Automated Marketing Enhances Customer Relationship ...



Overview

Country or Region: United States

Industry: Information Technology

Customer Profile

Founded in 2000, Britemoon’s 25 employees provide businesses with scalable, customized e-mail and campaign management solutions that integrate seamlessly with all major customer relationship management (CRM) platforms.

Business Situation

Britemoon saw the potential for increased sales by complementing the sales and customer service components of Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM with an integrated marketing solution.

Solution

Britemoon created a solution that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft CRM and adds easy-to-use, flexible, automated marketing technology to help businesses develop and measure the effectiveness of ongoing communication with customers.

Benefits

■ Access to new sales channels

■ Integrated marketing automation

■ Support for cross-sell efforts

■ E-mail campaign execution

| | |"Microsoft TAP offers us an opportunity to start mapping our solution specifications to what Microsoft is building—a significant, competitive advantage in the marketplace."

Jeff Janer, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Britemoon, Inc.

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| | | |Britemoon has been providing businesses with customized e-mail and online marketing solutions since |

| | | |2000. With the first release of Microsoft Business Solutions CRM (now part of Microsoft Dynamics™), |

| | | |Britemoon recognized the potential for an enhanced customer relationship management (CRM) solution |

| | | |that added robust marketing functionality to the application's sales and service components. |

| | | |Britemoon's solution seamlessly integrates with Microsoft CRM, increasing the value of information in|

| | | |Microsoft CRM by using customer profile data to build more effective relationships with customers |

| | | |through online marketing campaigns, as well as providing a more detailed picture of customers and |

| | | |prospects. Britemoon's commitment to Microsoft CRM has helped Britemoon grow its sales by providing |

| | | |access to the Microsoft reseller channel and opportunities to participate in technology initiatives |

| | | |that help Britemoon continue to develop its solution. |

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Situation

Britemoon was founded in early 2000 to provide businesses with marketing automation software. Although Britemoon's software can be implemented as a stand-alone system, combining its solution with a CRM application adds powerful online marketing capabilities to sales and customer services processes.

In just four years, Britemoon's software has gained significant momentum in the marketplace, offering a unique set of features and functionality that sets it apart from its competitors, including complex e-mail campaign capabilities, multichannel marketing management, Web forms data capture and analysis, and integration with all customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and content management systems.

Today, Britemoon's 200 customers range from large enterprise clients at the corporate or division level to mid-size businesses. Britemoon's customers are located primarily in the United States, with a growing number in Europe and Asia. The company sells about 70 percent of its software through various channels, and an internal sales team handles about 30 percent directly.

With the release of Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM, Britemoon saw another opportunity to expand its rapidly growing customer base further and increase revenues through a new sales channel—Microsoft CRM resellers.

"We provide e-mail and campaign management solutions," says Jeff Janer as he describes Britemoon's "elevator" pitch. "In the Microsoft CRM partner community, there are a couple of other integrated campaign management solutions, but at the moment, there are no other e-mail execution partners. That's a nice place to be."

"A classic CRM offering has three components: sales automation, customer service, and marketing," says Jeff Janer, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development for Britemoon, Inc. "We saw an opportunity to function essentially as the e-mail and campaign management solution for Microsoft CRM."

Solution

Britemoon for Microsoft CRM adds robust marketing functionality that helps companies take advantage of valuable customer information to better target and gain further reach with prospects and customers. In addition, businesses can establish personalized, two-way communications that help build brand loyalty and create cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Britemoon for Microsoft CRM also:

■ Creates unique, personalized e-mail campaigns directed at specific target audiences.

■ Uses pre-built templates to create and manage marketing campaigns.

■ Executes e-mail campaigns automatically as new prospects and customers opt in.

■ Measures marketing campaign success.

■ Takes advantage of information captured from Web site data-capture forms and tracks transactions to provide closed-loop marketing communications automatically.

