CRM Version 6 – This time for Races
I’ve been lucky to use CRM in various ways over the past 35
years. The RunSignUp implementation is the 6th major implementation
of CRM I’ve been involved with over the years.
From the beginning, RunSignUp has implemented many of the
key concepts of CRM so that races can maximize customer satisfaction and
retention and lower costs of customer support – all with the goal of engaging
their various communities to maximize the impact of their race. Right now, we
are consolidating our various features of Participant Management, Marketing
Automation, and central consolidated database to bring a comprehensive set of
CRM benefits to races.
It might be interesting to see my personal journey and
compare how CRM has matured over the years.
1.
1987 - Digital Equipment Sales Tracking. I did a
side project to help the District Sales Manager and her 50+ sales people do a
better job of tracking their prospects and sales. This was back in the days of
Act!, which was built on PC’s, but we had a shared database concept where all
of the sales reps could report into a common application and the District Sales
Manager could see up to the minute status on all of the sales opportunities.
Back in those days CRM was defined by sales reps taking care of their typically
large $ sales transactions until they closed, and then move on to the next deal
effectively.
2.
1993 – Bluestone Tickler System. Again, we built
our own pre-CRM CRM. The purpose was to help an inside sales team effectively handle
hundreds and thousands of clients and prospects. It kept track of each contact
and reminded the sales rep when to call next. We also used this database for marketing
purposes with mailing (US Postal!) software catalogs.
3.
2003 – JBoss. We implemented an automated Sales
& Marketing Funnel using Salesforce and Marketo. We were very early adopters
of this approach thanks to David Skok introducing
the concepts and Joe McGonnell leading the implementation.
This was one of the more fortuitous
points of my career as it was the first of several chances I’ve had to work
with David, JBoss was a roaring success, and I learned early about Salesforce
and invested in them soon after they went public in 2004.
4.
CloudBees. CloudBees has a modernized version of
what JBoss implemented, with a similar core of Salesforce. We invest quite a
bit of money into the Salesforce and various add-on tools like Marketo in
licenses and also invest quite heavily in customization and automation –
probably close to $1M per year if training and so forth are included. This
makes sense for CloudBees because we are a business focused on enterprise level
sales with large transaction sizes and a huge base of free users of the Jenkins
Open Source project. Optimizing the funnel, and making sure we spend time where
there is a good return are very important to the fundamental business model.
5.
Metaverse. This company sells hundreds of
thousands of pieces of artwork on the web each year with average transaction
sizes of less than $100. As the examples above show, CRM systems like
Salesforce have been designed (and priced) to be used more with enterprise or
large sized transactions. Trying to keep track of individual customers on a
personal basis with sales people is not cost justifiable. What is more important
is the automation of marketing and using analytics to guide behavior. Metaverse
has optimized their business to use a full suite of web marketing and
advertising tools to drive loyalty programs and reach new buyers. Email is a
double edged sword as you can target repeat buyers, but you do not want to cause
email fatigue. But this is where they have the their “CRM” to customize the
emails to different buyers (someone who bought a Van Gogh gets different ads
than someone who bought a Spiderman movie poster). It accounts for less than
10% of their business. Google Adwords drives most of their business.
Remarketing with Criteo is another decent source and has a good return on ad
spend.
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