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Friday Blog Log
2007-12-14 15:28:00
It's Friday again! Time for a re-cap of some of our favorite blog posts this week.Kevin Hillstrom of Mine that Data started an interesting conversation around the "It" employee--that employee who regardless of clout within a specific organization, still manages to gain respect and get things done. He brings up some interesting thoughts about how a firm can best use this type of leadership and skill-set.Since it's the season for holiday and holiday gifts, this post, Here Comes the Fruitcake, by Drew McLellan hit me as being pretty darn funny and pretty darn true. It sparked some thoughts around how corporate gifts can help contribute (or not) to that firm's brand. Something to ponder in this gift-giving season.We enjoyed this post from Elana Anderson, all about customer retention. She provides five steps to help understand retention. Since her tips were all about analytics and measurement, they are right up our alley. Good stuff!This post definitely resonated with fellow-blogg...
More About: Blog

Checklist: Direct Marketing Segmentation Ideas
2007-12-13 20:56:00
As we work with our clients, it becomes more and more apparent that having an advanced segmentation game plan is important to your success. This is such an important idea that we've written a white paper on this very topic. In today's post, we wanted to give you an overview of our thought-process on this concept. In our humble opinions, if you use analytics, smart business sense and tactical/practical deployment, you'll be able to better target and sell to your customers and prospects.Here's our Checklist for Effective Direct Marketing Segmentation :1. It's all in the Analytics! It's important to have an analyst who not only knows statistics, but who also has an excellent grasp on real business needs and objectives. Oftentimes, we've seen our customers engage really intelligent statisticians who don't understand what the business is attempting to accomplish. This is a recipe for disaster and a lot of wasted time and money. Statistics alone don't get you a lot. Addition...
More About: Ideas , Direct Marketing

Affiliate Marketing or "Kickback"?
2007-12-12 17:14:00
You be the judge.We're all familiar with affiliate/partner marketing in the financial services industry. It's especially prevalent in credit card marketing where it is a common practice for an organization to partner with a credit card provider. The credit card company offers a card "branded" with that organization and markets the personalized card to the organizations' members. Yes, the organization DOES make money from this deal.This type of affiliate marketing is used by major universities, non-profits, professional sports teams--just about any organization that a consumer might have a strong tie to.So, here's the question--should a similar plan be used by student loan firms? New York Attorney Andrew Cuomo certainly doesn't think so. On the heels of yesterday's news (see our blog post for our take on this), where a new student lending code of conduct was announced, comes this story from Florida.Florida Lender to End `Kickback' Ties to Colleges"Student Financial Service...
More About: Marketing , Affiliate Marketing , Affiliate

Direct Marketing for Financial Services
2007-12-11 17:43:00
I've spent a good part of my career helping financial services companies market their loans and other products. So, I'm always on the look-out for news that impacts this industry. Two stories, today, caught my eye. Article #1: Freeze affects mortgage DMThe article discusses how Bush's short-term plan to freeze mortgage rates will negatively impact the struggling mortgage industry. Ok, I know that there is not too much sympathy for mortgage marketers at this point, but bear with me. Here is the new issue in a nut-shell: Since the mortgage industry blow-up, many of the surviving mortgage companies changed their tactics from focusing on adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans to offering fixed-rates loans to holders of ARMs. Now that ARM rates are freezing (based on Bush's plan), they are going to have to switch gears again and some may go out of business.And, this in an industry that has already seen huge declines. "According to Mintel Comperemedia research, the number of mor...
More About: Marketing , Services , Direct Marketing , Financial , Direct

Case Study Monday: Manchester United
2007-12-10 17:20:00
Senior Editor, Chantal Tode, of DM News brings us today's Case Study -- and it's a great one! This Case Study proves once again that when you utilize creativity within your direct mail campaigns, you will achieve excellent response and conversion rates.Situation: As one of the most popular English football teams in the world, selling tickets isn’t an issue for Manchester United . The problem was that season ticket holders weren’t renewing until a few games into the season, delaying cash flow. In addition, the football club wanted to migrate season ticket holders over to its brand-new online ordering service, thereby reducing the significant resources dedicated to processing phone, mail and walk-in orders. Approach: Interactive gift card publisher Serious USA Inc. helped Manchester United develop a direct mail campaign that went out to 60,000 season ticket holders in 28 countries. Approximately 50% of the mailing were mailed to names in the UK, 40% to the rest of Europe and 10% ...

