could be very beneficial for maximum benefits.  Read the full article published by CRMBuyer for some great advice. 

GET HUNTED

For decades, we’ve hired sales reps to be hunters instead of farmers. We’ve even coveted our neighbors’ (competitors) hunters. Perhaps this recession, along with more effective gate-keepers, (receptionist and voice mail), and the “Walmartization” of buyers, shows us that hunting has become too tough and expensive. 

Today our hunters are having a harder time opening doors. Middle managers have disappeared and “C” level executives are too busy running from meeting to meeting, since they have fewer middle managers to sit down with our hunters.  Our sales reps – our hunters - are not getting a shot at engaging a decision-maker in a solution selling approach.

Maybe we need a different approach. GET HUNTED!

How?  Marketing needs to pay more attention to being hunted by ready buyers.  Yes, it might not have the same long term value as nurturing a prospect along. Then again…how many of our nurturing efforts have not played out the way we hope when our prospect leaves, or the company is sold?

Being hunted means that we position our www site and direct marketing efforts to be found, easily. It means working harder to make our target markets even tighter for finding those who are ready to buy.  Our marketing message and value proposition must be simpler and clear with a strong call to action for our targeted buyer.  Our www site must become a lead generation engine where our SEO is more effective than ever.  Most importantly, our lead follow-up must be unmatched in our sector.  As marketers, we must get our hunters hunted. 

Your thoughts . . . 

Hosted Services Provide Better Financial Performance

The Microsoft SMB IT and Hosted IT Index 2010 research report indicates that small and midsize businesses (SMBs) that use hosted services performed better fiscally than those that do not.

The study was conducted between 2009 and January 2010 and questioned 3,193 small and midsize businesses (up to 500 employees) across 15 countries worldwide.

The results found that more than 40 percent of the respondents that use hosted or cloud technology reported revenue rises of 30 percent or more compared with 90 percent of respondents not using hosted technology that saw decreases in revenue.

The advantages of hosted or cloud technology are viewed as reduced cost and IT management and maintenance, as well as increased business value, productivity and competitiveness.

Awareness of hosted services is increasing with 65 percent of SMBs using hosted software to some extent, while 73 percent of the remainder have considered it, compared with only 44 percent in the 2008 Index.

“Over the last five years, we have seen nearly 40 percent growth in usage of hosted services,” said Michael Korbacher, director of EMEA Software plus Services in the Communications Sector at Microsoft. “Using pay-as-you-go cloud technologies, small and midsize businesses can now afford and easily have access to enterprise-class, secure services across any platform.”

“Our assessment of the report tells us that an increased focus on IT correlates with good performance in all of the size categories surveyed,” said Dale Vile, research director of Freeform Dynamics. “This whole picture corroborates the notion that technology and hosted services can provide tangible business advantage, even for smaller companies, and it’s not surprising to see that investment in IT and hosting goes hand in hand with good financial performance.”

What are the Benefits to Sales & Marketing?

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.  That means:

• 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.    Read more about hosted services.

 

CRM Should Be All About Success -- Not Failure

I keep reading articles about CRM failure, so I thought I might change the slant a bit and point out how to make it successful.  

Of course, we all know that CRM technology is far from perfect.  That’s been proven time and again.  It’s definitely not an exact science and most studies have shown that the success of any CRM system depends on people and processes, both of which are not flawless.  But, CRM is essential … that is, if you want to effectively do such things as: 

• Track and stay in touch with customers
• Focus your sales on key prospects
• Share vital customer/prospect information between sales, marketing, customer service
• Remain competitive and stay in business

And, what company doesn’t want – actually doesn’t need, to do those things, and more?  If there is such a company left standing in this day and age, my advice is to get a shovel and start digging.  I’m sure you know what I mean. 

