We regularly use nouns from other languages to improve the image of the same items in our product or services offerings. Pomme de terre frites, (or simply pomme frites) appears on fancy menus instead of French fries. Grande and Vente make our cappuccinos and caffè Americanos taste far better (and cost more) than simple big cups of coffee.

Atelier (a workshop or studio) is a popular addition to the store names of artists, or specialty shops or boutiques (to use one French word to describe another French word [wink]).

We use abbreviations such as R.S.V.P. instead of spelling out répondez s’il vous plaît, when please respond is just as succinct and stalwart.

When applying for a job we’ll prepare a summary of our accomplishments and call it a résumé, unless it is a job in academia, in which case that summary might be called curriculum vitae.

Our business plan financials are often labeled pro forma (in advance, or as a matter of form).

Your physician’s protégé may give you a pro bono prognosis and prescribe a placebo and wish you prosit. Geshundheit!

Can you tell the difference between ad lib., au-h2o, ca., circ., ebit, e.g., et al., etc., i.e., ibid., lsmft, v., vs., viz, v.s. or v.v.? Can you spell out all these abbreviations?

It is so easy for us to read over, past or through these foreign words that are emigrating into English. Many times we simply make a guess on the meaning, based on the context of the sentence, because we are too busy, or too lazy, to look them up. But then many of us compound the error. We incorporate them into our own marketing writing, advertising, and branding efforts, still without knowing what we are actually saying.

So, what can you do? Obviously the first thing to do is use your dictionary. There is the old standby, the printed book (our Documentation team has six different editions from different publishers). There are plenty of online dictionaries as well. Google or Yahoo! search and you get a plethora of links. Bookmark your favorites and return to them often.

There are a couple free translators on the Internet as well, such as SDL Free Translation.com and Babel Fish, though they don’t translate Latin.

And, here are two good reference books I’ll recommend to you.

Latin for the Illiterati: Exorcizing the Ghosts of a Dead Language by Jon R Stone. Over 5,000 entries of Latin words and phrases that turn up regularly in modern English.

Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases edited by Jennifer Speake. Covers 8,000 words and phrases from over 40 languages.

Give your marketing message that certain indefinable quality (je ne sais quoi ) of worldliness when you drop in phrases from other languages. No faux pas.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software, Inc.

So you have some money to spend on marketing. The big question is, how do you know what to spend it on to minimize risk and maximize return? The answer is through your balanced marketing portfolio.

We all understand the importance of having a balanced financial portfolio, but what about our marketing portfolio? If we invest the bulk of our marketing in limited activities, we are putting ourselves at risk of achieving a less than desirable return on our investment.

While in finance we want to balance risk and return, in marketing we want to balance 3 crucial elements – control, cost and credibility. Look at the diagram at the end of this article.

Each of these 3 areas has varied degrees of control, cost and credibility.

For example with advertising, we are pretty much in total control of when, where and how we place an ad. Of course we also have to pay more to have this control. But how much credibility do we gain by telling others we are great?

If we’re to rely heavily on advertising, chances are we could very quickly deplete our marketing budget before we reach our goals.

On the other hand if were to look at low cost items with high credibility, like PR and to some extent Referral marketing, we have very little control on when, where and how it occurs.

In this instance we could run out of TIME before we reach our goals.

Therefore, divide your budget up in 2 ways.

1. Allocate a lot of your marketing dollars to savvy advertising and promotions (the key here is savvy)!
2. Allocate more of your marketing TIME to referral marketing and PR activities.

Don’t forget. Just like your financial portfolio – it’s important to measure your return on investment on all your marketing activities as well!

Is your marketing portfolio balanced? Does it exist at all? If you answered no to either of these questions, chances are you are missing out on maximizing your bottom line and minimizing your costs and time.

How balanced is your portfolio?

About the Author…
Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget-minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success. Cidnee is also a sought-after speaker, writer and blogger on marketing topics that affect small businesses and B2B service based operations. Subscribe for Free to her bi-weekly marketing tips for small businesses and also receive a special report on the 7 Steps of Marketing Success.

Business Card or Marketing Tool?

Do you have a box of business cards on your desk that you hardly seem to put a dent in before the information changes and a new box is ordered? Or worse yet…are you still working on that same box of business cards that you printed 3 years ago!

Business cards can be a great inexpensive marketing tool for a small business. They say exactly what you do and give people all the contact information they need to get a hold of you. Yet oddly enough we tend to use them only for networking, and even then, we aren’t really sure if people are holding on to them.

Here are 7 different ways you can turn your business cards into a low cost marketing machine!

• Keep them on hand
• Situate them with strategic alliances
• Include them in your correspondence
• Direct people to your website with them
• Put something useful on the back
• Use them for jotting down information
• Use them as part of your referral system

Keep them on hand – even when you are popping to the convenience store or running a short errand. You never know who you will run into or what opportunity might present itself. It’s wise to keep your business cards in multiple locations, like your wallet or purse, your car, or your favourite coat, so that you won’t be left empty-handed. Words of advice….invest in some simple card holders so your cards are protected instead of bent or soiled.

