Percassity Marketing Data Solutions
| perspectives |
Happy New Year and welcome to the sixth edition of Percassityperspectives.

In this issue, we highlight fines levied in the UK for data privacy breaches and examine trends in social media marketing. As economies worldwide continue to emerge from recession, Marketing must embrace the full range of digital and social media tools to retain effectiveness.

We also have a guest contribution looking at some key considerations regarding vertical specific CRM solutions, together with a quick update on what we’ve been up to ourselves, information on forthcoming events and a round-up from the web.

We hope you find Percassityperspectives useful, keep sending your comments and experiences to perspectives@percassity.com.

Yours sincerely,

Percassity Marketing Data Solutions

News Round-up

Information Commissioner’s Office shows it’s (new) teeth
Employment services firm A4e have been handed a £60,000 fine by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office in connection with the loss of personal information, under new powers granted to the ICO last April.

A laptop containing unencrypted data, issued to an A4e employee, was subsequently stolen, resulting in the loss of sensitive personal information including names and addresses, dates of birth, income levels and details of alleged criminal activity. "We acted very swiftly after the incident in June,” A4e chief executive Andrew Dutton said, “including making a voluntary report to the ICO.” The company also informed the individuals whose information had been lost.

Separately, the privacy watchdog also levied a fine of £100,000 on a local council for accidentally faxing information about cases involving child sex abuse to the wrong recipients.

Our take: the Information Commissioner’s Office has wasted no time in exercising its new powers. Even though the full force of the maximum £500,000 penalty has not yet been unleashed, organisations clearly need to start taking privacy and security very seriously.

Marketing still struggling with social media?
According to a new study from digital marketing and media research firm Emarketer, nearly nine in ten marketers in the US will be using social media by the end of 2012. Meanwhile, nearly half of marketers polled by digital platform provider EpiServer admitted that they would concentrate their investment in email campaigns and their company websites in the future, having struggled to effectively measure return-on-investment in social media. This is borne out by research from Wildfire PR, who found that fewer than one in ten marketers actively monitor return-on-investment from social media activity.

This apparent discrepancy in approach to social media serves to highlight the ongoing confusion over how best to embrace it. Even big players like Macdonald’s appear confused, recently mistaking an increase in store check-ins to the Foursquare service during a promotion for a lift in foot-traffic. Part of the problem might lie in additional findings from some of the research mentioned above, relating to where responsibility for social media lies. According to the Wildfire PR survey, half of respondents thought the marketing department owned the social media strategy, whilst one fifth thought the IT department should have responsibility.

Our take: The long-term trend is towards social communication, with one-way, outbound communications becoming steadily less effective. Whilst embracing new technology should never be done for the sake of it, or for appearances, there’s no reason that social media can’t be measured with the same rigour as other techniques. There are a plethora of tools, many free, for achieving this, and this is where Marketing has a responsibility to focus its efforts.

Opinion

Deciding on a vertical-specific CRM solution – straight-up choice?
Kate Mayfield, Mayfield Solutions
Generally speaking, vertical-specific CRM systems, or those CRM modules in applications that have other functions as their primary purpose, are weaker solutions compared with generic CRM pure-play systems. Depending on the circumstances though, the benefits of using a solution that is pre-integrated with back office systems can offset that weakness. An auto dealer, for instance, may feel that integration with back office ordering and logistics systems is an important factor as they often have sophisticated logistics and need to extend the benefits of CRM into those logistical systems, as much as they need to extend CRM benefits into improved customer relationships.
 
The weaknesses of integrated solutions vary but can typically include:
  • Old-fashioned and unintuitive interfaces This is more important than it first appears, as it makes user adoption much harder and can lead to CRM failure. The degree to which this matters, depends on the individual organisation and its ability to get sales people to follow a set procedure. If the solution makes it expensive to train people, needs specialist external help and there is a high staff-turnover, this can be a significant problem.
  • Expensive relative to mass market CRM The latest Microsoft Dynamics CRM is likely to cost under £30 per user per month (hosted - so there are no hardware or maintenance costs). This makes it much cheaper even than Salesforce.com and compared to some vertical-specific, integrated solutions, this represents a huge saving.
  • Low on functionality Modern solutions have a plethora of functionality covering many facets of CRM requirements, which are often lacking in systems where vendors have more limited development resources and are focused on non-CRM developments. That said, given that so many implementations only utilise a small part of a system’s capabilities, that isn't always a bad thing. There are many cases of being seduced by features that never get used.
  • Marketing functionality in particular can be very weak Support for activities such as performing queries, email marketing and response management are often substantially below best-in-class and even generic CRM is not as strong in this area as pure-play marketing databases. Again, whether that matters depends on specific requirements. Third-party application/database solutions may make up for this.
Another consideration when comparing modular CRM add-ons to other solutions is whether the core system can be integrated with a different CRM system if it were decided that the modular add-on CRM functionality is inadequate. Some older applications can be very challenging to integrate with other software; new-breed SaaS solutions often have open APIs that make connecting easier but only with other similarly built applications. Note, easier, but not easy - integration is often a point of great complexity and thus risk in CRM implementations but we often assume integration is needed more than it is.

