Centralized, Integrated Self-service portal, Surveys, Campaign Project Management and Marketing campaign automation improve retention and increase sales

(SAN JOSE, CA—March 18, 2005) – Relationals, a leader in hosted customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for the publishing and media industry, today announced version 3.0 of their Publishing CRM suite that provides additional functionality needed by publishing and media companies to automate their sales processes, improve advertiser relationships and increase revenues.

With more competition than ever for business advertising spending coming from TV, Radio, Cable and Internet content and search sites, improving customer service and attentiveness and responsiveness will make a measurable impact in customer loyalty and retention.

Customers expect a constant line of communication and connection with the companies they do business with. With Relationals, advertisers can have a direct connection with the newspaper to manage their business interactions through a completely customizable Web-based self-service portal that has the look and feel of the newspaper Website. Through this portal, customers can review their account information, contact their sales representative, receive notifications about new program offerings, review their active contracts and campaigns, request service or support, and electronically proof and approve advertisements. The portal provides the next level of business transparency and service that businesses have become accustomed to receiving in other industries – now available in the publishing industry.

Relationals CRM for publishing now has features that make it easer to shorten production cycles through automation. Complex multi-channel advertising campaigns need to be tightly coordinated to track and manage numerous tasks, details and completion status to meet production deadlines, contract commitments and customer expectations. Using Relationals campaign project management tools teams can create project and manage them so they can consistently meet final delivery dates, define key milestones, create and assign tasks and activities that need to be completed along the way and measure the progress of a project toward completion and ultimately the campaign launch.

Using advertiser-focused marketing campaign automation capabilities, newspapers can contact their customers based on any attribute including SIC code, location, activity, prior product purchase, advertising frequency, or activity history to name a few. You can use the new rich-text editor to create html email campaigns that target program offerings or special promotions to exactly the advertisers you want to reach. You can measure the results of each of these campaigns by tracking email opens, link clicks or requests for more information. In addition to contacting installed base advertisers, Relationals can import lead lists from any source so sales representatives can contact and develop new business.

Completely unique to Relationals is the ability to create customized surveys that can be electronically distributed to advertisers or customers to help newspapers directly collect useful information such as questions about new product ideas, ratings for previously purchased services, demographic information or future intended product purchases. Relationals Survey collects survey results and the information is graphically summarized and accessible online including verbatim responses to open-questions. Surveys can be anonymous or have identified responses. Newspapers can also use Survey automation to collect valuable newspaper employee information.

“Now more than ever publishing companies need to effectively complete with other media for the mindshare of business advertisers,” says Pankaj Malviya, Chief Executive Officer, Relationals CRM. “Publishing companies need to equip their sales, service, support and production personnel with the automation and productivity software they need to streamline time consuming tasks, accelerate communications with customers and simplify access to important information. Using Relationals CRM software, specifically for the publishing industry, the process of selling is no longer a distraction and sales people have more time to focus on customers and building relationships that result in loyalty and increased revenue.”

Built on the Relationals Customer Data Integration (CDI) Platform, Relationals provides customers with proven scalability, customization, integration and performance. Relationals integrates with common sources of information by connecting with publishing business systems, lead sources, customer lists. Additionally, Relationals can integrate with in house ad desk systems, creative and document repositories, and security and single sign-on systems to operate as an extension of your existing IT infrastructure.

Leading newspaper publishers such as Scripps, Blethen, McClatchy, Lee, Stephens Media Group, Morris Communications use Relationals CRM to centralize access to customer information, reduce advertiser churn, measure sales progress against targets and accelerate business advertising spending decisions.