Situate with Strategic Alliances - This is highly effective if you market to consumers, but can also be used business to business. Business cards can be placed at grocery stores, car washes, or restaurants, for example. How about placing them with a graphic artist if you’re a sign company, or a realtor if you are a mortgage broker? Keep your eyes open for opportunities to get your business cards in front of your target audience!

Include them in your correspondence – If you are sending out invoices or other correspondence to your target market, make sure you include your card. Consider enclosing a couple and ask your loyal suppliers or clients if they can pass them on. I know a travel agent who even included hers with her utility payments.

Direct them to your website – Face it! More and more people are turning to the web for information. Yet some people still forget to include their website on their business card. If you are proud of your website and it promotes your company, point this out to people when you hand them your card.

Put something useful on the back – By useful, I mean something that makes them want to hold on to your card. It can be a calendar, a discount, a FREE Trial or a Free Report. Think of something that your target market will value and you’ve increased the longevity of your card.

Use them for jotting down information – So someone asks you for the name of your dentist or you are trying to explain a point. If the information will fit on your card, use it. By doing so you are guaranteeing two things. They will remember you for helping them and they will hold on to your card longer.

Use them as part of your referral system – Business cards can be an integral part of your referral system. I’m not a huge advocate of handing out 2 or 3 cards to people you have just met. I am however a big believer in making sure happy clients and strategic alliances have extra cards on hand.

Consider marking the cards in such a way to track the referral source. Offer a discount or prize if someone hands in the card. A good referral strategy can be one of the most powerful alternative uses for your business cards.

Think about it. You have in your possession 500 – 1000 pieces of marketing in those little business card boxes. The idea is to get them in the hands of people that can grow your business. In order to do that you need to devise a strategy to utilize them in creative ways. Ideally you want all of those cards out of your office and into the marketplace as quickly as possible!

About the Author…
Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget-minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success. Cidnee is also a sought-after speaker, writer and blogger on marketing topics that affect small businesses and B2B service based operations. Subscribe for Free to her bi-weekly marketing tips for small businesses and also receive a special report on the 7 Steps of Marketing Success.

This article was taken from CRM Assist

What is CRM?
Customer Relationship Management is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and, usually, Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. For example, an enterprise might build a database about its customers that described relationships in sufficient detail. Therefore, management, salespeople, people providing services, and perhaps the customers could directly access information, match customer needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of service requirements, and know what other products a customer had purchased. According to one industry view, CRM consists of:

• Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns with clear goals and objectives, and generate quality leads for the sales team.
• Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices).
• Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service.
• Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand their needs, and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners.

Brief history of CRM
With the advent of e-commerce comes the e-customer. According to Vantive, a customer relationship management solutions provider, the e-customer expects constant access to a company; through e- mails, call centers, faxes and websites. They demand immediate response and a personalized touch. Meeting their needs places new demands on the enterprise. Since traditional enterprise resource planning applications did not include a customer management aspect, CRM was the logical next step. Vantive, for example, has been developing and implementing customer-facing applications since 1992.

Two trends have brought CRM to the forefront, explains Boston University professor Tom Davenport, who directs Andersen Consulting’s Institute for Strategic Change. First, as global competition has increased and products have become harder to differentiate, “companies have begun moving from a product-centric view of the world to a customer-centric one,” says Davenport.

Second, technology has ripened to the point where it is possible to put customer information from all over the enterprise into a single system. “Until recently, we didn’t have the ability to manage the complex information about customers, because information was stored in 20 different systems,” says Davenport. But as network and Internet technology has matured, CRM software has found its place in the world.

Why is it necessary?
Many companies are turning to customer-relationship management systems to better understand customer wants and needs. CRM applications, often used in combination with data warehousing, E-commerce applications, and call centers, allow companies to gather and access information about customers’ buying histories, preferences, complaints, and other data so they can better anticipate what customers will want. The goal is to instill greater customer loyalty.

Other benefits include:

• Provide faster response to customer inquiries.
• Increasing efficiency through automation.
• Having a deeper knowledge of customers.
• Getting more marketing or cross-selling opportunities.
• Identifying the most profitable customers.
• Receiving customer feedback that leads to new and improved products or services.
• Doing more one-to-one marketing.
• Obtaining information that can be shared with the company’s business partners.

Market leaders
The top vendors of CRM software include Siebel, Vantive, and Clarify along with ERP vendors Baan Co. and Oracle Corp. These top five vendors contributed 40 percent of overall CRM revenue, with the market leaders growing a hardy 90 percent combined in 1998.

In the growing segment of CRM professional services, market leaders include Andersen Consulting, Cambridge Technology Partners, CSC, Deloitte Consulting, EDS/Centrobe, eLoyalty, Ernst & Young, IBM Global Services, KPMG, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The future of CRM
AMR Research expects the CRM market to change dramatically, reaching $16.8 billion by the year 2003. The CRM segment is expected to witness 60% revenue growth this year, with compound annual growth of 49% by 2003. Companies are developing business plans with CRM strategies as the driving element, as customer service is a top priority.