In summary, when considering vertical-specific versus general CRM solutions, ensure a thorough set of requirements are developed, including any integration requirements, pitch the specialist solution in question against other mass market systems and see which is best for the job. And be assured that going to this effort will ultimately be the most cost-effective approach and help ensure that the CRM solution you choose will do what it needs to do.
Percassity Developments
New Year, new clients!
2011 has got off to a flying start with new clients Divine Chocolate and Taleo. Farmer-owned Fairtrade chocolate makers Divine have asked Percassity to undertake a database enhancement and email system review. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it! Meanwhile, we’ll be undertaking a data assessment and campaign execution project for Taleo, a Talent Management and Recruitment Software vendor. Watch this space for more details…

New Year, new website!
In order to better reflect our evolving on-demand Marketing Operations expertise offering, we’ve refreshed our website, with a new page design and simplified content. We hope this will make it easier to understand how Percassity helps Marketing tackle the data and technology challenges it faces, without incurring the full cost and commitment of a permanent member of staff. Let us know what you think!

New Year, new article!
Once again invited to contribute to Database Marketing magazine’s annual What lies ahead feature, Simon contends that inbound marketing is a key theme. Given the increasing challenges of achieving cut-through in outbound marketing, optimising inbound interaction will be the next crucial skill-set for Marketing to develop. Read more, together with contributions from fellow industry practitioners.

Events
Forthcoming marketing operations and insight themed events and networking opportunities.

Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 31 January-1 February & Customer Relationship Management Summit 14-15 March 2011, London
Gartner’s annual BI and CRM conferences featuring high profile keynote speakers, analyst presentations, case studies and more.

Social Media Week, February 7-11, London, New York and elsewhere
Biannual weeklong global conference connecting people, content and conversation around emerging trends in social and mobile media.

Marketing Technologies & Tactics Summit, February 8, 2011, Waltham, MA
A day of cutting edge marketing technology education from the New England Direct Marketing Association (NEDMA).

The State of Digital Marketing, February 10, 2011, New York
Lunch event examining the outlook for digital marketing with speakers including Stephanie Miller, VP, Digital Messaging Solutions at Aprimo.

An Audience with Rory Sutherland, 16 February 2011, London
Institute of Direct Marketing evening learning and networking event featuring the latest industry observations from IPA President and Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy Group UK Rory Sutherland.

Technology For Marketing & Advertising 1-2 March, London
Two-day exhibition covering a wide range of topics to do with data, CRM, digital and direct marketing solutions, together with a seminar programme and networking bar.

Email us with details of events you would like to be included in the next issue of Percassityperspectives.

Elsewhere on the web...
Our pick from the blogosphere and twitterverse. Let us know of anything interesting you've read that we should include next time.

B2B Sales and Marketing analysts SiriusDecisions, in their blog post United We Stand: Aligning B2B Sales and Marketing Budgets make the radical suggestion that (shock!) the two departments work together to secure sufficient budgets, rather than squabbling over funds.

This useful (if rather long) piece on the role of permission in email marketing is worth a look if you’re reviewing your email strategy for 2011: The permission gamble: can you send more email safely?

Finally, some pertinent questions from Brian Carroll (@brianjcarroll) on the importance of lead qualification in his post Want a Bigger Marketing Budget? Send Less Leads to Sales.

And our Featured Tweet is courtesy of Jim Harris: To grow incrementally, be competitive, to grow exponentially, be collaborative.

Send us anything you’ve come across that you’d like to share. And don't forget to follow Marketing Insight Guy @mktginsightguy for regular Tweets on marketing data strategy and marketing operations.

Recruitment
Situations vacant. Contact us if you have a role you'd like featured.

Senior Data/Comms Strategist
This top ten, high profile and eminently award-winning TTL agency is looking for a hybrid data and comms planner with experience of delivering CRM strategies for brands across multiple channels. London. £60k + bens. Direct Recruitment

Centralised Decisioning Lead
Strong project management skills required in marketing solutions/analytics to head up this fast growing area within a major UK & international consultancy. London. £85-£95k base. McGraw Stone Consulting

Strategic Insight Consultant
Excellent commercial and client facing skills required to support the sales and client teams of leading international marketing services agency. London. £80K plus excellent benefits. Jobsworth Recruitment

About Percassity Solutions
Co-founded by former Gartner colleagues Simon Daniels and Charles Eaton-Hennah, Percassity Marketing Data Solutions provide expert Marketing Operations resources to businesses. As well as undertaking specific projects, we work with clients in a longer-term on-demand capacity, joining their Marketing teams and providing marketing operations resource and expertise without the full cost and commitment of a permanent member of staff.

Our skills span data strategy and analytics, marketing technology, process implementation and governance. We’d relish the opportunity to demonstrate how we can help you with the challenges you face in your organisation. Call or email us - we’re always happy to chat over a cup of coffee!

Put us to the Percassity 3 in 30 Challenge!
In as little as thirty minutes, we’ll discuss the challenges you are facing with marketing data strategy and marketing operations, and come back to you with three suggestions for improving your marketing effectiveness.



Request your Percassity 3 in 30 Challenge session and take the first step towards solving your marketing data strategy and marketing operations issues.
Percassity Marketing Data Solutions Ltd

Suite 27, 61 Praed Street, London, W2 1NS, United Kingdom | +44 (0)20 7193 7682

perspectives@percassity.com | www.percassity.com | @mktginsightguy

Percassity Marketing Data Solutions