Connected CRM

Three macro trends are changing the marketing landscape and forcing massive change on most organizations: the digitization of media and channels; social media; and the ability for consumers to access media anytime, anywhere. Marketers are responding with data-driven, digital customer strategies and a collective business model transformation. For the first time, marketers are now able to put customers at the core of the business strategy.

The challenge, now that there’s "universal" buy-in on the philosophy, of 'every organization should be “customer-centric” is the "how". How do we successfully implement a comprehensive, data-driven, customer-centric business strategy? The answer is called "Connected CRM", the focus of this book.

Customer-centric marketing isn’t merely a tactical implementation plan. Executed correctly, it’s a fundamental shift in the organization’s framework, affecting every department, not just marketing, though it puts marketing at the heart of the business and leadership strategy for the organization. It’s a new source of visibility and accountability for the CMO and a new basis of competitive differentiation for the company. CMOs of the future will play a much larger role in all aspects of marketing, sales, service and technology.

Through years of work in data-driven customer relationship marketing and observations of successful (and unsuccessful) implementation efforts; Merkle has developed a customer-centricity blueprint for organizations. This book explains how to make it a reality—for sustained competitive advantage.