For all of you who are planning on CRM, or are in the beginning stages of CRM, or who have CRM, but beginning to see a breakdown in your system,  I am going to point you to several resources with some great advice (mine included, of course) on how to make or keep your CRM system successful, beginning with:

Your People Are Half the Battle 
For the past 25 years, I’ve suggested this mix for a successful CRM initiative: people (50 percent), process (30 percent), and technology (20 percent)—and still organizations often fail to devote the time and resources needed to address the inevitable people issues that come up. This shortcoming can lead to a less-than-optimal (or even failed) CRM implementation.  To read more http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Columns-Departments/Reality-Check/Your-People-Are-Half-the-Battle-66116.aspx

Top 5 Ways CRM Decision Makers Go Astray
An astonishingly large percentage of companies build the CRM selection team around the people least likely to use the system on a daily basis -- the IT director, the CMO, the CIO, and perhaps the vice president or director of sales. While the input of these players is critical, it's also vital to have input from the rank-and-file sales, marketing and service staff. To read more: http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/Top-5-Ways-CRM-Decision-Makers-Go-Astray-69618.html

Building Customer Relationships -- A Blueprint for CRM Success
Successful CRM solutions begin with a strong vision for how technology will deliver profits and customer satisfaction.  The following steps will provide sales, marketing, customer service executives, (and their CEOs) with a blueprint – a solid plan – for building a successful CRM system.  To read more: http://infogrow.typepad.com/sales_marketing_effective/2006/11/building_custom.html

Yes, you need to understand the most common reasons for a CRM failure, but once you understand those, you should be on your way to CRM success. 

What is your best advice on how to make a CRM system successful?

Fire A Major Client? In This Economy? Am I Nuts?

Well, that’s exactly what I decided I had to do for the good of my company.  I’m not crazy, unless looking at the “big picture” makes one bonkers. 
  
I know, after operating a successful business for over twenty years, that some clients are just not worth keeping. Devoting time to an unprofitable and high maintenance customer was draining our resources and tech staff moral.  I have resigned a few smaller customers over the years but, to say goodbye to a major client representing a good chunk of my company revenue, especially in this economy, took a lot of thought. 

 It took a number of sleepless nights, plus building a firm strategy and commitment  to redouble new business development and best customer loyalty efforts to make up for the lost revenue.  It was not an easy decision, but I know it was the right decision. 

Although, breaking up is hard to do, it is sometimes the best choice.  Here are a few signs of when it is time to think about saying goodbye to a customer:

• After signing the final contract, including the Scope of Work (SOW) and Change Orders schedule items and you’ve started the work, the client repeatedly comes back with requests for more changes and expecting those free of charge.  You are surprised to learn that they never really read a word of what you provided, even though they signed off on every page.
  
  
• They consistently don’t send the critical data as requested on time and, if they do, it is often incomplete, yet they blame any resulting problems on you.
  
• They change their minds constantly and blame you when the project is falling behind schedule.  Your team is drained, demoralized and sometimes verbally abused. 
  
  
• While you are working with many other clients every day, this customer feels they are your only client and constantly takes up support time with items that have been answered before.  Even when they have already been trained and retrained by your team, they prefer to tie up members of your senior support team rather than get their processes in order. They don’t understand that you, also, have a business to operate and employees to pay.
  
  
• The client is consistently 90 days + past due on payments.  Sure, you call time and again, just to be told that it is on somebody’s desk somewhere – oh, God, they went on vacation, or there is a new person in that position, so you will have to wait, but you will get it sometime fairly soon.
  
  
• They don’t have a contract for extended technical support, but they call your people (and you) constantly, even after hours and on the weekends, expecting answers right now. 
  
  
• They threaten you with their boss, a competitor, their legal department, or just simply, that they will have their IT people write a better application. 
  
  
• Your repeated attempts to manage the relationship, resolve any open issues, and even change support personnel, usually only buys you about two weeks of their grace. 

Bottom line, if a customer exhibits these types of behaviors, they are not worth keeping.  The fact is that not all customers are created equal.  These types of customer behaviors are holding you back, draining resources, causing team member burnout, and endangering your relationships with your best customers. 

Joanne S. Black, creator of No More Cold Calling®, puts it best in her article titled, “How to Say Goodbye!”.  Joanne calls these difficult customers PITAs, standing for “pain in the ass” customers.  She points out, quite accurately, that PITA customers are never happy, are emotionally draining, use up our valuable resources, and too many PITAs will dwindle our profits.   

I’m sure most readers are thinking of their current PITAs, so I fully encourage you to provide some comments or advice on how you are managing your PITAs.

How do you tell them thank you, but goodbye?   

