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Series 2, Episode 1, Tuesday 16 February 2021
Email & More… Vendor Selection for CRM Tools
Join us for this panel on Vendor Selection for CRM Tools with moderator Adeola Sole of Holistic Email Marketing and expert panellists; Kath Pay of Holistic Email Marketing, Joanne Crawford of Pandora, Dan Jak formerly of British Gas and Dixons, and Philip Johnson of Iterable.
Questions from the audience included:
– Are you finding that more companies rely on agencies to pick a tech platform for them or are decisions all done in house still?
– Has the buying journey changed as a result of Covid-19 how do you approach a big purchase when meeting the vendor is no longer an option. Does this mean you will now consider orgs that do not have a physical local presence?
– Do you consider that the GDPR and LGPD to name a few regulations affects the way brands hire platforms to these purposes?
– I’d be curious to know how much of a voice the people responsible for content & creative have in the vendor-selection gauntlet, in your experience. You mentioned a ton of technical factors, but content is the end deliverable?
– Aside from the usual suspects — Dynamics and Salesforce — are you seeing more enterprises giving serious consideration to other CRM platforms? For example, Hubspot’s new CRM or smaller players like Zoho or Insightly?
– Do you consider that the costs (of historic data and reputation) of migration of platforms are considered when choosing to change? Or is it just because they want a new feature?
– How to find the best solution in the sea of options? and how to decide between big players like Salesforce that offer a lot but require strong technical expertise vs. smaller player that will be easier to use, more supportive but not as developed
– As a company that operates a dual-sided marketplace, we need to message and maintain relationships with both B2B and B2C customers. Is it realistic to find a CRM/ESP that can handle both sides of the business?
– We’re potentially looking for a CRM provider and also having the big v small debate, but we’re starting from a low base and our requirements are quite basic (at the moment) so it feels like all providers are on the table. Would you go big or small?
– It can be tough for small/med vendors to get ‘on the radar’ when they lack Daniel Craig-lookalike sales guys. Any advice?
– Is no one considering inhouse solutions? Things like Mautic now exists. Would this help with privacy regs? Also consider Salesforce and others require so much tech to manage, it is not that much different to have a tech team 4 this
– Even with RFPs, most decisions are driven by emotion. Do you all have any recommendations for removing cognitive bias coming from you or your team’s previous decisions or past interactions with a vendor or channel?
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