Concurrent Computer Improves Marketing Productivity

Concurrent Computer Corporation, a global software with headquarters in Atlanta, has provided high-performance systems enabling time-critical solutions to government and commercial markets for more than four decades. But it wasn't until a  few years ago that its real-time computing business unit gained maximum efficiency in two critical e-Marketing processes-metrics tracking and campaign creation.

Before that time an existing customer support database contained the marketing lists, but did not have the functionality marketers needed to generate segmented lists or to track campaign metrics.

Mary Phillips, Concurrent Real-Time Business Unit Marketing Manager, remembers, "Using lists from a spreadsheet for target marketing was a nightmare every time. There was no structure to the data. Twice a year, we spent hours extracting contact data from excel, sorting them by the campaign's specific target marketing criteria and then manually inputting them into an electronic mailing list format. After the mailing we had to manually update the list with any 'unsubscribers'."

Capturing Valuable Leads

A few years ago, Concurrent implemented the Sage SalesLogix customer relationship management (CRM) system to house sales and marketing lead contacts. Although this enabled direct marketing and was a major improvement, it lacked the ability to easily create HTML emails and track campaign metrics. It could not capture how many emails were opened and by whom, and which recipients clicked on which calls to action.

Marketing and sales needed those metrics to understand e-Marketing performance and improve sales and marketing followup and productivity. For example, marketing wanted to know which industries responded to white papers, which to special offers. And salespeople needed a viable way to prioritize contacts to know which prospect they should place a followup call to first. Answers to these questions and to eliminating time-consuming data uploaded tasks arrived in the form of our e-Marketing product and services.

With our unparalleled e-Marketing capabilities, Concurrent was able to master the science of generating and distributing valuable sales leads. When an email campaign is launched, our product tracks and reports who clicked through to what offer, quickly identifying the customers and prospects who "raised their hands". This sales information was so valuable the team wanted to streamline the interface between the SalesLogix system and the e-Marketing system. So about two years ago, with Concurrent's guidance and beta testing, an electronic interface was created to automatically update the SalesLogix CRM system with the contact-specific data that the e-Marketing system provided. Now, much to Concurrent's satisfaction, e-Marketing campaign metrics tracked are immediately placed in the appropriate hands for analysis and follow-up.

 Facilitating Campaign Effectiveness

In addition to gaining metrics tracking and streamlining CRM updates, the e-Marketing product has also simplified creation of their e-Marketing campaigns.

"I'm not an HTML programmer by trade," says Phillips. But with the e-marketing newsletter tools I can easily generate HTML newsletter layouts, quickly insert the appropriate content and upload the graphics each campaign needs.

Concurrent emails the entire database (about 7,000 contacts) twice a year and may launch 10 campaigns to subsets of various sizes each year. Phillips says images using relevant imagery and content tailored for each audience have proven to be the most effective. She says, "Our e-Marketing campaigns need to appeal to a wide range of industry segments from aerospace to defense to commercial audiences worldwide, the e-marketing product tools make it easy for us to achieve the variety we need." E-Marketing also serves an important role in generating interest in Concurrent's exhibits at tradeshows, which in turn adds leads to the CRM database after the show for sales follow-up.

Phillips credits the e-Marketing product for making a real difference in Concurrent marketing. "Its ease of use for frequent communications lets us constantly nurture customer relationships and has improved our response rate." And with the real-time reporting and analysis capabilities, marketing quickly gets the e-Marketing performance feedback it needs.

Success Driven Service

Concurrent has been pleased with the strong customer service commitment shown by its e-Marketing partner, especially the exceptional responsiveness of its Account Manager. "They always answer any questions I have in a timely fashion," Phillips adds. This conscientiousness reinforces her confidence that e-Marketing guidance is available if and when she ever needs it.

About eProspector

eProspector has been a leader in e-Marketing since 1999. We offer a solution for relationship-based emailing such as to customers and prospects, called eProspector CustomerReachT, as well as a solution for new business lead development, called eProspector.  Most companies need both due to the difference in the compliance requirements as well as email design capabilities. Contact us for more information at www.eprospector.com .