In a DM Review Special Report on February 5, "The Marriage of Customer Relationship Management and Content Management," Dan Carmel discusses the inefficiencies plaguing sales and marketing organizations and the benefits of integrating CRM systems with SaaS-based content management systems.
According to Dan Carmel, the top 5 benefits of combining CRM and content management are:
- Improved win rates with more effective and timely responses to opportunities
- More effective marketing with greater collaboration, faster turnaround and greater ability to leverage the latest material across distributed sales networks
- Sales & marketing alignment by eliminating the gap between different processes and workflows
- Faster time-to-revenue by speeding up sales cycles
- Broader impact by integrating other best-in-class technologies serving their own distinct purpose to share information via web services
As the form of content management dealing with rich media, Widen has integrated our digital asset management software as a service platform with the Salesforce.com customer relationship management system. Widen’s Digital Media Organizer brings the content marketing creates – images, videos and marketing materials – closer to the salesperson and end users.
Widen’s Marketing Template Creation gives salespeople the ability to easily customize or localize printable materials such as ads, brochures, direct mail and point-of-sale signage using marketing-controlled templates and content.
Marketing users within Salesforce.com have the ability to direct campaigns and manage all media used for email marketing, websites and print campaigns. Our web analytics indicate that interest levels in Widen’s video asset management capabilities within Salesforce are of the greatest interest as video grows in popularity for marketers and consumers alike.
As Carmel explains, five benefits of SaaS-based content management include:
- Faster time to deploy because there is no hardware or software to install
- Low initial cost for subscription-based pricing models
- Rapid innovation with automatic upgrades every few months
- Easy to use and configure specific to the requirements of each client
- Globally available with no burden on IT because applications are delivered via web browser and maintained by the hosted provider
These five benefits overlap with the same benefits Widen DAM customers enjoy. SaaS-based business applications are not just for small to medium-sized businesses as larger companies continue to adopt best-in-class software as a service solutions. Jim Egan, Director of Communications Programs at Kerry America, a leader in global food ingredients markets, stated, "By integrating [the Widen] tools within our Salesforce application, we now have a 'one-stop-shop' for all marketing and collateral material; making them easily accessible for our sales teams and channel members. These tools will help us strengthen our overall brand messages and enable our sales and application experts to deliver innovative, business-building solutions for our customers."
View Dan Carmel’s full article at: http://www.dmreview.com/specialreports/2008_60/10000666-1.html
Learn more about Widen’s digital asset management integration with Salesforce.com – Digital Media Organizer – and the brochure creation application – Marketing Template Creation.
