Customer Data

For more than 15 years -- since the dawn of the Internet, really -- display advertising has held promise, but it has often underperformed with boring, static banner ads whose value diminished greatly as consumers became trained to ignore them. Today, innovative technologies are pumping new life into...

As companies head out into the brave new post-recession world, the top two goals for marketers are organic revenue growth and margin growth. To help achieve these objectives, marketing budgets grew by an average of 4 percent for 2011. The crucial question, then, is this: How do CMOs invest that mar...

The online shopping cart has become as much of a wish list as anything, giving consumers a place to store, compare, consider and dream about potential purchases. E-tailers, however, would like to see those potential purchases become actual ones, and they're coming up with increasingly sophisticated ...

Developing good relationships with your customers pays off when all is going well -- but it can also pay big dividends when things go very wrong. In fact, as a recent case illustrates, those relationships nurtured through CRM can set the tone for your corrections and preserve your business. The busi...

A lot of information is coming together this quarter that begins to put a new spin on social CRM. While we've all been busy getting networked in our personal lives and professionally, a huge mountain of data has been accumulating that will make our work in social technology more valuable. Last week...

On July 5, Pitney Bowes announced it had received acceptances for over 90 percent of the existing issued ordinary shares of Portrait Software, a leading provider of solutions that focus on enhancing customer relationship management systems and enabling clients to achieve improved customer retention ...

In May and June of 2010, Aberdeen surveyed more than 260 executives regarding their plans for the second half of 2010 and the first half of calendar 2011. The results were clear and compelling -- marketing's ability to access and understand customer experience data means success or failure for compa...

Do you want to close more sales? Do you want to sell more to existing customers? Do you want to get closer to your users online so you can know what they are thinking? A virtual agent could be an effective way for you to do all of the above. What is a virtual agent? Technically, a virtual agent ...

Marketing data does yet not evolve the way individuals evolve. The inability for marketers to quickly adapt to rapid changes in how their customers behave is undermining the effectiveness of their communications. How, then, can what is learned about an individual be leveraged into a better experienc...

The relationship between a business and its customers is determined by the interchanges that occur between them. These interactions are complex. They occur over a wide range of communication channels, such as phone, email, Web and text, including some outside of organizational control like social me...

When CRM first came into being -- before it was even an acronym -- it was intended as a way to streamline and organize some very basic and essential processes and data. Those underlying features are still there today, and we take them for granted. Once things like contact information, sales historie...

Few marketers would argue against the importance of relevant, timely, personalized marketing communications. In fact, research has consistently proven the value of personalizing marketing messages by segmentation, targeting, or one-to-one messaging. Personalized email campaigns generate two to thr...

There's an adage in the CRM industry that every successful CRM implementation is customized in some way. That may not be as much of an absolute as it once was. But, in order to gain a true competitive advantage from CRM, your business needs to find ways to use it differently than your competitors do...

The big question as we move through 2010 may be, "What does the future hold?" But really, the past year will give us a clearer glimpse into the future than any crystal ball possibly could. 2010 is the year of the customer. December 31st, 2009, marked the end of one of the toughest years companies h...

Consider the advantages of joining an airline frequent flier program: The more you travel, the more points you earn. On the other hand, the more you travel, the more likely your baggage will be lost. Or the airline will still charge a fee for converting frequent flier points into a "free" extra trip...