The customer/salesperson relationship has always been a bit dysfunctional. Customers often feel ignored and agents feel pressured to make a sale and follow the "script." But in my own personal and professional CRM experience, I've found that relating and knowing more about the customer could be all that's necessary to improve this "tense" relationship.

My own personal experiences can help explain this a little more.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Ian Henderson: You Won't Find Knowledge in a Knowledge Base and Your Customers Don't Read From Your Sales Script" »

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As mobile marketing continues to blossom, a growing number of firms are throwing viral marketing into the mix. Oddcast President and CEO Adi Sideman discusses trends with social media and viral marketing, and shares examples of companies that are reaping the rewards.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hotseat: The Convergence of Social Media and Viral Marketing" »

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As the senior marketer for a global business-to-business firm, I get so many solicitations through direct marketing channels that it's tough for potential vendors to break through the clutter. It's not that I don't care about unsolicited offers -- really I do. It's just that the volume is large and time is short. But, one recent campaign captured my imagination and, then, my attention.

I received an express envelope that contained two pieces: a blue striped conductor's hat and a postcard with one simple message: "It's Time to Take a Ride, Jim." There was a faint image of a train in the background and at the bottom a vanity URL, personalized with my name. That was it -- no brand logo or name. No product or service features. No laundry list of benefits. No incredible claims of productivity improvements or sales gains. No typical call to action. To top it off, the reverse side was blank! I knew it was commercial in purpose, but it was the best teaser I had seen in a long time and I couldn't resist the urge to find out the who and what of it.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jim Wehmann: Now That's Integrated Marketing at Its Best" »

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Today's wave of social media venues--YouTube, Twitter, the "blogosphere", Yelp, Yammer, Facebook, comments on Facebook and beyond--have become, with their multithreaded, ungoverned, one-to-one and one-to-many interactions, the IP-powered equivalent of the ancient Commons.

The Public Commons was the riot and roar of the medieval city center; antedated by the rumor-driven, mob-centric ant-hills that we now understand the Forums of the Roman Empire to have been; and is rooted yet farther back in time when ill-informed, distracted individuals gathered in front of caves or huts and exchanged fragmentary, personal, often irresponsible monologue, dialogue, and multilevel arguments with other barely recognized, easily misunderstood individuals of uncertain provenance. Like social media, this worldwide form of interaction was no-cost-to-user, ungoverned, and personal.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Andrew Edwards: Social Media Measurement: Blind Date with Ancient Traditions?" »

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List(S)entimonics is the art of listening effectively to your social audience -- anyone a company depends on for its success who is having online conversations about its brand -- to direct your Social CRM strategy.

Sure, I made up "List(S)entimonics," but if online conversations are not in a company's direct control, then it is vital to listen to know how and when to leverage the sentiment of those conversations to align your Social CRM strategy. Using a careful blend of social media monitoring tools and services can assist you in making sense of the online noise.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Michael Thomas: Why Listen to Customer Sentiment " »

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Many companies focus on managing data as a key strategy, but it can be a challenge. Bridging the gap between raw data and profitable insight is an arduous task. Arduous, but not impossible. In this month's 1to1 Magazine feature article, three companies share how they connected customer data to profit.

Continue reading "Connecting Customer Data to Profit" »

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Net Promoter Score is used to determine customers' likelihood to recommend a brand or company. Deborah Eastman, Chief Marketing Officer at Satmetrix, discusses how NPS has evolved and how companies are applying it to improve the customer experience.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Leveraging Net Promoter to Improve the Customer Experience" »

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To win with your loyal customers, you need to be equally in tune with the elements that cultivate loyalty and those that detract from it. Marketers tend to think about the customer experience and the customer journey, both important, but often the difference between winning and losing with your most valued customers is determined in the moment. Seize the moment and, ultimately, you seize the day and the customer.

The promise of mobile marketing is it affords you the ability to impact the moment.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Guy Cierzan: Carpe Diem -- Mobilizing Your Customer Loyalty Strategy" »

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Social media, SEO, multichannel marketing, mobile campaigns, email communications...Traditional marketing is becoming a thing of the past. Marketing, for the most part, is moving to the digital arena, which means your internal organization has to evolve too.

Continue reading "Marketing and IT: The New Dream Team" »

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Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was first published in 1989, and has since sold millions of copies and spawned a multitude of "lookalike" self-help guides -- all created with the common purpose of helping people and businesses become more effective and efficient. Before Covey, there was the mother and daughter team Katherine and Isabel Myers who created the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), based on the typological theories originated by Carl Gustav Jung, to help people understand their personality traits and identify what sort of jobs they would be most comfortable with and effective in. In fact, we have been trying to figure out how and why we tick since pretty much the birth of humanity.

