Neolane Teams with IBM to Improve Marketing Effectiveness and Increase Customer Value

Enterprise marketing software provider Neolane, Inc. today announced it will integrate IBM (NYSE: IBM) DB2 Database software, including DB2 Workgroup and InfoSphere Warehouse, into its marketing automation platform. Additionally, Neolane will leverage IBM’s InfoSphere Master Data Management (MDM) Server capabilities as an option to provide marketers with more confidence about the relevancy and quality of their data for improved campaign effectiveness, customer value and return on investment (ROI). Neolane will market the combined solutions to customers worldwide.

As marketing spend remains under intense scrutiny, Neolane and IBM are working together to help marketers achieve a better understanding of their clients and better manage and automate the customer communication workflow. In data intensive environments, IBM’s InfoSphere MDM Server becomes the cornerstone to establishing a single marketing view of the customer, providing Neolane’s automated enterprise marketing platform with a unified source to drive consistent, coordinated customer communication across channels. Through the integrated IBM InfoSphere Warehouse infrastructure, organizations utilizing Neolane’s platform will also be able to improve their understanding of their customers, helping them to more rapidly meet customer needs and capitalize on new opportunities.

"IBM and Neolane have complementary solutions that enable marketers to maximize the use of core master data on customers, locations, products and accounts while ensuring that data is updated and synchronized across channels in real-time,” said Rob Thomas, vice president of Information Management, IBM. "Using InfoSphere Warehouse and Master Data Management software, Neolane’s clients will be able to turn large amounts of customer data into effective marketing campaigns which will result in more valuable long-term customer relationships.”

Neolane’s Cross-Channel Direct Marketing and Lead Management Optimization solutions are based on a single, web-services based platform that centrally manages direct marketing campaigns, leads, resources, customer data and analytics. The Neolane platform was specifically engineered to handle the entire range of traditional and emerging channels, including mobile (SMS and MMS). Together with the IBM InfoSphere MDM Server, Neolane helps marketers:

• Ensure coherence and real-time synchronization of customer data across multiple repositories;
• Consume or publish any data stored in the customer domain in order to create a single customer profile and drive unified programs across channels;
• Deliver real-time, event driven or scheduled customer communications; and
• Maximize programs associated with advanced geographic segmentation and targeting; up-sell, cross-sell and product bundling opportunities, and more.

"In high-volume marketing environments, creating a single view of the customer can be a daunting, time consuming process that can negatively impact campaign effectiveness if not done correctly,” said Stephan Dietrich, president, Neolane Inc. "Working with IBM is a tremendous opportunity to deliver additional value to organizations that are bound to large, difficult-to-mine databases. With Neolane and IBM’s InfoSphere MDM Server, those customers will be able to maximize the benefits of Neolane’s automated enterprise marketing platform to improve cross-channel campaign effectiveness and generate revenues.”

Ouest-France Benefits From Neolane and IBM Solution

Neolane has already generated positive customer results based on its integration with IBM’s InfoSphere MDM Server. Neolane was the winner of IBM’s 2008 Information Management "Rookie of the Year” Award based on the successful implementation of the Neolane platform and IBM InfoSphere MDM Server at Ouest-France, the top daily newspaper in France. Ouest-France implemented the joint Neolane and IBM InfoSphere MDM solution in order to develop and optimize its relationship marketing programs across multiple channels - e-mail, website, direct mail, SMS and call centers.

"The combination of Neolane’s enterprise marketing platform and IBM’s MDM solution allows us to discover new revenue opportunities by developing a unified customer relationship across channels,” said Jean-Dominique Hardy, vice director of sales projects and information systems, Ouest-France. "We are confident about achieving our goals with this joint solution, which include increasing business volume, reducing operating costs, and achieving greater customer satisfaction.”

About Neolane

Neolane provides the only enterprise marketing software specifically designed to manage, automate and optimize programs across traditional and emerging channels including direct mail, email and mobile. With Neolane’s cross-channel direct marketing and lead management solutions, marketers can manage campaigns, resources, customer data and analytics from a single platform to dramatically improve effectiveness and ROI. Built by marketers for marketers, Neolane is used by more than 170 of the world’s leading companies including Alcatel-Lucent and Sephora. Visit www.neolane.com.

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