crm posts, articles, and infographics

Good business unit strategy; poor customer experience. What would you do?

March 30, 2011 by MarcSokol with 192 views

Recently I’ve been talking with executives about customer experience and the alignment of marketing, sales and operations functions. Some report success they have seen driving improvement in this area, while others are clearly frustrated. Consider the comments from this executive, who leads a large customer services function,... [read more]

Please Stop Automatically Equating Number of Twitter Followers With Real Influence

February 1, 2010 by Brent Leary with 720 views

Ok... I've gotta blow a little steam off on this one. Last week I received the following tweet: This is a threat...an automated threat... from a guy I'll call WrongMind23... warning me that I will lose him as a follower if I do not come to my senses and follow him back. So instead of making WrongMind go through the arduous task of... [read more]

No Reminder Necessary

December 30, 2009 by Jonathan Salem Ba... with 240 views

This is going to be the week of top ten lists, stunningly visual retrospectives and thoughtful analyses of the decade that is about to end. I don't need to be reminded; I was there. So were the past ten years particularly different or unique when it comes to decades? No, not in the slightest, unless you haven't lived through... [read more]

What Do You Want From MyVenturePad in 2010? Plus “Storms at Sea”

December 14, 2009 by Peter Auditore with 207 views

Comments Required!MyVenturePad is now a community of more than two thousand members since its inception two years ago. First and foremost, MVP, Social Media Today and SAP would like to thank all the bloggers and MVP members for their participation in this vibrant social media peer group focused on the challenges facing small businesses.... [read more]

What is that thing in the CRM punchbowl?

October 21, 2009 by BenBradley with 90 views

Not too long ago, a prospect asked us to review their sales and lead generation programs because lead flow had dropped significantly. This concerned them because they had just finished a significant new product launch with a well- known interactive marketing agency. We agreed to sniff around. Every reptilian instinct in my body wanted... [read more]

Insights & Opinions From BlogWorld 09

October 20, 2009 by David Armano with 204 views

Photo credit: Thekenyeung via FlickrI recently returned from BlogWorld 2009, a mix of business, social media and social events which spanned nearly 4 days taking over much of Las Vegas. It was a flurry of activity and got my gears turning—here's a few things that caught my attention:Sponsored conversations aren't a blogger's biggest... [read more]

5 Keys to Incorporate Social Media in Your Business

September 23, 2009 by Eric Tsai with 459 views

Last week BusinessWeek published its 100 Best Global Brands 2009 and to no surprise, financial brands were largely untrusted, which dragged all brands down with it. Moving forward, brands are rethinking how they can win back the trust focusing on the psychological aspect of marketing and advertising in an attempt to rebuild its... [read more]

CRM is Dead: Customer Intimacy is The Future

July 21, 2009 by Peter Auditore with 582 views

CRM is dead and its history as the most popular shelfware product of the 1990’s helped seal its consignment to the dustbin of small business and enterprise software history. CRM emerged from the book The One to One Future, by Peppers and Rodgers and created a huge technology industry segment, littered with data warehouses,... [read more]

What are your B2B leads doing?

May 19, 2009 by Ardath Albee with 151 views

With B2B digital marketing, measuring KPIs has got to go beyond basic activity. Otherwise it's just clicks. Clicks won't get you anything unless they result in sales somewhere down the trail.This focus on activity without regard to sales is most likely a carryover from the time when digital marketing meant a standalone email campaign... [read more]

Time to Aggregate Social Media

April 15, 2009 by Michele Goetz with 133 views

Let’s take a step back. We are into the second quarter of 2009 and witnessing some of the highest adoption of social media tools ever. For companies, it is time to start looking if social media is panning out like expected. This could be a blog post on metrics and results, but I’m thinking that it may be time to look at how easy it is... [read more]

Industrial Strength Prospect Intelligence

March 20, 2009 by Ardath Albee with 141 views

I was listening to Paul Greenberg giving a webinar yesterday when he used a phrase that really resonated with me: Industrial Strength IntelligenceCRM and marketing automation systems have given us intelligence. Things like a place to record demographic information, email communications and website behavior tied to lead scoring. He... [read more]

Today’s First Step in CRM: Customer Satisfaction & Ethnographic Blogging

March 17, 2009 by Peter Auditore with 228 views

Last week we talked about customer intimacy and the importance of knowing your customer’s personality. Earlier last month I pontificated on business-to- person (B2P) marketing and leveraging social media networks. The next logical step in this discussion is how to leverage Web 2.0 into your marketing and sales activities. The advent of... [read more]

Customer Intimacy, CRM & Thought Leadership

March 13, 2009 by Peter Auditore with 195 views

In the land of sales there are many rules but none more reliable than the first two: ABC (always be closing); and, it’s always easier to sell something to someone that you have sold something to before. In 1993, Don Peppers and Martha Rodgers authored the book The One to One Future, from which the acronym CRM emerged. Their thought... [read more]

Business Side Guide: Social Media Profile Management

March 10, 2009 by Michele Goetz with 131 views

Managing B2B customer information has never been easy. CRM systems are rife with bad data and an inability to manage customer and contact profiles. Add subscription management to this and database marketers are continuously plagued with targeting inaccuracies and redundancy. Enter social media and you could be adding more complexity... [read more]

Should You Spend Your Money On Sales 2.0 Or Sales Training?

March 6, 2009 by Dave Stein with 156 views

Sales training is more than 100 years old. With few exceptions, it’s not very sexy. Many salespeople believe (PDF) they’ve been through enough of it to last a lifetime. For many reasons, most of their managers don’t see any value, so they take a tactical, event-based approach just to check the “trained my people this year” box.On the... [read more]

Not that one could call it a pleasure...

November 3, 2008 by Robin Carey with 182 views

Not that one could call it a pleasure, but I’ve been knee-deep in the effect the current down-turn is having on the economy, thanks to SAP. The global software company, as evidence of its commitment to small and growing businesses, has been conducting a web-based conversation on “Weathering the Economy,” with leading experts... [read more]

A Subversive Meets CRM: My Interview with Paul Greenberg

July 29, 2008 by Robin Carey with 178 views

Paul Greenberg and I have a few things in common: we both like sushi, we like how SAP is transforming itself by its embrace of social media and bloggers, and Jack Kemp remains our favorite Republican. Paul also has given up the barricade-storming of his youth (we probably were at many of the same marches) to throw slings and... [read more]

Using decision management to build loyalty and grow

July 3, 2008 by JamesTaylor with 42 views

Three articles on loyalty caught my eye this week. First 1:1 had a nice piece on Loyalty Equals Growth for Sony. Sony is a company to which many people are already loyal so it was interesting to see that a formal loyalty program was still a priority for them. Talking about their combined CRM and customer loyalty plan the article said:... [read more]

Future of Online Retailing -- Four Predictions

December 9, 2007 by Sam Decker with 71 views

Forrester and Jupiter report that more than 70% of online shoppers seek out user reviews before making a purchase decision. MarketingSherpa reports that 84% of consumers prefer the opinion of other consumers vs. experts. Hundreds of retailers including WalMart, Best Buy, HP, and the Home Depot have followed Amazon’s lead by... [read more]