This flexible, Web-based technology is available through a license from Britemoon, or as a hosted service—eliminating the need for any hardware investment. Data is stored in a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 database separate from Microsoft CRM data. Seamless integration between the two at the data level helps enable users to access the data they need, when they need it, without having to wade through enormous marketing profiles and activity lists.

For the hosted service, onsite implementation at the customer's location is minimal. Britemoon or its partner simply adds a few isv.config files to the Microsoft CRM server, which enable marketing activity tabs and fields to appear in Microsoft CRM. A small SQL Server database is installed on the same server as the Microsoft CRM database. This local database serves as a temporary location for data as it is synchronized between the customer's Microsoft CRM application and the data managed in a larger SQL Server database—a separate instance for each customer hosted at Britemoon.

Also, an administrator user interface is installed, which makes it easy for the customer's system administrator to deploy updates or map new data fields to Microsoft CRM as business requirements change. Initial deployments typically take two to three weeks.

Britemoon for Microsoft CRM can be extended to integrate with additional business systems. For example, businesses can link to companywide content management systems to re-purpose content for e-mail campaigns or feed data into reporting and analytic engines that can further insight into marketing and sales performance.

Benefits

Through Britemoon's partnership with Microsoft, the company has realized a number of benefits, including access to new sales channels and opportunities to participate in joint technology initiatives.

Access to New Sales Channels

Britemoon, a Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner, now has access to a much larger sales channel for its Britemoon for Microsoft CRM solution. "We are very committed to channel sales. We've identified about 150 of the 1,500 resellers and are actively talking to them about our solution. We'd like to be included when these partners are responding to a Microsoft CRM opportunity that has a marketing component," says Janer.

Gaining recognition with Microsoft resellers takes time, but Britemoon is optimistic that the unique functionality the solution adds to Microsoft CRM will help them succeed. Janer says, "Most Microsoft resellers have a great deal of experience with Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains®, so they know more about back-office systems than marketing. We do a lot of ‘missionary' work around the importance of marketing automation for a comprehensive Microsoft CRM solution."

In addition to working with Microsoft resellers, Britemoon has been brought in by Microsoft directly as a partner at the national account level, providing even more opportunities for Britemoon to implement its marketing automation solution in combination with Microsoft CRM.

Integrated Marketing Automation and E-mail Execution

Although Britemoon for Microsoft CRM integrates with Microsoft CRM at the data level, the marketing data resides in a separate SQL Server database. The Britemoon database primarily tracks e-mail activity, such as bouncebacks. But it also tracks what a recipient does with an e-mail message or a Web data-capture form. That information can be tracked by a unique identifier, typically an e-mail address. Britemoon links that data with the profile data in the Microsoft CRM database to create a complete view of a customer—accessible on a single screen from within Microsoft CRM.

Microsoft CRM users can view an individual's multichannel campaign history, including e mails, direct mail, telemarketing, and other communications. This information can be used to refine and synchronize future campaigns to that customer, maximizing their effectiveness.

The data in Microsoft CRM can be used to create unique, personalized e-mail communications with content based on individual profiles and purchasing histories. Data from Web forms, such as registrations, profiles, and preferences, can be integrated with Microsoft CRM and used to provide closed-loop marketing programs that respond or fulfill requests almost immediately. For example, a request for a white paper from a company Web site would trigger an e-mail response with a link or document attachment.

Britemoon for Microsoft CRM guides users through the process of creating and executing marketing campaigns with easy-to-use wizards that help identify recipients, segment audience, add content, set schedules, and personalize e-mail messages. Britemoon for Microsoft CRM also provides extensive reporting capabilities, including campaign reports that track the number of e-mail messages sent, bouncebacks, clickthroughs, and unsubscribes.

"With Britemoon for Microsoft CRM, we provide mid-size businesses with the capabilities to execute on a marketing strategy that will help them generate brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and reduce marketing expenses by more effectively using data and personnel," says Janer.

