Posts Tagged ‘Database Marketing’

The sales management paradox in a recession is that projects can simply no longer afford the high costs of on-site sales management by a senior sales leader, and yet now is precisely the time they cannot afford to do without it.

Sales teams are perpetually in either a virtuous circle or a vicious spiral. Success breeds more success, but lack of momentum is also self-reinforcing.   Sales teams today are working harder to make fewer sales and in some cases sales momentum is at a snails pace.  Add to that shrinking team sizes requiring longer hours to provide 24/7 coverage, drastically reduced earnings and little prospect of a quick bounce-back… and even seasoned real estate sales professionals are questioning their life choices right now. Read the rest of this entry »

Marketing reporting and performance tracking seems like it would be the foundation for any marketing program.  But as we talked with clients, prospects, and attendees at many conferences this fall, we find that with all of the marketing options today, many people stand there like a deer in the headlights when asked how they are tracking results.

Not tracking marketing performance is like being on the PGA Tour and not keeping score.  You just can’t compete and win without doing it.

Here is a list of six tools for your consideration. Let me preface by saying we define what tools we will use at the beginning of each campaign and these only represent a few that we leverage most often.  Also, not everything is easily tracked in one solution, so we often take reports from various formats and pull up our old-school friend, Microsoft Excel, to build custom dashboards based on the client’s specific data views.
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I have seen a trend in our discussions in the past few months with many people in many industries, especially resort real estate.  It usually starts with a conversation about marketing on a shoestring budget or how to market to be ahead of the curve as things begin to turn.  I think regardless of industry, you need to pay close attention to the relationships that you have at hand and stay in front of them as much as possible.  It is far more economical to turn prospects into customers than it is to create new prospects, so your existing database should be a primary focus during these slower times.  And while you’re at it, why not take the time to review your processes and make sure that your data has the utmost integrity and can be fully leveraged as things begin to turn.  After all, we create the worst habits during the best of times so now may be time to hunker down and really get your processes refined and your data cleaned up.

Regardless of the strength of your CRM system, it is critical to understand that the people involved in the process will be the key factor in the integrity and accuracy of the data the system provides.  We ask our clients to make sure that all parties involved hold the integrity of the data to the highest priority.  Without accurate data, the accuracy of our system is flawed.

So here are six easy buckets of information that you need to be collecting. Read the rest of this entry »

Sure times are tough. But not marketing will only prolong the pain. Start planning now for your success in 2009 with a focus on your online and database marketing programs.

There is little doubt that those who manage to maintain a visible marketing presence during the down market will be among the first to reap the rewards of a recovery.

There are still buyers out there. And marketers have a number of relatively low-cost tools to reach Read the rest of this entry »