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Fall 2009 Issue
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Home of WiseGuysTM, 2006 NCDM Natl. Database Marketing Award Winner
Dear Friends, 
Less is
more. Skilled designers have been saying this for decades.
Many CRM vendors don't seem to have got the message. But we have.
This month we feature the launch of our new WiseGuys CRM Messaging
solution – and make the case that bigger is not necessarily
better. Adjunct Professor, Marketing Information Systems
Perhaps the author should research the world of expensive CRM applications. With many deployments taking years, is it any wonder that Forrester and others have found that half of all CRM deployments fail to meet original objectives? It seems that over time, we have strayed from the original model for CRM: our great-grandfather’s corner grocery store, who put the customer at the center of the business relationship. He knew each customer’s buying habits, and responded accordingly when the customer entered the store. Of course the corner grocery does not scale to today’s versions of Amazon.com. But where Amazon has succeeded – and others have largely failed – is to keep it simple for users. A favorite CRM textbook in our graduate marketing class at Johns Hopkins is from Francis Buttle, who makes this point succinctly: “Nobody ever buys a lawnmower because they want a lawnmower; people want attractive lawns. Products are means to ends.” Form (still) follows function. That indeed is our goal with the new WiseGuys CRM messaging launch – read on and see if you agree.
Here
are answers to some of the questions we’re hearing most often about
WiseGuys CRM:
Q: Is
WiseGuys CRM a Sales Force Automation (SFA) package? A: No – although it has unique B2B marketing capabilities. SFA started as the most common
niche for CRM software (and dominates to this day), but it is not the
focus of WiseGuys CRM. WiseGuys fits into the category of CRM Marketing
Automation.
Q: What is meant by CRM
Marketing Automation? A: Francis Buttle, in
“Customer Relationship Management: Concepts and Technologies,” describes
this as event-based trigger marketing used to launch messaging and offer
presentation to customers at particular points in time. The advantage that
WiseGuys CRM brings is that it not only triggers the communications, but
it measures the results.
“More to the point - and this is the hallmark of a
good small business - David Raab, Raab
Associates
Q: What
else qualifies the re-launch of WiseGuys as a CRM tool? A: WiseGuys fulfills the promise
of 1-to-1 marketing first described by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers a
decade ago. Research by ATG Services has shown that, even with advances in
technology, 3/4 of consumers want personalized product recommendations,
but only 1/4 of marketers offer them. WiseGuys CRM has begun to fill that
void. In fact, our early results show up to a 30% response rate from
1-to-1 email campaigns. Q: Can
you give examples of 1-to-1 messaging that WiseGuys CRM
provides? A: Yes - here are some common examples:
“All marketing
media can be full analyzed within one tool Q: What
type of organizations can benefit from WiseGuys CRM? Q: What
are the unique B2B capabilities of WiseGuys CRM? A: DMSI recognized early on how
business-to-business marketers struggle with data consolidation –
specifically, rolling up transactions and reporting to the business site. WiseGuys has achieved
significant innovation to meet this challenge. All of our RFM targeting,
matchback/response reporting, LTV analysis, and personalized messaging can
now identify either the business entity, each customer at the business
entity, or both. You can now
have a true 360 degree view of your customer accounts – which can be very
hard to get otherwise.
Q: Is
data mining a part of the WiseGuys CRM solution? A: Yes, in a big way. Most
marketers are familiar with the recommendation engine that made Amazon.com
famous. (“People who bought
Product A also bought... ")
WiseGuys
CRM includes an algorithm that is quite similar. Step 1 calculates the correlation
between items sold, using your own database (e.g., softballs often are
purchased with bats). Step 2 launches an email promotion
to people who bought softball bats within the last 3 days, offering a
softball.
Note:
this can be trickier than you would think... People who buy bats might be
likely to buy balls, but people who buy balls might be more likely to buy
a glove than a bat. This is one reason WiseGuys software is so useful – it
does this analysis for you.
Q: How
much training is needed to use WiseGuys CRM? A: As little as 4 hours will get you started. After initial configuration,
WiseGuys CRM messaging can be auto-scheduled to run each night, with
little or no operator intervention. For the analysis of your campaign
results, you will probably want help interpreting your reports and we are
happy to do that – it will make it easier for you to see the full power of
the metrics you can get from WiseGuys.
Q: How
will I know if WiseGuys CRM can jump start my marketing
results? We
are always happy to recommend marketing students and staff who can help
your marketing success. This issue we highlight a colleague whom we have
worked with for a decade.
Feedback from Our Readers:
3814 Bent Branch Road Web site: www.DesktopMarketingInc.com All contents are Copyright © 2009 Desktop Marketing Solutions, Inc. unless otherwise indicated. |
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Finally, a CRM solution that
works for small business – one that you can count on to bring in more
revenue. 
As I was working
with our team on the WiseGuys launch, I read a fascinating article in
Wired magazine entitled " 
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