Friday Blog Log
2007-12-07 16:27:00
Welcome to another Friday Blog Log! This is where we highlight some of our favorite blog posts from the week. This week, we'd like to start out with a couple of posts that made us laugh out loud (can't do the LOL thing - sorry). The cool thing about a few of these posts is that they used the best new idea in blogging -- video.1. Robert Rosenthal's The Web 2.0 Bubble Song is Sweeping the Nation. This post is absolutely hilarious, and highlights a group of San Francisco businessmen called the Richter Scales. The song causes us to ponder if the social media bubble will actually burst -- similarly to the dotcom situation. Trust me, this one will tickle your sense of humor!2. Sidecar's Blogger's Union Strike. This video is quite the spoof. It's very funny -- and even more hysterical are the comments attached to the video. Take a look -- and we hope you enjoy it.3. OK, back to the good, solid Direct Marketing stuff . . . Dean Rieck's, Happiness Drives Consumer Behavior. De...

Making Actual Money with Social Marketing
2007-12-06 17:54:00
I'm always on the look-out for examples on how to use social marketing to add to the bottom line. How do you use social networks like Facebook or blogs to sell stuff? How can I add social marketing to my direct marketing arsenal and also prove an ROI to my clients?Well, I was pleased as the proverbial holiday punch to find this article today:'Tis the Season to Be Social : Five Ways to Tap Into Social ShoppingThe article provides some handy lists of tips, including: 5 ways to use social marketing, 3 social shopping factors to understand and get right, 5 social shopping caveats and 5 social shopping metrics to consider. I'm not gonna list all of these tips (each group is fantastic, by the way), but I will list here their 5 ways to use social marketing to actually sell things. All of these tips leverage word-of-mouth to get products noticed and sold.They suggest that retailers participate in "newer forms of social shopping, such as StyleFeeder, Stylehive, Kaboodle, and ThisNext. ...
More About: Marketing , Money

The Changing Landscape of E-Mail Marketing
2007-12-05 21:14:00
During 2007, we have seen our clients integrate more e-mail marketing campaigns into their direct marketing strategy. And, we've had the opportunity to partner with leading e-mail marketing firms -- like Take5 Solutions -- who do e-mail marketing right. The rub is that there is still a lot of spam out there, and there are those companies who don't pay any attention to the whole idea of permission-based marketing. And that is the reason, my friends, that e-mail marketing still has a bad reputation. Just as with the other channels of direct marketing, when done correctly, e-mail marketing has been found to be both highly responsive and a relatively inexpensive channel.Luckily for us, fellow blogger, CEO and founder of mobileStorm, Jared Reitzin, has recently written an article for DM News on how difficult it is to actually get your e-mail message into the desired person's Inbox. According to Reitzin, it's all about building a good e-mail marketer reputation. Doing this will...
More About: Marketing , Mail , Landscape , E-Mail , Changing

Customer Trust is So Important...
2007-12-04 17:29:00
We work so very hard to get our customers to like us, to buy from us and, ultimately, to trust us. Isn't trust really the epitome of customer loyalty?Then you read about customer trust gone awry, as in the case of Target misusing social media. It kills me that one of the few huge corporations that actually buys into the value of communicating with customers and prospects through social networks didn't put into practice what I believe is the very essence of social networking. A little thing called Honesty.From the Star Tribune article: Target, "the Minneapolis-based discount retailer is being outed in online blogs and discussed in college ethics classes after students allied with the company (Rounders) were told to "keep it like a secret" while singing the company's praises on the social network site Facebook.com."Target gave their 'Rounders' discounts, CDs and other prizes for marketing Target products to their Facebook friends and providing the company with feedback.Rounder...
More About: Customer , Trust

Case Study Monday: The Bridge Group and Eloqua
2007-12-03 04:30:00
It's Case Study Monday again -- are you starting to look forward to Monday's yet? All right, call me PollyAnna, but it's always good to be able to learn from a good analysis of how to make our lives better by using proven approaches that net out in positive results. Today, we're going to look at a Case Study from The Bridge Group . Since 1998, The Bridge Group has specialized in building, evolving or validating inside sales strategies for their technology clients. Trish Bertuzzi, President of The Bridge Group, responded to my LinkedIn question about contributing Case Studies -- and we appreciate her response. The Bridge Group has a virtual plethora of really great ones -- check out their website for yourself.This particular case study has to do with how the successful integration between your marketing and sales groups can increase your sales results. As you know, this is an area that we are passionate about. If you can enable effective communication between these two groups, ...

