As I mentioned in THIS POST, I find it very important to highlight from my yearly goals, the top ten things that I really want to accomplish. These are the big ones, the items that might require a little education, a little extra research, a little extra money, and maybe a lot of extra time, but are key to the success of that particular year’s marketing strategy. Sometimes they correspond with what I think are new or valuable trends in marketing (last year’s completed mobile site goal), but they are always items that will be crucial for our success in the coming year.

Here are my Top Ten Marketing Goals for 2012 – (in no particular order)

• Increase unique visitors from 12k to 17k+ per month

      We have been holding steady between 11 and 12k for the last quarter of 2011, and after completely revamping Paid search program and a full SEO audit, are continuing to generate relevant content to attract more visitors.

• Increase UIU Trial Leads to 8-10+ per day

      Our Universal Imaging Utility trial conversion rate is pretty solid, now I just need to get more of the right info to the right prospects at the right time for increased trial activation.

• UIU/UIUSD Product Blog

      Our Big Bang Blog (the one you are reading) has done extremely well in the first few months so I really want to get a solid blog schedule for our two software offerings. Product updates, relevant industry news, upcoming development ideas, etc.

• Create company-wide social media policy

      Last year I really tightened down my social media tactics and developed a clear plan. Now, as our customer base and brand awareness continues to grow, I want to make sure the rest of the building is on the same page and utilizing SM appropriately.

• Implement Re-Targeting

      If I can justify the expense with increased revenue, I really want to fire up a re-targeting campaign this year.

• Build and implement Salesforce Knowledge Base for Support and Sales

      The web-based knowledge base from SF is pretty robust and I think will help us take better care of our customers more efficiently.

• Write Wikis for products

      Well-written wiki can’t hurt. Just haven’t had the time.

• Develop Webinar schedule for new UIUSD product.

      Our new SCCM plug-in, the UIUSD, will be perfect for a well-laid webinar schedule for lead capture.

• ROI, ROI, ROI, ROI, ROI

      Now that we have moved to Pardot and SF, I am, for the first time, able to be Super-OCD on ROI for absolutely everything. And I now have a marketing underling to help with reporting and metrics.

• Have new marketing assistant own at least three things

      Speaking of Marketing assistant, as I get her trained up and involved, I already told her that I want to focus on her strengths and interests and have her “own” at least three major aspects of of our overall marketing strategy.

Those are my Top Ten Marketing Goals for 2012, what are yours?

As I mentioned previously in "Growing Marketing Automation with a Growing Business", our business has been changing rapidly, and with those changes comes the need to adapt technology and infrastructure to keep up. So not only did I decide to implement a new Marketing Automation Platform before the end of the year, but also a new CRM - why not? 

This year has brought us steady growth, and since the primary cause of growth is new customers and new sales, it was definitely time to make sure we were taking care of those customers the best we could.

Our former CRM served us adequately for a time. Not so long ago, we had a primary distributor responsible for lead generation and sales, and we didn't have many records to keep track of. Well, we let them go last July, and in the last six months have taken responsibility for everything in house.

As the last weeks of 2011 approach, we are on pace to increase sales over last year by a respectable amount. So we are not only managing our existing customers effectively, but it appears taking care of new customers better ourselves than when we had a distributor.

We are also releasing a new product first quarter 2012, which will bring in an entire new customer base.

To manage all our customers and prospects really well, cultivate leads, handle support calls, and make sure none of them slip through the cracks, we needed a capable, and fast CRM.  After much research, seemingly countless demos, and chatting with as many marketing and sales folks as I could, I decided to go with Salesforce.

The primary consideration was the desire for a smooth implementation, and as little interaction from our developers as possible. With a new product release in the offing, pulling them off of production for any amount of time would mean an undesirable delay.

The other important feature we needed was efficient support capabilities and support interaction with sales.

After that, most of the big CRM companies really have all the same similar basic features. To help with  implementation, having our friends over at PSN to handle setup and API integration makes a huge difference. So off we go, and will hopefully have everything ready to go just after the first of the year.

The one thing I will say surprised me, is after all the courting and demos that Salesforce has as a part of their sales process (which were solid), the hand off after purchase was oddly abrupt. There was no implementation check list, no implementation support, and the only thing I received after finally inquiring about it to the sales rep was a link to an intro webinar. I understand that it's a monster of a platform, but, given the amount of money we've committed to spend,  I expected a little more than a "Good bye and Good Luck."

 What is your CRM of choice?