"New" psychological insights are finally changing the way at least some marketers view customer purchasing behavior. I say "finally" only because, although the psychological insights are new, the psychological knowledge behind them dates back to the mid-20th century. You might say that the light bulb was screwed in decades ago but we've only now stumbled across the pull chain.That's the good news. The bad news is that most marketers continue operating in the dark.I'm referring to life-stage theory, known academically as "epigenetic principles." While Freud dabbled in it, credit for creating this field rightly belongs to Erik Erikson, the highly-respected, psychologist, teacher and author. Erickson fully articulated eight primary life stages and how human behavior changes as we transition from stage to stage..
Maximizer Enterprise 7.5, from
Maximizer Software, is designed to address a CRM challenge that looms large for most small and mid-size companies: identifying customer needs rapidly without having to make huge capital outlays.
The new version of the CRM suite, introduced late last year, integrates customer service and support, sales, contact management and marketing capabilities.
Enterprise 7.5's customer service and support module enables service reps to manage workflow, follow up on inquiries, assign problems to the right individual for handling, and escalate when appropriate. A searchable knowledge base helps resolve issues quickly. Partners as well as customers can create and access service cases through portals built into the customer Web site...
I wish every software marketing statement -- especially in CRM -- was as good as what they used for toothpaste when I was a kid. Thanks to Madison Avenue and having only three networks on broadcast TV, I can almost repeat verbatim the tag line about Crest from memory. "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventative dentifrice when used in a program of oral hygiene and regular professional care."
What was so powerful, and true, about that statement was the acknowledgment that dental health involved a program, a series of interlocking steps that have the goal and end result of a healthy smile. Too often press releases for software companies sound like snake oil promotions in comparison. A few years ago, Al Reiss and his daughter Laura wrote "The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR" and their thesis, as you can gather from the title, was that PR works best, in part because it builds credibility better.
Reaching the Reader
I am not sure it is strictly true that..
Some years ago, I was a keynote speaker for a Direct Marketing Association conference. The organizers had speakers with excellent theoretical knowledge on how to write campaigns, rules for segmenting a database and understanding the key customer touch-points, but they realized they were lacking expertise on what systems people could actually use to enable this. My topic was comparing a mid-priced and low-priced CRM system and explaining when each would be relevant. An executive with a well-known Australian winery came to me for some advice.
The winery dealt with distributors and media in 26 countries, and each played a role in promoting and selling the company's wines internationally. The company was not just renowned for its wine but also for its restaurant, events and food and winery tours. Within these two broad categories, the winery needed to communicate different news to different types of people..
Joshua Mellberg thought he knew his customers. As the senior advisor and owner of Senior Advisors Wealth Management (SAWM), a financial planning service provider for retirees, Mellberg had worked closely with hundreds of older men, women, and couples. He had a clear picture of his customer base: 76- to 80-year-old retired homeowners. However, this knowledge was not helping his company to keep mailing costs down. Informational seminars for potential customers serving as Mellberg's primary business development tool demanded that SAWM send out monthly mailings to attract crowds of new customers. With 45,000 mailings a month costing the company an annual $160,000, Mellberg knew that there had to be a better way to attract an audience.On vacation in Arizona Mellberg met Jovan Will, who told him about his company, CopperKey, a provider of marketing solutions. Mellberg, attracted by the promise that CopperKey could both lower costs and increase response for his mailings agreed to a trial run ..
As the telecommunications industry pursues its much-talked-about claims to refocus on the customer, the market for CRM products and related customer assurance software has seen a resurgence. According to a study released by telecom industry research firm Dittberner Associates, telecom companies spent $997 million on CRM-related software in 2005, and the firm expects spending to increase to $1.3 billion by 2010.The main question for telecom CRM lies in how wireline companies will hold up in a world ruled by iPhones and BlackBerrys. "Wireless carriers are way ahead of wireline carriers," says Dan Baker, research director of Dittberner's OSS/BSS KnowledgeBase. "Wireline companies do not have a new product yet except for [Voice over Internet Protocol] and video-on-demand. Wireline is between a rock and a hard place: The world is going toward wireless services, and one of the problems with wireline companies is [that] for so long they relied [on] and pitched the idea of reliable service..
KnowledgeBase Solutions is jockeying for position in an emerging market with the release this month of version 3.0 of its Web-based self-help and knowledge-management suite. Contenders in this arena need to address such pain points as ease of use, maintenance and improved integration between CRM and case-management applications, as well as portal integration and batch-import functions.
The upgrade puts KnowledgeBase Solutions in shape to continue competing in a sector likely to undergo consolidation in the next few years as the market matures, said Timothy Hickernell, senior program director of Web and collaboration strategies at Meta Group. The knowledgebase segment is populated by 10 to 15 vendors -- none of which dominates -- providing fertile ground for realignment, he told CRM Buyer Magazine.
Hosted or On-Site
KnowledgeBase.net 3.0 combines document and knowledge management with advanced portal and search technology for a competitive price, James Segil, president and ch..
Look up the MSN Encarta Dictionary for the verb "experience" and you will find the following definition:Have personal knowledge of something: to be exposed to, involved in, or affected by somethingFeel something: to feel a particular sensation or emotionAlthough you may not realize it, the definition's focus on personal knowledge, involvement and feelings lies at the heart of every customer experience. It also describes some of the key features of how our brain makes sense out of the things we experience.SenseBernd Schmitt of the EX Group describes how the brain works in his 1999 book, Experiential Marketing. It all starts with the senses. When I walk into my local bakery to buy croissants for breakfast, the first thing that hits me is the blast of warm air when I open the door and the mouth-watering smell of fresh bread..
Just because people love a certain kind of music or enjoy seeing a Broadway show or can't wait to place their next bet doesn't mean they're guaranteed to come back to your venue. That's why entertainment companies are now using the same approach to integrating databases and applications, automating systems to smooth the self-service process, and employing strategies to strengthen customer loyalty as are organizations in such industries as banking, telecommunications, technology, and government. In fact, industry consultants are acknowledging CRM's potential growth within the entertainment industry. David Wolf, a partner responsible for the global entertainment practice at CRM consultancy Accenture, is seeing an uptick in companies' efforts to build their knowledge of customers to then create more effective marketing campaigns. "As digital technologies emerge we're noticing more and more solutions that can go directly to a consumer," Wolf says..
Mass merchandisers are redefining what's needed to launch a product through indirect channels, and the fact that bargain-hunting prospects for many products use the high-priced channels to do research and buy online anyway is making Web product introductions a path to greater profits for manufacturers. Web-based product introductions are the strategy of choice for many manufacturers trying to control the two most critical variables in the marketing mix: products and price.
Manufacturers are finding that consumers don't price shop on the Web as much as many analysts had predicted. In fact, for many manufacturers including Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) , using Web-only specials that are actually higher in price and more differentiated in product features, is a strategy that is working today. The flattening of prices due to pervasive knowledge of competitive pricing via the Web has not happened. In fact, the converse is true for many manufacturers who are pursuing Web-only product introductions..