Friday Blog Log
2007-11-30 16:33:00
We are so absolutely lucky to live in an age where there is just so much interesting stuff out there. We can access incredible creativity and great info with just a few clicks.That's why we thought that it was time to introduce a weekly feature where we'll be highlighting blog posts and other things that we find to be interesting. We hope you like what we like!1. Ron Shevlin's: It doesn't take a genius to read this blog. We love Ron's humor! And, in this post, he introduces a pretty nifty site that reviews your website or blog and reports on what reading level it is. For what it's worth, Ron's is graded at high school level, and ours is graded at college level. Hmmmm, what does that say about us, I wonder?2. Avinash Kaushik's Ten More Blog ging Tips from a Novice Blogger. Well, Avinash, for all his modesty, is hardly a novice blogger. He has one of the most popular blogs out there; topic is web analytics. Avinash is passionate about blogging, seems really kind and a...
More About: Friday

Spotlight On: Acxiom
2007-11-29 16:49:00
Welcome to the first monthly "Spotlight On" post! Each month, we will focus specifically on a company within the direct marketing industry that makes news headlines due to their excellent contributions to the DM industry. Additionally, we will seek out those companies who not only bring us great DM solutions, but also perform exceptionally in the customer service arena. We believe that this monthly post will bring a lot to our faithful readers -- and it makes us happy to recognize a company in our industry who we would consider as a good choice to bring to our clients.Today, our spotlight is on Acxiom, who was recently lauded by Forrester Research as a "technology powerhouse." According to the press release, "Acxiom was among only 12 leading database marketing service companies selected by Forrester to participate in 'The Forrester Wave™: Database Marketing Service Providers, Q4 2007' evaluation."So, what did Forrester look at when christening Acxiom with this high praise?...

Green Direct Marketing
2007-11-28 17:53:00
Two very different articles caught my eye this morning, both from DM News.The first: Dreaming of a green christmas? which reports on a stunt by ForestEthics."While Ty Pennington, TV handyman extraordinaire and Sears’ spokeshunk, toyed with his toolbelt in Times Square last week during a Sears Wish Book catalog promotion, Santa and his reindeer tried to call a halt to the action in the name of the environment."Apparently, this stunt was an "attempt to take Sears to task for what it cited as environmental cruelty (the Wish Book is some 200 pages long)." The article goes on to say although the stunt didn't really capture too much media attention, it "does speak to the concerns that catalog marketers are addressing in terms of the environmental impact of their bread and butter."Are consumers sick and tired of all those catalogs? And, do they think about the environment when they open their full mail boxes this time of year? Have no fears--these questions will soon be answered."DMNe...
More About: Marketing , Direct Marketing , Green , Direct , Dire

Queens of the Direct Mail Soapbox!
2007-11-27 18:06:00
Long Live Dire ct Mail ! Say it loud -- say it proud! Really. Guess what? Even though we have a plethora of direct marketing tools in our picnic basket -- and a lot of them are way cool, way sexy -- direct mail is still the most effective way to get your message out. Yep, there's been a new survey conducted about this very topic. A recent article in DM News by Dean Rieck states that:A recent survey by International Communications Research concluded that people prefer receiving things by direct mail. Seventy-three percent of respondents said they prefer receiving new product announcements by mail, versus 18% for e-mail. And, a whopping 86% said they prefer direct mail for official correspondence, such as bills, bank statements and financial reports, compared to 10% for e-mail. For those of us who have long lauded the benefits of highly-targeted, intelligent direct mail, this is music to our ears. Further, Rieck goes on to say that, "fewer people trash unsolicited direct mail w...
More About: Queens , Soapbox

Case Study Monday: Data Assessment
2007-11-26 17:57:00
It's official--we've decided to dedicate each Monday 's post to a marketing case study. Last week we shared how RRW helped a leading telecommunications firm retain and up-sell profitable customers. This week we'll focus on our work with another communications giant and talk about how our analysis of their marketing data helped them optimize their data management strategies.Situation Overview:The database marketing team at AT&T/BellSouth wanted to maximize the value and utilization of their rich internal data stores. They had a general understanding that their customer data was valuable, and that they could potentially be buying unnecessary external data from a variety of similar data sources. They also knew that they needed to understand how the data was being used, what types of programs were being fed by the data, who were the power users of the data, and who was not using the data. They needed to understand current and future data needs and requirements.Solution Over...
More About: Study , Data , Assessment , Case