Why then, with all this research and insight into the type of people we are and how we can improve our behaviors, do we still not show up for appointments, follow the advice of our doctors, pay our bills on time, follow our medication regimens, or wash the car even though we're fairly sure it is going to rain? Is the answer simply that we're an unpredictable bunch. Or, perhaps it is life that is unpredictable and when it doesn't map 100 percent to our expectations, we react to it; but we react to it in a highly predictable manner. So, if our reactions are predictable - arguably the best way to get ahead of our customers' behaviors in order to best serve them is as simple the old adage "if you don't ask, you don't get."

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Scott Zimmerman: Anticipating the Habits of Highly Predictable Customers" »

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New customers are great, but sometimes they can cause new challenges. Can your company handle an influx of 2 million customers in six weeks? Not many can, but mobile provider Nedjma in Algeria turned its focus to retention after gaining so many new customers in such a short period of time.

Continue reading "Customer Acquisition Worked Too Well. Now What?" »

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Over the next three years there will be a major shift in business as an increasing number of companies transform their operations from product centric to customer centric. J. Patrick Bewley made this prediction during his presentation at the Building a Differentiated Customer Marketing Strategy event, presented by ARF and Acxiom.

Bewley, vice president, global marketing strategy, for Acxiom, went on to describe the five phases organizations will need to travel through on their journey to customer centricity:

Continue reading "The Self-Funding Journey From Product Centricity to Customer Centricity" »

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A growing number of colleges and universities are making use of CRM systems to help them manage the student enrollment process and other key elements of onboarding and retaining students. Hobsons' Sasha Peterson discusses trends that are impacting the use of CRM in higher education.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: School's In: CRM in Higher Education" »

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Much has changed in the field of data since George G. Moore, the CEO of TargusInfo, started working as a data analysis professional in 1976. Since that time, data security, data privacy, and the fight over intellectual property have become key growth areas.

Last week at TargusInfo's Scoring Summit in New Orleans, Moore spoke about these evolutions and focused, not surprisingly, on the rising interest in building analytical scoring models within enterprises.

Continue reading "Moore's Laws for Data Professionals" »

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Unrelenting budget and revenue pressures are forcing CMOs to work harder than ever to maximize their marketing strategies. Aprimo CMO Lisa Arthur offers her recommendations on effective ways for marketers to succeed in a challenging environment.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Winning Market Strategies in Turbulent Times" »

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Data is more important than ever to a company's business strategy. And while there are plenty of software packages and IT resources to help a company manage data, most important are the people who work with the data. Companies that employ "data rock stars" will have an edge over the competition.

Continue reading "The Making of a Data Rock Star" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, I've noticed an interesting "evolution" in how some leading B2B companies are leveraging their CRM systems to enhance performance and productivity in sales.

Now, like many of us, these companies initially bought in to the notion that with access to more and better data, salespeople could--and would--make more-profitable decisions. In fact, for many of these companies, this "better decisions through better data" concept was the basic justification for investing in a CRM platform in the first place.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Rafe VanDenBerg: CRM for Sales Should Provide the Answers, Not Just Data" »

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Did Mom invent social media? Some say she did. And there is no arguing that she is driving it and helping it to evolve. There are 82 million moms across the U.S. of all ages. That's right, 82 million. And 26 million of them are mommy bloggers. And they are grassroots, Oprah-like brand advocates with loyal followers who can change the trajectory of a brand and its products.

Identifying Mom is the easy part -- who she is, where she is, and what she likes. The hard part is balancing content with brand messaging and finding the right tone and authenticity. How does a brand build a relationship with her? The more you know about her, the easier it will be to develop programs with her. And "with" is the operative word.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Avi Savar: Social Media Campaigns That Moms Love" »

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You don't have to be Dr. Phil to understand the importance of "listening" to maintain a healthy relationship, but is this a courtesy you apply to the relationships with your customers? More than a third of them don't think so. According to the 2010 Convergys Consumer Scorecard research, 39 percent of customers surveyed said they do not believe that "companies generally listen to and act on customer feedback." Add to that another 45 percent who feel that companies do not "have a good understanding of what customers really experience in dealing with them" and what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Mike Betzer: Customers Want to be Heard... Are you Listening?" »

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Customers have always been a great resource for companies looking to improve upon or create new products and services. And now that social media has been widely adopted, many customers actually expect to participate in the process. What started as a growth in user-generated content has expanded into the product world as companies like Aflac, Dunkin Donuts, and LG Mobile letting customers drive their product innovation.

Continue reading "Research & Development Meets Social Media" »

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