Marketing Should Speak About Technology Now and Then

One concept that has helped make us successful is that marketing is from Mars while IT is in an altogether different galaxy.  Our advantage over the years has been our ability to use our handy-dandy Startrek language decoder to translate communications between the two. Simply put, we speak both languages.

However, there is a technology subject that marketing should be paying attention to – SaaS. Software as a Service, is all about outsourcing applications to the WWW or cloud computing.  This outsourcing concept has been around for awhile but the SaaS name is newer.  When we first started building and hosting WWW based applications we were called an Application Service Provider (ASP).  We all know some high profile applications. In the CRM space, Saleforce or Microsoft’s CRM On-Demand. In the mapping space, you have Google apps or our own mapping apps built on Bing Maps.

SaaS has moved far beyond these types of apps and into all aspects of an organization. The four biggest reasons for this growth, according to a survey of 131 business technology professionals at organizations using SaaS, conducted by Information Week are:

1. Speed to implementation – 3.9
2. Savings on capital expenditures – 3.5
3. Savings on operating expenses – 3.4
4. Better features compared with other “traditional solutions” – 3.3
    (Scale: 1 = Not a factor to 5 = Major factor)

What SaaS can bring to marketing is applications that solve routine, repetitive processes. By breaking down a complex task into smaller parts, perhaps a process can be outsourced and results put directly into the hands of users. The concept is simple. Consider what is happening to phone book yellow pages. On-line mapping locators have yellow pages on the verge of extinction. The same locators also make a significant dent in calls to organizations for directions. One client told us that one of our applications reduced their sales support workload by 4,000 hours in the first year.  By putting the results directly in the hands of the end-user, you save time and empower the user to make faster and better decisions.

How many sales support or marketing processes are sitting around in your organization that could benefit from a productivity shot in the arm? Or, could benefit from a SaaS approach that would cut time and put the information into the hands of the user?  Consider some such as: e-marketing, marketing automation, surveys, reporting or business intelligence, demographic analysis and just good old fashioned data crunching.

How about sharing your experiences with SaaS.

Customer Experience: A Top Priority in Application Development

A recent Forrester Research Report about CRM applications, identifies five trends in application development for this year.   You can find more information about this must-read report at destinationCRM.com and We Blog CRM. 

While all development application trends outlined are significant, I’m going to concentrate on one:  Customer Experience.  It fortifies what I have pointed out in some of my recent posts – Heading in the Right Sales & Marketing Direction and Golden Customer Rules.  Both cover what our development team helps clients do best: 

Know Your Best Customers, Find More Like Them, and Keep Them

Meanwhile, here are some excerpts from both the destinationCRM.com and We Blog CRM articles on the importance of customer experience development applications:

Obsess Over the Customer Experience (destinationCRM.com)

Importance of the customer experience is seeping into all aspects of business, however, the Forrester analysts note, that developers often are unsure how to design for the customer. It's not that they don't want to wow customers; it's more that they have never been taught how to do so. 

According to Forrester research, customer experience really does matter:

• Companies that provide superior customer experience have 14 percent more customers who are willing to consider another purchase from them.
• Companies that offer the best experience in the industry have 16 percent fewer customers who are likely to move to a competitor.
• Companies that have high experience scores have 17 percent more customers who are likely to recommend their products or services compared to lowest scoring competitors.

Make the Customer Experience Your *top* Priority (We Blog CRM)
The customer experience has always been, in theory, every business’s number one priority. However, Forrester concluded that things get a bit muddled in practice, mainly because even the most talented developers can be unversed in designing applications that will truly impress customers. Naturally, companies that succeed in pleasing their customers are more likely to see repeat purchases and recommendations, so really digging deep into market research to wow them is paramount.

I can’t resist taking this opportunity to let my readers know that InfoGrow’s development team is well versed in designing “WOW”  customer experience applications – in fact, all sales and marketing applications.  Our development staff knows how to embrace all business needs, analyze challenging business issues, come up with innovative solutions, and create fresh code.  We’d be happy to share our expertise,so please visit.

What’s in Your Database? What Is Not … May Be Costing You Plenty!