Direct Marketing: What Are We Thankful For?
2007-11-21 15:42:00
Once again, the year has whizzed by . . . Mom was right (again) about time speeding up on you as you get older. So, here we are on the eve of Thanksgiving, and reflecting on what we have to be thankful for in the world of direct marketing. Come on -- I know that's what you're all reflecting on as you're making those pumpkin pies!For starters, our industry continues to expand. Even with the stumbling economy of 2007, direct marketing spend has continued to grow robustly -- some report as much as 7%. That is great news for all of us! And, in reviewing our client's strategies, it's looking like 2008 will be even stronger than 2007.Second, certain marketing channels are really experiencing great growth spurts. As we discussed in our post yesterday, it's readily apparent that online marketing is continuing to expand. In addition, those companies who utilize a multi-channel approach -- integrating their online marketing with direct mail, for example -- are profiting in a big ...
More About: Marketing , Direct Marketing , Direct , Hank , Dire

'Tis the Season--for SHOPPING!
2007-11-20 17:37:00
"The Internet’s role in the holiday shopping season continues to grow, promising to provide a ray of light in what could be an otherwise dim holiday shopping season.""According to research being released today by Shop.org, which is part of the NRF, and BIGresearch, the Internet will influence 30.2% of holiday sales this year, up from 28.9% last year."This in from today's DM News. Hardly big news that more and more people are enjoying the comforts of shopping from home, or the office. Forget about parking the car in the mall, fighting the hordes to grab that perfect gift. It's so much easier to simply point and click, and, um, give up that credit card number.What I found intriguing about this article was the fact that online merchandisers are learning a few things from their retail brethren. And, in some cases they're taking it a bit farther by using social media tactics to boost marketing effectiveness."72% of online retailers said they are planning a special promotion for ...
More About: Shopping , Season

Retention Case Study
2007-11-19 17:27:00
We've decided to start this week off by sharing a case study. We're pretty proud of this one--RRW helped a leading telecommunications client retain more customers and sell those customers more services.Hopefully, this success story will spark some good direct marketing ideas for you. And, it might give you a feeling for what RRW is all about :)Situation OverviewOur client, one of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) was faced with the following two marketing challenges:They needed to increase cross-sell and up-sell revenues from their large customer portfolio. Their strategy was to develop a “best product path” approach. They knew that if they could predict what was the next logical (and the most profitable) product to offer to each customer, they could improve cross-sell and up-sell results. Just a small increase in performance meant millions of dollars to this communications giant.The Wireless division was faced with increased churn, especially among their most...
More About: Study , Case , Retention

Adding Social Media to your Direct Marketing Strategy
2007-11-16 20:31:00
We've provided a lot of food for thought this week on the use of social media as part of your direct marketing strategy. It's probably quite apparent that we really got a lot of value for the time and money spent at the BlogWorldExpo. If any of the information that we've presented thus far resonates with you, we highly recommend taking part in this conference next year. You get a huge bang for your buck -- that's for certain.To summarize, here are our key takeaways for your consideration:Creating a company blog allows you to demonstrate and discuss your core strengths to both your existing customers, as well as to potential prospects. And it allows them to effectively interact with you -- thus, allowing you to build stronger customer relationships.You can effectively build your customer base through building a community online. At the same time, you are also building the reputation of your business through an effective and thought-provoking blog.You can add to your profitab...
More About: Marketing , Social , Media , Direct Marketing , Marketing Strategy

Building an Online Community
2007-11-15 19:07:00
So, now that we've looked at some successful corporate blogs and some ideas around building profitability using your blog as the catalyst, let's focus on another great session that I attended at BlogWorldExpo: Building an Online Community . This session was led by the two extraordinary entrepreneurs and bloggers pictured here: Wendy Piersall of eMomsathome.com, and Dave Nalle of The Republic of Dave. This was yet another outstanding session. I've capsulized some of what I learned from these fine folks in this post.As direct marketers, we understand the value of effectively targeting your customer base to build loyalty and long-term customers. In the world of Social Media, this happens through the connections that you make online with like-minded people. By building your online community through a company blog, you are encouraging -- if not downright enlisting -- your valuable customers to participate in conversations that you bring up about your company's core competencies....
More About: Unit

