The Evolution of Customer Acquisition at CRM Evolution #CRMe10

Last week, I had the privilege of attending and speaking at the CRM Evolution Conference at the New York Marriott Marquis. It was a great couple of days. Big hats off to Paul Greenberg, David Myron, the rest of the team at Information Today, and the unsung heroes that race around behind the scenes to pull off an event such as this.

Instead of providing my own analysis, check out the fantastic write ups from Paul Greenberg, Esteban Kolsky, Chris Bucholtz, Andrew Boyd, Denis Pombriant, and Marcio Saito for more coverage of the event and mark your calendars to attend next years event which promises to be even better.

The Accidental Community was well represented by Mike Fauscette, Brent Leary, Jesus Hoyos, Prem Kumar Aparanji, Mitch Lieberman, Esteban Kolsky, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, and Michael Krigsman.

On Tuesday morning, I spoke on “Evolving Customer Acquisition for the Social Business”. By show of hands in the room, probably 2/3 of the attendees stated that they were marketing folks, followed by some sales people, senior execs, and a couple of customer service people.

I started off telling the story of Hazel Bishop, and how because of the ability of her company’s ad firm, they were able to harness the rapid widespread adoption of the television to transform a struggling $50,000 a year company to a high flying $10,000,000 a year company in less than 3 years. That triggered a surprising response from one unnamed woman from the lively crowd which set a great tone for rest of the presentation. There was some compelling question and answer after the presentation related to trust and privacy and what it meant to be social in this era. It was a fascinating and unexpected conversation which elicited some strong and insightful opinions from the audience.

During the presentation, I highlighted four examples of companies that are doing innovative and interesting things in attracting new customers, and are being rewarded for their efforts.

The Old Spice Man
The Pepsi Refresh Project
Eloqua
HubSpot

There are too many people to thank for making it a great event for me personally and professionally. A very heartfelt thank you to those of you who attended my session, and especially to those who live tweeted. To those I was able to meet and talk with throughout the conference, I look forward to continuing the dialogue. Please feel free to view and download my presentation below. Just please attribute the work if you publish and use it according to the Creative Commons license attached.

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