The Customer Relationship Management Blog

In their State of Marketing Audit, the CMO Council dubbed 2013 as “The Year of the Marketer.” But if marketing is going to earn 2013 as our year, this has to change and organizations need to begin thinking in terms of a transformational demand process. Here are four changes in thinking that organizations need to embrace.

Many companies struggle to find and keep quality employees in the customer service department. Here’s a sneak peak into how support software developer Freshdesk hires and retains these key staff. It’s all about finding a person that fits with company culture, is empathetic, confident and a strong listener.

Social selling expands on the age-old basics of getting to know your customer and meeting their needs. Today, you can share your passions publicly, humanize your brand, and give your company a face and a personality amidst the conversations, communities, and blogs that millions of prospects frequent.

Customer relationship management software (CRM) has a history stretching back to the 1980s with the evolution of database marketing. From the first product to hit the market ACT!, to the birth of Salesforce and the increasing popularity of “social CRM” dubbed products. The industry is certain to continue evolving.

Email marketing remains one of the most effective conduits for getting your small business in front of target customers or clients, while social provides a means for deeply engaging these prospects. Here’s five tips your business can use to cash in on last-minute holiday shoppers.

Software Advice recently moderated a live online debate in Google+ called, “Is Customer Service the New Marketing?” This panel of expert speakers and authors discussed how the roles of marketing and customer service have evolved, and strategies for accommodating these changes.

At Software Advice, we’ve experimented with site retargeting over the last two years. As a young company with a limited budget, we had to learn through trial and error. To help companies that are considering dipping their toes into the retargeting pool, we’d like to share five lessons we learned along the way.

Whether you’re leading a company seeking venture capital funding, or you’re a marketing exec looking to leap to a startup or expansion-stage company, it’s important to understand what venture capitalists look for in a marketing exec. To get a feel for what VCs look for in a marketing leader, I spoke to several VCs.

Yesterday, Eloqua announced AdFocus–a tool that allows marketers to manage their display ad targeting within Eloqua’s marketing automation system. To get a sense of how Eloqua customers can use AdFocus, Eloqua offered me an exclusive interview with Rob Bois, Product Marketing Manager at Eloqua.

Buyer personas define what potential customers value, want, fear, and object to when they shop. This data is typically revealed during the pre-purchase phase of the customer life cycle, but HubSpot postulates that behaviors expressed during customer service interactions can reveal traits relevant to buyer motivation.