Support for Cross-Selling and Up-Selling Efforts

Cross-selling and up-selling products and services are a major source of sales revenues for companies, and Britemoon for Microsoft CRM has been designed to support such sales initiatives. Because Britemoon tracks clickthroughs from e-mails and Web forms, measures conversion transactions (such as purchases and donations), and associates that information with individual profiles, marketing and sales teams can evaluate the success of previous campaigns and fine-tune marketing strategies to better target cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

For example, Britemoon for Microsoft CRM can combine the profile data from Microsoft CRM for all customers who live in Massachusetts with activity data that indicates whether an individual would be interested in a particular offer. By developing a marketing campaign targeting customers who completed a Web form requesting product information or who clicked on a certain link in an e-mail message, a marketing team can anticipate a high rate of positive responses.

Participation in the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program

Britemoon's unique business and technical expertise is one reason the company is participating in a Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for Microsoft CRM. TAP participants include a core group of key customers and partners who are early adopters of key Microsoft technologies. Britemoon is working with a marketing automation task force to understand the level of built-in marketing functionality that will ship with Microsoft CRM version 2.0. As a result, Britemoon has an early start on the next generation of its own Microsoft CRM version 2.0 solution. "Microsoft TAP offers us an opportunity to start mapping our solution specifications to what Microsoft is building—a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace," says Janer.

Customer Success Story

One customer that has benefited from Britemoon's solution for Microsoft CRM is a leading provider of software technology located in the Northeast region of the United States. Although was being used to help manage customer relationships, the company recognized the need for a CRM solution with enhanced capabilities, such as integration with powerful marketing functionality and seamless Microsoft Outlook® integration—online and offline.

offered limited Outlook functionality and could not be easily integrated with marketing applications. The company moved to the more flexible Microsoft CRM and chose Britemoon over other marketing automation suppliers because of its robust e-mail and campaign management, competitive pricing structure, and promise of tight integration with Microsoft CRM.

Today the marketing team uses Britemoon for Microsoft CRM to generate e-mail campaigns and track responses based on activity data and Microsoft CRM customer data. In fact, in the four months since implementing the solution, marketing has generated more than 15 successful e-mail campaigns, ranging from 50 to 20,000 e-mail messages, and has sent out more than 20,000 online newsletters—an increase in marketing activity over previous months.

At a more granular level, this customer has experienced the following benefits from the combined Britemoon and Microsoft solution:

■ Easy, faster setup and execution of personalized e-mail campaigns

■ Better prospect and customer activity tracking of e-mail responses and data-capture Web forms

■ Reduced effort to comply with anti-spam legislation by tracking unsubscribes and opt-outs, and recording that information in Microsoft CRM customer profiles

■ Added ability to host large files, such as newsletters, for use in online campaigns

■ Reduced traffic on the company network by using a hosted service

■ Excellent implementation and technical support from Britemoon

After a year of offering Britemoon for Microsoft CRM, Britemoon remains committed to helping businesses integrate their valuable marketing and sales data for more targeted and successful initiatives with customers. With the company's four years of business and technical expertise, commitment to Microsoft CRM and rapidly growing national recognition within the Microsoft reseller channel, Britemoon is confident that it will continue to build a long list of Britemoon for Microsoft CRM customer success stories.

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship

and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.

For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:

dynamics

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| |Software and Services

■ Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

■ Microsoft SQL Server 2000 |

■ Microsoft Dynamics

− Microsoft Business Solutions CRM

− Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains | |

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Great Plains, Microsoft Dynamics, Outlook, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Document published July 2004 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call )*34J]7 L Ã Ä [?]

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the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information about Britemoon, Inc. products and services, call (781) 569-6500 or visit the Web site at:

"Most Microsoft resellers have a great deal of experience with Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains®, so they know more about back-office systems than marketing. We do a lot of ‘missionary' work around the importance of marketing automation for a comprehensive Microsoft CRM solution.”

Jeff Janer, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Britemoon, Inc.

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