Getting to Know Them

When ESRI got a better fix on its customers, it merely was practicing what it preaches. The Redlands, CA company sells global information software, which its clients use to map customers and prospects, find promising sites for new retail locations and even fight forest fires.

How did ESRI come to this greater understanding? It combined data from a number of different sources, including licensing operations, prospect databases, and files of people interested in receiving its communications. In all, ESRI whittled down 1.7 million records to 600,000 unique customers. These customers were then slotted into highly targeted cross-sell, upsell, and product information and use streams.

That alone represented a cost savings, as high-tech ESRI continues to embrace decidedly analog printed material, in addition to e-mail communication. “I am much more likely to review a direct mail piece,” says Linda Hecht, ESRI’s director of marketing. “People aren’t going to print out a 50-page e-mail and read it on the train.”

The engine for all this was a suite of products from Aprimo, a marketing software company in Indianapolis.

By capturing customer data on Aprimo’s system, ESRI has determined the CRM stream to place given customers into, largely based on the product purchased. For instance, ESRI’s ArcSDE, a database engine, and ArcIMS, an Internet master server system, often are used together. The database lets ESRI cull those customers who have one system and are likely candidates for the other.

Cutting down communications costs has beefed up ESRI’s cross-sales effectiveness. The return on investment for a recent ArcIMS sales campaign was 12-1, and for an ArcSDE effort 31-1. With these systems starting between $6,000 and $7,000, that’s not small potatoes.

But besides netting down its customers, ESRI realized that a single contact often makes a purchase on behalf of several individuals. ESRI captures these names by swapping a book or a training class in return for a completed survey. This information is used in further relationship-building exercises, such as directing users to conferences or groups in their area.

“Half or more of what we do is building a relationship with our customers,” Hecht says. “It helps build a relationship, and then we can upsell them.”

That “half or more” encompasses a lot of efforts. ESRI’s marketing strategy relies on a number of customer touches every year. These include ArcNews, a quarterly general- interest print publication for geographic information users; ArcWatch, a technical newsletter for more sophisticated users of the global information systems; and a variety of permission-based e-mail alerts, including conference notices and advanced-use training sessions.

“Part of marketing’s job is to create that community,” says Hecht. “Our salespeople have to focus on getting leads.”