Blogging and Profit Potential -- Want to Start a Controversy?
2007-11-14 04:50:00
At BlogWorldExpo, there was an entire track devoted to maximizing the profit potential of your blog. Each session was pretty dang interesting for the simple reason that, as bloggers, we tend to be purists. We want to be different than regular old public relations people. We want to be completely honest and open. For example, there were those who were solidly against ghost-blogging because it wasn't really truthful -- and blogging is all about truth, right?Well, right, unless it's all about profit. Throughout the conference, there were definitely two different schools of thought regarding creating profit through your blog. In a session that I attended called Good to Great: Blogging and Profit Potential, Jim Kukral gave us his ideas on this subject. Kukral is an award winning blogger and online marketing guru who specializes in helping businesses make money online. He is also really smart and quite creative when it comes to getting himself noticed. As a matter of fact, he got...
More About: Start , Controversy

More From BlogWorld: Corporate Blogging
2007-11-13 17:42:00
As promised, here is more from our learnings from the BlogWorldExpo. Again, we think that blogging and social media participation will become imperative to your successful direct marketing strategy.One of the first sessions that I attended was on CEO and Corporate blogging. Needless to say, this was a very interesting session. Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book, did a great job of moderating the session. Corporate bloggers on the panel consisted of Jennifer Cisney from Kodak, Pete Johnson from HP, John Earnhardt from Cisco and Paula Berg and Brian Lusk (AKA BlogGirl and BlogBoy) from Southwest Airlines. So, all in all, a good cross-section of Corporate Bloggers.Here are some of the key learnings from this session -- and we think, excellent ideas to consider when pondering whether or not to start a corporate blog.Blogging is the beginning of a new revolution. Those corporations not jumping into it are not doing so because they are either fearful of losing control...

News from BlogWorld Expo
2007-11-12 16:05:00
We attended the BlogWorld Expo conference last week in Las Vegas. Surprisingly, this event made national news--who would have thought that a bunch of geeky bloggers together in one space could cause such a buzz!Nancy and I attended this conference with two goals in mind:1. How do we add blogging and other social media to our arsenal of direct marketing tools? What can we learn so that we can help your clients in this area?2. Can we learn new strategies and pick up some good new ideas on ways to grow, as our blog matures?Well, this conference accomplished the above, and more! Look for us to add video blogging and some other new things that may surprise you. And, we now have some concrete ideas on ways our corporate direct marketing clients can use new media. Exciting stuff!I wanted to share, today, some tidbits from the opening and closing sessions. Opening Session: Thursday morning, November 8, 2007First of all, consider the setting--hundreds of bloggers, sitting in front of t...
More About: News

OK, Last Time On Hard Rock
2007-11-10 04:45:00
So, not to belabor the point . . . and maybe it's just all of the new ideas that I have from the Blogworld Expo . . . but yet another great customer service experience happened to us again on the last night here in Vegas. So, we went over to the Hard Rock Cafe, which is in front of the Hard Rock Hotel. We ran into another exemplary customer service kid named Emo-Shon. Turns out we both went to high school in San Bernardino. He's quite the nice young man and a darned good sales person.So, that's it -- three strikes they win, and we got a free shot glass out of this encounter. After all these blogs, maybe we should have asked for a free room! Have good weekends all!GO HARD ROCK!
More About: Time , Hard-rock

Customer Service Rocks
2007-11-09 16:42:00
We are continuously reminded of the importance of excellent customer service. How, if you're treated right you may become a rabid fan and loyal customer. Something as small as one employee that goes the extra mile can turn me into a loyal customer for life.Case in point, we're here in Las Vegas, attending the Blogworld Expo (where we're learning all kinds of great things--it's an awesome conference). Last night we went to the conference kick-off party and blog awards, hosted by Pajamas Media. It was a big event (don't even ask me about the many bloggers wearing their PJs and bunny slippers--surreal) held in The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.And, there was a young man there that exemplified excellent customer service. His name is Kurt and he was tending bar for the hundreds of bloggers. Not only was Kurt friendly and responsive to blogger drink requests, he remembered the drinks that each person ordered. So, you'd get about 4 feet away from the bar, and he'd smile at you a...
More About: Customer Service , Service , Customer , Rocks

