Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Crm Software - Specific For Email Targeting

Posted by Anonymous on 6/23/2013 at 1:47 AM ET 200 Points
I'm looking for a CRM software solution to allow better email targeting - specifically something that will retain product purchase information (i.e, which SKUs have been purchased, average order values, last purchase date etc) for each customer, and allow me to target specific emails to them.

Basically I'm wanting a piece of software that will build customer profiles based on buyer behavior and allow me to create a rule such as 'Target Email to all Customers who have Purchased SKU 'BLUEBUCKET' in the last 3 months, with offer 25% Off 'REDSPADE' - where 'REDSPADE' has not previously been purchased by that customer.

I want to be able to build a list where customers meet this criteria and, if necessary, export this list to my Email Platform for sending the email - as well as have the rule automated - so if future customers satisfy the condition (be it for this rule or another rule) they would receive a 'Special Offer' email as well.

I'm currently using Listrak as my Email Platform - and it does have a targeting and segmentation tool that will let me do this - but on a very limited basis. It only keeps a maximum of 10 purchased SKUs on record per customer, and when customers may purchase 20 in a single transaction, it doesn't help me much.

A few limitations. The solution must;

- Integrate with Magento (heavily modified Community v1.6) OR
- Integrate with OrderMotion (OMX) OR
- have a third-party friendly API using REST/XML

and preferably - be on site software, rather than SaaS - though if it's not possible that's fine. I'd also like it to be friendly with Listrak - though Listrak's API is fairly all-encompassing, so I don't see that being an issue.

I've looked through a few solutions like SugarCRM, Salesforce, Zoho and SAP, and although impressed with some of their features - they're mostly irrelevant to me. We are a B2C e-commerce site, so we don't have sales teams or territories to manage, long web-to-lead processes or quoting and contract management to worry about. I'm also not wanting to invest +$2500/mth for a myriad of features I'm not going to use. $250/user/mth is probably my cap - or $2500 outright for on-premise software.

If anyone has any recommendations for solutions that meet the above criteria - I'd love to hear them. Google hasn't been much help.


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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Moriarty on 6/23/2013 at 4:41 AM Accepted
    Infusionsoft. You should find all you need there, and they're around $200/month for starters. If it means anything to you, Perry Marshall sits on their board.

    Take a look at their site, see if they click. https://www.infusionsoft.com/

    I'll leave the rest to them, they made their stuff for you.
  • Posted on 6/23/2013 at 6:21 AM Author
    Thanks for your suggestion, however I'm after a solution that isn't restrictive when it comes to emails and numbers of contacts.

    I'm happy to continue using Listrak as my email platform, however with the number of contacts we have on our books, it'd probably turn out cheaper picking up one of the CRM heavy-hitters instead of using InfusionSoft, based solely on their 'add contacts' pricing. Their set-up fee is exorbitant as well - I'd like to think Customer Support was part of the monthly fee - not a $2000 upfront cost.

    Thanks - but I'll keep looking.
  • Posted by Moriarty on 6/23/2013 at 6:28 AM Member
    Sorry, that's the best I could come up with. It sounds as if you need something that's custom built for you rather than off-the-peg.

  • Posted by darcy.moen on 6/24/2013 at 10:29 PM Accepted
    Joomla with Virtuemart shopping cart will do what you want, but you'd have to switch your entire platform. Sorry, but that's the only solution I know of that would do what you want. I think you are going to have to switch rather than have the solution come to you (magento).

    Darcy
    Customer Loyalty Network
  • Posted by matthewmnex on 6/25/2013 at 8:37 PM Accepted
    It sounds like you need at least two pieces of software here.

    A predictive targeting tool that analyses all kinds of data from different sources. The right products should be driven by a combination of data such as items in stock, margin, most popular, highest conversion + of course the buying patterns of the customer.

    You could then shoot highly personalised emails to each individual inserting automatically the right product choices and promotional offers.

    then just push this targeted data to your email sending tool.

    You could set up a generic wire frame template with a space for product image and title + pre selected sets of content and pre selected sets of discount offers (20% off, free shipping etc.)
    the template will look like a mess until it is populated with images and text as it contains mostly code but it works in a very powerful manner.

    So instead of thinking about 'Lists'. just think about each individual and what are they interested to purchase from you.

    What volumes of emails are you sending daily? 50K per day or more?
    if your only sending small volumes then you don't need a particularly powerful email sending tool so long as you can manage the unsubscribes and feedback loops and make sure that your IP address has a clean reputation.

    Once you start to get above 50K per day, then you may want to start to invest in something like Neolane or similar.

    Don't use a hosted email service such as exact target or icontact because they are just way too expensive per thousand emails.

    Better to manage your own platform and just be sure to manage all the anti spam protocols.

    Good luck.

    Matthew




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