Customer Effective, a Microsoft (News - Alert) Gold Certified Partner and value-added reseller of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has recently announced a partnership with ExactTarget, a provider of on-demand, e-mail and one-to-one marketing solutions.

With this partnership, Customer Effective will deliver an integrated solution designed to help businesses effectively target customers and prospects through integrated e-mail campaigns within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. 

Customer Effective and ExactTarget will deliver benefits to customers of both companies as they will gain the ability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to capture and provide critical information to create highly personalized e-mail marketing campaigns.

Businesses will be able to use the power of ExactTarget’s suite of on-demand one-to-one marketing applications and Microsoft Dynamics CRM software to leverage information from departments such as customer service, sales and marketing in order to design highly effective e-mail templates and timely communication.

“The integration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM with ExactTarget offers our customers the ability to customize e-mail campaigns based on real-time updates on customer and prospect activities and interests,” said Peter McCormick, co-founder and vice president of Partnerships for ExactTarget.

 

“This partnership is unique because organizations now have the ability to reinforce customer relationships with personalized e-mails based on recent company interactions.”

Marketers will have access to these two solutions in tandem, which enhances their ability to send business-critical and event triggered communications to drive sales, optimize marketing investments and strengthen overall customer relationships. E-mail delivery, design and compliance are managed through the ExactTarget software.

“Our partnership with ExactTarget is valuable to our customers because it provides marketers with a closed-loop method of executing high-level communications and measuring performance,” explains Scott Millwood, CEO of Customer Effective.

 

“The integration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM with ExactTarget’s e-mail campaign management system helps businesses across many verticals use enhanced e-mail campaigns for acquiring new customers or increasing revenue from existing customers,” added Millwood.

One example of the combined benefit of using Microsoft Dynamics CRM with ExactTarget’s e-mail marketing solution is provided by Equinox Fitness.

The operator of high-end fitness clubs across the U.S. relies on outbound e-mail campaigns to drive the initial membership sales cycle and up-sells of existing members for personal training and special fitness classes. The campaign is fed with data from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system and powered by ExactTarget’s e-mail personalization tools.

While companies throughout the world will able to benefit from the combination of the power of Customer Effective and ExactTarget, recent research has shown that e-mail marketing campaigns will have a decreasing effectiveness on overall sales performance over the next five years. This decrease is due in large part to the customer trend towards social networking and other forms of communication.

E-mail marketing will continue to play a large and successful role in the marketing budgets of many companies, but the opportunity of other potential venues must also be explored to ensure that the potential of the marketing dollars is maximized.