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I have been remiss in not paying enough attention to social media monitoring software. I suppose it's understandable given that social media is at the margin of CRM -- moving to the center, but still in the outer shell -- and monitoring software is somewhere beyond that orbit in the software equivalent of the Kuiper belt. Maybe it's time to pay a little attention there, because monitoring software can be a big addition to your marketing strategy, and much of it is free...

You search, you find, you click "buy." Your e-commerce quest is nearly complete. You get to that checkout screen, and you think it's all good. Then the shipping charges get tacked onto your total, and you're left thinking that US$9.95 deal didn't end up being such a bargain after all. ...

This is the tenth in an ongoing series on building a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. Part 2 offers basic site design guidelines. Part 3 tackles some advanced design issues.Part 4 examines social media tools for building traffic.Part 5 compares outsourcing against doing maintenance work in-house.Part 6 offers tips on marketing your site. Part 7 covers analytics for measuring effectiveness.Part 8 delves into content management issues.Part 9 investigates security and transaction processing...

I am fond of Paul Greenberg because he's smart and knows a heck of a lot about CRM -- most importantly, he's a good judge of whether a company is for real or just playing around. I am also grateful to him for pointing out that I was the fortunate one to identify on-demand technology as a disruptive innovation. ...

I almost couldn't have imagined it. I give myself a little leeway, but after years of writing and talking about "new, new things" it didn't really dawn on me that at some point we'd be talking about a new, new economy -- but we are ...

This is the ninth in an ongoing series on building a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. Part 2 offers basic site design guidelines. Part 3 tackles some advanced design issues.Part 4 examines social media tools for building traffic.Part 5 compares outsourcing against doing maintenance work in-house.Part 6 offers tips on marketing your site. Part 7 covers analytics for measuring effectiveness.Part 8 delves into content management issues...

It is inevitable. In economics, commoditization is a routine part of the life cycle, the opposite end of the spectrum from innovation and as natural as life and death. Sometimes commoditization results in the elimination of a product or idea, but at other times it merely means subsuming the innovation into something larger. I believe we are witnessing the latter in the case of on-demand technology...

Two of the biggest names in CRM had trade shows recently. Oracle and Microsoft each held customer conventions in the same week, but the two could not have been more different. Microsoft attracted thousands of customers, partners, employees and press to New Orleans for Convergence, one of its big annual events. In a departure from convention, Oracle held a day-long exposition promoting its front and back office solutions on the Internet...

This is the eighth in an ongoing series on building a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. Part 2 offers basic site design guidelines. Part 3 tackles some advanced design issues.Part 4 examines social media tools for building traffic.Part 5 compares outsourcing against doing maintenance work in-house.Part 6 offers tips on marketing your site. Part 7 covers analytics for measuring effectiveness...

Last Monday at Demo, Zuora CEO and cofounder Tien Tzuo introduced Z-Commerce for Facebook -- a significant announcement that might be looked back on as a turning point in the evolution of on-demand technology ...

This is the seventh in an ongoing series on buiding a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. Part 2 offers basic site design guidelines. Part 3 tackles some advanced design issues.Part 4 examines social media tools for building traffic.Part 5 compares outsourcing against doing maintenance work in-house.Part 6 offers tips on marketing your site...

Last week Salesforce.com marked its 10th year in business. To celebrate, the company held a conference call to discuss its earnings, and CEO Marc Benioff brought presents for his investors ...

This latest wave of innovation has given SugarCRM a significant boost, Denis Pombriant, principal of Beagle Research, told CRM Buyer SalesLogix 7.2

Oracle continued its fast-following ways last week when it introduced additional functionality for Oracle On-Demand Release 16. The statement completed a two-part announcement begun the week before and brings to eight the number of new on-demand CRM applications from the company ...

Their value, though, is clear. "There is a lot of data stored in a variety of places -- whether in third-party social networks or CRM databases," Denis Pombriant, principal of Beagle Research, told CRMBuyer. "It is very helpful to be able to seamlessly access the information as if it were all part of one database."

This is the sixth in an ongoing series on buiding a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. Part 2 offers basic site design guidelines. Part 3 tackles some advanced design issues.Part 4 examines social media tools for building traffic.Part 5 compares outsourcing against doing maintenance work in-house...

While few businesses are exactly sure how to maximize their social networking features, most are aware they cannot ignore these sites. Facebook has more than 150 million users, and LinkedIn has more than 35 million business professionals using its network. Daily, millions of individuals log onto these sites to express themselves. "Companies are constantly trying to understand what their customers are thinking and how they are feeling," Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research Group, told CRM Buyer. "Because social networking sites have become repositories for their thoughts and ideas, businesses are trying to tap into these sites."

The recession is ahead of our thinking about how to sell around it. Our first response is a tried and true strategy that is not right for all occasions. People will disagree with me, but so far we've seen a steady stream of one idea -- staying close to the customer and attending to the customer experience ...

Enter Zuora. Not quite a year old, it can count itself among the first vendors to target the back-end needs of SaaS companies, Denis Pombriant, principal of Beagle Research, told CRM Buyer Zuora made its official debut in May 2008 with an online billing application for SaaS pr...

Late last week Salesforce laid off three executives, or so the story went. Actually two senior sales execs were let go and venerable president and former CFO, Steve Cakebread, just left. Immediately the knowledge-sphere (and I am tempted to write that word without the 'K') started rumbling about what dire straits Salesforce must be in ...