My last two posts, Heading in the Right Sales & Marketing Direction and Golden Customer Rules point out  the importance of knowing your best customers and treating them like you want to be treated.
So, what’s the best way to accomplish these vital sales and marketing needs?

Answer:  By having accurate data in an effectively designed, consistently updated, well-maintained marketing database and…treating that database like gold. 

Consider just a few of the following stats resulting from recent surveys conducted by some of the top sales and marketing research firms: 

• At least 50% of your sales success depends on having an accurate, up-to-date database
• Following best practices in data quality generates a 66% increase in revenue
• Lead tracking and measurement can increase the close rate by 25% to 50%
• 10 to 25% of customer/prospect records contain critical data errors

Bottom Line:  If you don’t already have one, then make it a priority to properly plan and implement a database/CRM system of your current customers and prospects.  Collect and maintain information such as: full name and title, company name, address, phone, fax, email and website, product interest, buying time frame, SIC codes, annual sales, industry information, and any other data that relates to their company, business and industry.

For more information on databases and accurate data, I invite you to read "When Was the Last Time You Reviewed the Completeness of Your Data", and Lead “Scoring and Data Quality: How Much is Dirty Data Costing You?” Believe it or not, there are many companies that still use a spreadsheet as their database and the simple data contained in those to track their customers and campaigns.  Scary!  For them. 

So, asking again – what’s in your database? It would be interesting for all of us to see what data is tracked, how it is tracked, and how accurate that data is. 

Golden Customer Rules

First and foremost, treat them as you would like to be treated. 

There was a great article published in the January 4th edition of the Akron Beacon Journal, titled “Customers appreciate Golden Rule”, contributed by Akron Ohio’s SCORE chapter. SCORE is a partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

Although geared to small business, the advice from this article is definitely applicable to businesses of all sizes. It provides many valuable suggestions of how to focus on your greatest asset of all – your customers.

Some excerpts of this article are:

• Sometimes we get so caught up in the mechanics of doing business that we forget the reason we're in business in the first place. You need to incorporate customer service into your business culture.
• Customer service should be as routine as paying your bills or ordering office supplies. It doesn't have to be elaborate to make an impression.
• Put yourself in your customers' shoes. Ask yourself how you would like to be treated and then act accordingly.
• Keep your customers apprised of the status of their accounts. If an order is held up, let the customer know as soon as possible.
• When dealing with customers or clients over the telephone, try not to put them on hold for longer than a minute or two. If you expect to be tied up for longer than that, take a message and respond as soon as possible.
• Thank customers for their business. If customers regularly visit your place of business, make them feel welcome. Be sure to introduce them to key members of your organization.
• Finally, when you sit back and ask yourself how your business is doing, be sure to ask your customers as well. Send them postage-paid response cards or make a questionnaire available in your place of business.

Customers are our greatest asset. Without them, there is nothing – companies simply don’t exist.  In keeping with that fact, I would like to direct you to an old post that covers what happens when you don’t treat them like your greatest asset.   

How are you treating your customers?  Are you following the golden rules? 

Heading in the Right Sales & Marketing Direction

It’s the first quarter of a new year and we’re all still battling a tough economy.  Sales and marketing strategy tips, advice and reports are here, there, everywhere.  I am sure you’ve read your share.

Beginning my 21st year of success in the sales and marketing world, I have ample advice that I could also pass on to you.  Instead, I will simply point you to, what I believe is, the single most important piece of advice for companies of any size, in any industry, in any economy, and in any year. That is:

Know Your Best Customers

Why? Because if you don’t know your best customers, you don’t know enough!  If you don’t know your best customers, you don’t know your best prospects and will be unable to effectively find and add more best customers!  Like my last post depicts, you’re working with a blindfold on and won’t be able to hit the target.

Knowing your best customers is much more than a simple spreadsheet of key customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers and such.  It is finding every piece of vital information about their company that will help you to build, solidify and leverage your current relationship with them to not only expand business with them, but to find more like them. 

So, with that in mind, I’d like to help take off any blindfolds and point you in the right direction for 2010, and beyond, by linking you to a couple of my previous posts that will explain more about…the importance of knowing your best customers. 

Number One Marketing Tip for Any Economy

What Every Marketer Must Know About Their Best Customers   

Let's All Head 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