Social networks and CRM tools, top priority among companies

Personal and investment data in social networks, essential for the marketing strategy.

Keeping up with the changing dynamics of the online marketing space is not an easy task. New technologies and tactics seem to emerge every day and evolve so rapidly that vendors often have difficulty deciding where to focus their efforts.

The results of a recent IBM study showed that in the next three to five years, 82% of companies will increase their investment in technology in social networks and 81% of the plan to focus on customer analysis and relationship management with customers (CRM), two technologies designed to help them solve impending problems and concerns around the growing amount of marketing and data available to customers.

Marketing managers are using customer data to help them reach unique segments of their customers and potential audience. In fact, 61% of these companies said they use customer data for segmentation and targeting, highlighting the desire to better understand and message to their current and potential customers.

The IBM study complements the data from ClickSquared and The Relevance Group for July 2011, notes that 35% of US merchants. They were more interested in data improvement focused on segmentation and practical guidance. Learning to integrate and take advantage of social network data was another priority for 30% of salespeople.

The ability to select and segment customers, the use of CRM tools and customer analysis stand out as the strategy desired by a broader sector to improve customer loyalty and the shared defense by two thirds (67%) of the companies in the IBM study.

In addition, 56% of respondents viewed social media as a key participation channel for current and potential customers, and the same percentage of companies also expected to manage these customers through the use of integrated software packages, which They could include tools such as CRM or marketing-automation software.

The emphasis placed on social media strategy and customer analysis and data management to a large extent reflect that some aspects of collective marketing had more room for improvement: 71% felt prepared to take advantage of the large amounts of data that continue to flood the online marketing space and 68% marked social networks as sites to improve.