It has been amazing to see not only at Blue Tent Marketing, but also with so many of our small to mid sized customers the move toward more attention to CRM functions with day to day business. Blue Tent Marketing has been running Netsuite for over 6 years. In the last 12 months our full use of the tool has grown significantly. One area we have focused our attention is on the CRM side of our data base. It has been a strategic push for the last few years, but just over the last 12 months have we really started using what I would call a real CRM. What is "real" use of CRM. I see this as the dedicated and consistent use of segmented customer data to communicate in a more effective and efficient manner.Her are some of the things we have done over the last 6 months to take our CRM to the next level.

- segment our customers with dedicated business types - thats easy, but we now send them messages specific to thier industry. This has created more work from our creative team, but the ROI results have proven to be worth the time.

- segment customers based on geography - this has allowed us to send seasonal messages to our clients based on what they are seeing. For example a winter location gets a snow message, beach locations get sun messages.

We are often asked what are the most important steps to deploying an effective CRM communication pattern.

1- segment your lists, start to disect your customers down to very specific groups.

2- work with your creative in-house or contractors to develop a message and ommunication pattern.

3- implement ROI tracing with Google Analytics or another tracking program.

I will be posting more tips on how your comapny can use the Netsute CRM funcations in the future.