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Welcome to Our Newsletter!

Welcome to the Cross Examiner, Cross Country Computer's quarterly newsletter designed to share the latest on our products and services as well as a information on hot industry topics. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to submit topic suggestions for future issues. Enjoy!

Elisa Berger, SVP Cross Country Computer

Our Newest Team Member

“I am excited to get to know the Cross Country client base and engage in strategic discussions on how we can help grow their business.”
Joan Dwyer, Director of Client Services
Cross Country Computer is pleased to announce our newest team member, Joan Dwyer, as our new Director of Client Services in effect as of March 30th.

Joan is a 23 year veteran in the direct marketing industry with 1st hand experience as an account executive and manager. She has worked both at service bureaus as well as felt the challenges directly on the client side of the business. Her experience is both extensive and impressive:

	Joan comes to us after 3 years at Fortunoffs as a Direct Mail Manager where she selected, deployed and analyzed email and direct mail campaigns as well as worked on high level marketing initiatives with their senior team (CRM, Product affinity segmentation strategies and FSI programs).
	Previously, Joan spent 12 years at MBS holding roles as supervisor in their fulfillment business as well as account executive in their database division with a well known/high profile account base.
	Prior to MBS, Joan spent 8 years at Hyaid as a marketing account executive where she gained extensive experience on continuity programs.

Joan will be making every effort to introduce herself to our account base as quickly as possible. We are proud to have Joan on our team!

Modeled List Selection

“Predictive modeling is a great way to improve your marketing return on investment in these challenging times.”

Finding incremental list rental universe that performs at your desired contribution threshold is critical when optimizing new customer acquisition. Marketers wanting to go beyond hotline prospects or turn a mediocre list into a winner have found great success with modeled list selections. Traditional selects focus on the targeted lists' RFM. Predictive modeling takes this one step further by taking subjectivity out of the process and focusing on the elements that are associated with increased new buyer rates.

There are two main modeling methods that can be applied depending upon the data available. Clone Modeling and Response Modeling. Clone modeling seeks to identify characteristics of your customer profile that are different from those who are not yet your buyers on a given list. This model is great for cases where you are testing a new list or have limited mail history. Response modeling creates a ranking algorithm based upon the differences between responders and non responders mailed from a targeted list. This model is stronger because it hones in on those who were actually targeted and either became your customer or did not.

The example here shows where modeling can identify 3-4 segments that would have an above average acquisition rate for a given list. This client can mail through Decile 3 and expect a 43% lift over a non modeled method which would allow them to mail deeper than previously possible.

According to reports, the USPS will offer a 20-30% discount to ALL mailers with an increased mail volume from 7/1 – 9/30. Cross Country will follow the lead of the USPS and make this great offer:

Receive a 20% discount on any NEW service thru September 30th. This offer is available to both new and existing clients. For example, if you're already doing merge/purge with us, try our new matchback system for campaign analysis. Modeling, appends, NCOA, database builds – all can qualify for the summer discount.

Cross Country understands the strains of today's economic uncertainty. We believe it is especially vital for marketers to engage both customers and prospects as strategically and cost-effectively as possible.

Contact your Cross Country account executive to find out how you can save money, increase ROI, and add some additional insights to your marketing strategies.

Understanding Multi-Channel Campaign Peformance

Increased use of the internet as a research and purchase channel has made it difficult to understand the true drivers of revenue. Orders entered on the web are often driven by direct mail but buyers rarely enter a keycode when placing an order. The result is that campaigns are not linked to purchases as they are when a customer calls an 800#. Campaign performance is often understated and list/segment level performance misrepresented leading to suboptimal decision making. This can lead to a valuable list or product offer not being rolled out and many lost opportunities. This marketing need was the impetus for Cross Country Computer's new automated on-line reporting tool, CrossMatch™, which will enable marketers to understand what truly drives sales.

How it works: CrossMatch™ marries the order placer to historical promotional files to determine which targeted efforts prompted a given purchase. Updates to the portal can be posted daily and the user can select from a variety of allocation strategies including 'best match', 'most recent' and 'fractional allocation'. Tiered customizable matching levels weight presence on a given campaign file, in-home date, name and address as well as keycode components and response channel. Campaign results can be performed at either level, individual/contact or household/site depending upon the marketing need. The output of this process is a set of robust reports analyzing campaign performance as well as a file that can feed into a marketing database containing the allocated key code associated with each transaction.

CrossMatch™ was designed to meet the needs of both consumer and business offerings. It has unparalleled features that address the concerns of today's Bto- B marketers. For example, CrossMatch™ can help answer questions like: How many new customers are acquired at the contact vs. site level? Who should I target for the next campaign when the purchaser is not often the decision maker? CrossMatch™ identifies possible pass-along orders and differentiates between purchase-influencers, decision-makers and order-placers by analyzing the title, department, discipline and position-level of contacts targeted versus those that respond. This type of analysis is only possible with Cross Country Computer's proprietary Title Beautification service which overcomes the challenge of accurately matching titles that are spelled differently. For example, Title Beautification combines “VP OF PURCH” and “PURCHASING VICE PRESIDENT” as the same title. Employee turnover adds another layer of complexity as new decision makers enter an organization and purchase history can potentially be lost as a new contact looks like a first time buyer. With CrossMatch™, marketers can identify possible new hires by looking for new responders holding positions at companies previously held by pre-existing customers.

“How many times should I mail a prospect before they convert to buyer status at a reasonable contribution?” With CrossMatch™ marketers can control expenses and boost response by gaining an understanding of when to discontinue prospecting to non-responders. Leverage prior promotional history response curve trends to determine when to send a 'last chance' or 'cross-sell' offer.

CrossMatch™ enables marketers to make better decisions and gain learning through better testing. The end result is an improved understanding of how best to guide your marketing budget. Contact a Cross Country Computer representative for more information on this valuable new service.

Customer Cultivation through Database Marketing

“Database marketing intelligence is the best line of defense to address these new challenges and optimize the communications process to grow the most valuable asset – your customer!”

In today's difficult business environment, marketers are digging deeper into their buyer file to generate maximum revenues with minimal costs. New marketing and purchase channels and technologies allow customers to express their needs and desires with an expectation that the brand will respond appropriately.

The marketing database is a central repository of information, the brain behind your marketing efforts, storing all interactions. Utilizing the database as a learning environment to define segments and build relevant communications is critical and will reduce costs and increase ROI. Business processes and systems need to provide constant, accurate, and automated information to enable communications with relevant messages and offers. Database systems with the ability to create a meaningful experience will increase the probability of future sales.

A marketing database must be nurtured. An integrated and consistent approach to managing customer and prospect interactions in all operations should be the foundation of the marketing database. The database must properly capture and store usable customer information in a way that allows different organizations within the company to view the data based on their own needs. The flexibility to track and monitor results and evolve as business and behavioral requirements change should be a primary requirement. A strong marketing database is a critical component to facilitate and support the communications process and discover new sales opportunities.

Cross Country Computer has been able to help customers create and maintain marketing databases with our DM Optimization Suite powered by CrossSelect. Our on-line database management system works for small and large databases, facilitates learning and segmentation, campaign management and evaluation. We designed this suite of tools to provide marketers with what they need at a price they can afford. For example, Lifetime Value reporting is part of our standard dashboard metrics! Our DM Optimization Suite houses granular level transactional data facilitating deeper reporting needed to make today's decisions. Please contact us for more information.