June 20th, 2008 by Brian Cors
I’m losing confidence in email marketing as a primary means of communicating with customers and prospects. Email inboxes are way too full and – despite the best efforts of spam blockers1 – replete with unwanted spam that dilutes the impact of legitimate emails.
All that being said, email marketing is still the least-expensive marketing vehicle available. It’s great for customers and prospects who are already interested in what you have to say (or offer) so that they can stay abreast of your offerings and opinions. To keep them interested in receiving your emails, you must first provide your readers with helpful ideas and information; selling what you have to offer should be a secondary focus.
destinationCRM.com recently published a nice article with 8 tips for sucessful email marketing. They recommend that companies…
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June 7th, 2008 by Brian Cors
The Aberdeen Group has published an interesting white paper entitled “New Approaches to Sales Methodologies and CRM” that discusses the integration of sales methodologies within CRM (customer relationship management) software solutions.
CRM software has always been a great way of tracking customer contact information, customer interaction activities and sales opportunities. However, in many instances organizations are using CRM software to track this information more as a static snapshot of what has happened in the past.
The Aberdeen Group proposes that by integrating sales methodologies within a CRM solution, the CRM solution becomes more of a “dynamic participant” in the sales process by driving sales people through a shared sales process with defined steps and milestones. They propose two ways in which methodologies can improve sales effectiveness and efficiency: opportunity optimization and sales process optimization.
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