What Makes YOU Unique?
2007-11-08 09:10:00
It’s not easy differentiating yourself these days. Day after day, we see our client’s struggling to make their messages unique to their customers . . . trying to ensure that their message is heard in the sea of competitive messages out there. So, when we come across a business that has truly found their niche, where they have differentiated themselves from the competition, we have to write about it. We’re talking about the Hard Rock Hotel. We’re here in Las Vegas to attend the BlogWorld Expo, and were lucky (or smart) enough to book rooms at the Hard Rock. In a sea of thousands of look-alike hotel rooms, tons of casinos each with their unique theme and look, we believe that the Hard Rock has been able to really stamp their brand and differentiate themselves. The ambiance hits you just as soon as you enter the building. Music blares (no stupid elevator music either—music you actually WANT to listen to. The requisite rock ‘n roll memorabilia surrounds ...
More About: Unique

Do-It-Yourself Database
2007-11-07 17:11:00
Just the other night I dreamed that I purchased a book called "HTML for Dummies" (not sure that this title even exists) in the hopes that I could take over our company's website updating. Even in my dreams I'm sick of relying on someone else to make minor updates, add newsletters, whitepapers, etc. I want to do it myself.Then, today, I read this recap of a speech given by Donald Feinberg, a Gartner analyst who spoke at the Teradata Partner conference. The article from "IT Business" states: "The relationship between IT and business is changing says a Gartner analyst, and IT must follow business' lead." It goes on to relate how business is no longer willing to accept whatever database their IT group provides to them. The point of the speech was to encourage IT people and others responsible for database design to think about rebuilding database systems to accommodate changing business needs. "Speaking at Partners, the annual user conference of data warehousing vendor Teradata,...
More About: Database

More on Direct Marketing and the Issue of Trust
2007-11-06 19:26:00
In a recent post, we spoke about the importance of creating trust through our direct marketing efforts. With trust, it is more than talking about it -- it's about proving it. As a matter of fact, esteemed consultant, speaker, writer and fellow blogger, Charles Green, has built his whole business on this very subject.The following is an excerpt from Green's website, Trust ed Advisor Associates:Based on our experience with sales and advisory organizations, five statements seem true: The single greatest factor affecting sales and business success is the level of trust in the customer relationship.The level of trust between businesses and customers is very low these days.Business focuses too much on competition—and not enough on customers.Business has gotten very good at faking trust—which is cynical, and inevitably destroys trust.Genuine trust-based relationships are based on a desire to see the customer succeed—not on a desire to achieve sustainable competitive adva...
More About: Marketing , Direct Marketing , Direct , Dire

What are you worth?
2007-11-05 16:49:00
We recently posted on the hiring trends in the direct marketing industry (it remains fairly rosy), and we've commented on how certain marketing specialists (such as data analysts) will continue to be sought after and well-paid. But, it's always interesting to see what's going on, salary-wise, in the market.From today's NY Times: Workers Say They're Underpaid -- But Are They Right?"According to Salary.com's 2006/2007 Employee Job Satisfaction and Retention Survey, 62 percent of employees plan on looking for a new job in the next three months. Dissatisfied employees have cited a variety of reasons for their desire to leave their company, including lack of opportunity for advancement, no recognition for achievements, insufficient benefits and even boredom.Trumping all reasons for why employees want to leave their current job is that they think they are underpaid. Nearly 50 percent of employees cited inadequate compensation as the primary reason they want to walk out the door. To...
More About: Worth , Wort

More on CRM Success
2007-11-02 17:02:00
This post could possibly be called a "no-brainer" post. By that, I mean that these CRM metrics seem so obvious to me that they should not even have to be articulated. However, we've all seen CRM systems fail, so perhaps it can't hurt to have another discussion on ways to make your CRM system a success. From yesterday's "DM News":A CRM value system: Five metrics of successThe article fleshes out "five key values that define the critical path to success in any implementation." Here's a brief overview:Strategic alignment: "A company must implement a CRM solution that is strategic and aligned with its goals."User Involvement: "Solutions should be implemented so that they are accepted and embraced by all system users."Improved Process Effectiveness: "CRM must automate business processes and formalize best practices that will improve the overall effectiveness of the company’s sales, marketing and customer support efforts in a way that aligns with the business’ goals."Informat...
More About: Success