CRM - December 2008 - (Page 43)

A NEWSLETTER EMPLOYS NEW TACTICS Finding a new job is stressful; job-search sites should help—not hinder—the hunt. CareerBuilder.com, the largest job-search and employment Web site, aims to ease the search burden by providing email newsletters offering relevant job postings and career advice. The site has teamed with ExactTarget, a marketing automation company, for more than five years, but recently launched a new segmentation campaign that won an ExactTarget award. Given that the old segmentation was on geographic region alone, Joanna Freeman, the site’s email marketing manager, admits the newsletters needed work. So her team segmented further—beginning with each recipient’s position in the job-search cycle. CareerBuilder and ExactTarget began gauging customers’ priorities by the number of mouse clicks on each newsletter link. A subscriber who hasn’t opened an email in several weeks or has clicked few links, for example, is categorized as not actively looking for a job. The newsletter content, therefore, is focused more upon workplace tips than on, say, interview strategies. “When you are applying, we are there weekly [with new job recommendations],” Freeman explains. “If you are not applying, but you’re opening and clicking, we send more content-related things. We infer that you have a job, but you’re peeking around to see what’s out there—so you still find us of value.” Freeman says increased personalization for the newsletters is the ultimate goal. “We would like to have an even better understanding of what these people are doing in each stage of their careers,” she says. More-accurate job recommendations lead to more-qualified candidates applying to more-relevant positions. This, in turn, leads to more site traffic and happier advertisers—and even appeases recruiters posting on the site. That’s a strategy worth employing. —Lauren McKay MIXING IN A LITTLE SUGAR SWEETENS THE DEAL Geeks on the Way turned to SugarCRM to keep pace with increasing demand eeks on the Way (GOTW) provides technical support both in person and remotely throughout Western Canada. How ironic, then, that the support provider needed help of its own in procuring a customizable and scalable CRM system to meet its growing business needs. Founded in 2001 by Chief Executive Officer John Leishman, GOTW has more than 20,000 customers and was among Profit magazine’s fastest-growing Canadian firms in 2005. As business grew, Leishman’s CRM systems couldn’t handle the larger scale.“We started [with] Act! as our contact management system because that’s what I was familiar with,” he recalls. “It worked fine at first, but then didn’t work very well when we spread to multiple locations. Then we moved to [Microsoft] Exchange Server, which ended up being a huge nightmare for us.” Hoping to end the merry-go-round of flawed CRM, Leishman turned to a new option—open-source CRM. “I was Increased personalization for the newsletters is the ultimate goal. G intrigued with the whole concept,” he recalls. “I wanted to use this technology so I could customize it…and also have it Web-based so I wouldn’t have to rely on terminal services or any other remote assistance-type software.” Leishman began perusing SourceForge, a Web site of open-source code and applications, and he came up with a two-prong litmus test to determine which opensource CRM offering—if any—would work for his company. Both involved the size of the user community. First, Leishman wanted to see a flurry of recent postings. “If there was little activity, obviously there’d be no community support to enhance or add more features,” he says. Second, he wanted to see a large number of downloads, popularity that raised the probability of future support. The only firm to pass was open-source provider SugarCRM, which Leishman says had the largest following and the most downloads. He also believed that the open nature of SugarCRM’s offering 43 www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | DECEMBER 2008 http://www.CareerBuilder.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - December 2008

CRM - December 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Rave Is Over CRM on Twitter Financial Frenzy Will Customer Experience Survive in a ‘Soft’ Economy? Holiday Humbug Empowered Consumers Are Ready to Flip the Switch Required Reading Transparency Spiff Up Your Site! They Aim to Please Mixing In a Little Sugar Sweetens the Deal A Newsletter Employs New Tactics A Site Stops Feeling Overtaxed Make ’Em Laugh—Personally Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - December 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.