NEW YORK – June 22, 2006 – Extraprise®, the B2B database marketing services and CRM systems integration provider, today announced results from the 2006 Extraprise DM Days NY Conference and Expo survey, which gauged marketers’ top challenges, found an overwhelming majority of B2B respondents (87%) have little confidence in their customer data.
"Often times, companies are overwhelmed with issues related to the quality of their customer data and just don’t know where to start,” said Chad Gottesman, chief marketing officer, Extraprise. "Unfortunately, data problems continue to grow resulting in insufficient customer knowledge that leaves the B2B salesperson at a complete disadvantage when interacting with their customers.”
More than half (54%) of B2B companies surveyed indicated that the lack of sales and marketing collaboration is their most important challenge. Only half (52%) of companies surveyed claimed to have integration between their sales and marketing systems. Slightly more than one-third (39%) respondents indicated that data-related issues were the next challenge facing their marketing efforts.
“Marketing executives are waiting for a magic wand to make their investments worthwhile,” added Gottesman. “Yet most marketing departments are still facing a huge internal challenge integrating two major components of marketing performance – sales and marketing.”
Companies looking to gain confidence in their customer data must bridge the gap between the sales and marketing organizations by improving the following:
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DATA - The starting point for most improvement projects. If you wish to improve marketing, you can’t achieve anything with inadequate, incomplete, or incorrect data.
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PROCESS - Data are not static. The next place to invest is in a continuous process to capture, correct, and standardize data. Get the right data to the right people at the right time.
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SYSTEMS - Automate as many steps as possible. Focus internal investments on the mission. Outsource the activities.
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PEOPLE - Focus your brain trust on the highest value insights and automate the key processes. Outsource for expertise and execution.
Extraprise offers its Insight-to-Interaction (i2i) services and platform to help marketers integrate one of the last remaining information silos in the corporate world -- the marketing database. i2i is a unique approach for helping companies better manage customer data, develop more relevant and timely insight, and increase the value of each customer interaction. As part of its i2i services, Extraprise provides its clients with dedicated resources for consolidating multiple customer data sources, creating better customer segmentation, developing predictive models, managing demand generation campaigns, and automating their operational systems spanning multiple customer channels.
The findings are based on responses from a sample of attendees interviewed at DM Days New York Conference and Expo 2006. Other topics covered within the survey included how many disconnected data sources cover some aspect of their customers (59% have data in at least four different locations whereas 18% cite between 5-10 locales and 23% claim to have data in more than 10 systems).
About Extraprise
Extraprise® specializes in B2B database marketing and CRM implementation services. Extraprise enables clients to overcome the traditionally fragmented approach to sales and marketing and transforms their data systems into effective information that is used to acquire, retain, and grow customers. In contrast to traditional marketing service providers, Extraprise focuses solely on the vastly underserved B2B marketplace and is able to do so because of their deep understanding of the complexities of B2B customer data and businesses processes. Extraprise’s Insight-to-Interaction™ (i2i) platform combines data management, business insight, demand generation, and customer management and is available as a turnkey hosted service or on-premise at the client’s location. Extraprise is the first company to combine these capabilities under one roof, enabling them to design systems, analyze data, execute marketing programs, and leverage customer information throughout the enterprise. The company is headquartered in Boston with offices throughout the U.S. For more information, visit www.extraprise.com.
