By David Sims
[email protected]

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is one of First Coffee's favorite songs anytime anywhere, The Kinks' "No More Looking Back:"

Unica Corporation, a vendor of Enterprise Marketing Management products, has announced the appointment of two new executives to drive sales growth in Europe. Georges Anidjar has been named sales director for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) to expand Unica's sales of web analytics and internet marketing products.

Jean-Christophe Peaudeau joins Unica as the sales director for southern Europe and the country manager of Unica France to build Unica's sales team and generate sales for Unica's EMM offerings.

In his new position, Georges Anidjar is responsible for the creation of a European team dedicated to expanding sales of Unica's Affinium NetInsight, Unica's signature Web analytics product, and for developing a network of partners.

Before joining Unica, Anidjar worked as director of southern Europe for Omniture, a web analytics company. Prior to that, he held roles as sales director and managing director for the French subsidiary of Epiphany (now Infor), a CRM analytics software provider.

As sales director for Southern Europe and country manager of Unica France, Jean-Christophe Peaudeau will be responsible for increasing sales and managing partnerships for Unica's EMM products. Peaudeau's experience includes three years as sales director at Cognos France. Before Cognos, he served in several sales positions during his seven-year tenure with Business Objects.
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Manila-based SES's CEO Clarisa Rojo has announced that SES is completing its preparations to launch a beta test of Effective, the Philippine company's flagship CRM software suite, at Anheuser-Busch.

The Effective suite includes Customer Service, Inventory, Marketing & Sales and Mobile Solutions modules.

Following an agreement between SES and an approved supplier of Anheuser-Busch, SES is making preparations to implement several applications based on SES's Customer Relationship Management suite as a trial in Anheuser-Busch's business units. Along with brewing beer Anheuser-Busch runs adventure park entertainment and packaging. The beta test will first be initiated in an approved supplier of Anheuser-Busch.

Rojo said "we are very confident that Anheuser-Busch will reap the benefits of the application based on Effective SES CRM infrastructure within a very short time, and the trial will pave the way for a comprehensive implementation in Anheuser-Busch's divisions worldwide."

Effective is a Customer Relationship Management tool which caters to the current and future needs of small to medium enterprises as well as large telecom operators, mainly in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. According to company officials, the product "maximizes the use of organization resources such as manpower, equipment and time, and optimizes the execution of daily activities such as inventory management, service center and sales process."
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E-mail direct marketing and click-through success depends on various factors, from mailing frequency to incentive and offer inclusion, say officials at Listrak, a vendor of hosted e-mail marketing software that allows permission-based marketers to manage, send and track their e-mail marketing investment.

Listrak is announcing that recent study has shown "several key factors that consistently lead to positive opt-in e-mail marketing campaign results."

Customers "want to feel like they're more than a number or sales invoice," says Ross Kramer, CEO of Listrak. "Listrak takes the important task of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and automates it. We help clients build highly detailed databases with nearly unlimited input fields."

One of the major components to e-mail campaign success is a positive offline relationship, company officials say: "When customers know the sender on a personal level, they in turn become more interested in offers they receive. Businesses with smaller e-mail direct marketing lists and, typically, stronger one-on-one contact with customers have found equally stronger mass e-mail marketing response rate."

These businesses usually send promotions that are highly targeted as opposed to general information for all audience members. Smaller lists, as a general rule, tend to gain greater response and click-through rates.

Similarly, Listrak officials have found that "unsubscribe and bounce rates jump when opt in e-mail marketing list size increases. This suggests that mailers with larger list sizes might not be targeting their audience as carefully or that e-mail direct marketing list collection might be conducted in a more haphazard manner."

Listrak sees opportunity for mailers with larger lists to understand the preferences and dynamics of their list.

In fact opt-in e-mail marketing campaigns are generally more successful when sent by small distribution lists from local shops, galleries, retail shops and religious organizations, where patrons may know employees and managers by their first name. This success may be attributed to their ability to gather detailed customer preferences, like birthdates, age, marital status or sex.

These preferences are easily integrated into e-mail direct marketing letters, reminders and special offers complete with personalized messages.

Listrak sells products to help expedite and simplify triggered delivery, such as a thank you notice ten days after purchase or discount offers on customer birthdays.
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SpectraLink Corp., a vendor of workplace wireless telephony, has announced its next-generation Wi-Fi telephony handsets, the NetLink 8000 Series Wireless Telephones.

Company officials say the handsets come with support for SpectraLink's Open Application Interface, allowing two-way text messaging support for customer relationship management (CRM) systems and a wide array of other enterprise applications.

The new NetLink 8000 Series handsets are described by company officials as enterprise-grade handsets to support the IEEE 802.11a, b and g radio standards, allowing businesses to choose the most appropriate Wi-Fi implementation for application segmentation, interference mitigation and user density.

The handsets have a slim, lightweight design and a larger display screen. Two models are available: the basic NetLink 8020 Wireless Telephone, and the enhanced NetLink 8030 Wireless Telephone supporting SpectraLink's integrated push-to-talk capabilities, now enhanced with 24 PTT channels plus a priority channel for emergency broadcast applications.

"I expect that over time VoFi (voice over IP over Wi-Fi) phones will become the norm in most enterprises, replacing traditional desktop wired phones," said Craig Mathias, a principal with the mobile and wireless advisory firm Farpoint Group, based in Ashland, Massachusetts.

The phones come with four-, six- and eight-hour talk-time interchangeable Battery Packs to support different usage requirements, along with desktop and standalone four-position charging options. They offer compliance with MIL STD 810F standard for shock and vibration and the IP 53 standard for liquid and dust resistance.

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