Fusion Advisor, Inc. is a Carson City, Nevada-based provider of next-generation technology solutions for the wealth management industry.

Founded in 2005, Fusion Advisor’s core mission is to design and develop cutting-edge software tools that empower independent financial advisors to provide unparalleled service to clients, make smarter and more informed investment decisions, and offer guidance that will maximize the value of each client’s portfolio - all while expanding their business and building a stronger, more recognizable brand.

As the company prepares to introduce it’s very first product to the market - the Wealth Portal™ account aggregation platform - it is relying on powerful customer relationship management from GoldMine to manage all the activities surrounding this exciting launch. GoldMine is helping Fusion Advisor to:

* Build a large base of qualified contacts to market to
* Create and deploy campaigns that will generate awareness and pre-launch “buzz” among key prospects
* Identify opportunities for strategic partnerships
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Salesforce.com recently introduced CampaignForce, the industry’s first on-demand CRM application designed specifically for political campaign management.

CampaignForce helps political strategy teams manage and track relationships with constituents and donors - even when they’re on the campaign trail - and automate critical activities such as recruiting and staffing volunteers, fundraising, and public relations.

CampaignForce can also help politicians and their staff members gain insight into perceptions and beliefs of donors and voters, and to more effectively push political agendas. Additionally, users can easily monitoring Web buzz, such as online press articles, blog entries, YouTube video viewings, Google searches, and more.

CampaignForce will be available in Q2 of 2007, and will cost $65 to $125 per user. For more information, visit www.campaignforce.com.

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If your company uses a contact management or customer relationship management (CRM system), you need to ask one additional key question. Does your CRM or contact management system tie your consultative sales, ROI analysis and proposal production process together?

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In January, Microsoft announced that it would be launching the next major release of its Dynamics CRM suite sometime in mid-year.

The release, currently code-named “Titan”, reinforces the company’s continued focus on the on-demand, software-as-a-services (SaaS) market, and will serve as Microsoft’s first fully-hosted customer relationship management platform.

Key Titan features will include:

* An advanced multi-tenant architecture
* A single code base to support multiple implementation types
* Three deployment options - CRM Live hosted by Microsoft, CRM Live hosted by a third-party, or in-house

Titan is currently being previewed to key Microsoft alliances. More than 300 partners are already participating in the product’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP), with an additional 1,000 partners expected to join the program in the second quarter.

CRM it’s not just for sales, marketing and service anymore!

Many companies have come to recognize the value that customer relationship management (CRM) solutions can offer to sales and marketing operations. Improved productivity, reduced costs, higher win rates, and stronger customer relationships are just some of the many benefits that can be achieved. But few businesses realize that similar payback can be realized when CRM is applied to its public relations and media communications efforts.

Although the methods and end goals are quite different - sales and marketing staff are looking to reach out to existing and potential customers to generate revenue, while public relations professionals are reaching out to a variety of journalists to generate “ink” or garner airtime - PR departments function much in the same way that sales and marketing teams to.

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You ask the questions, and our resident CRM guru shares her wisdom.

This week’s question:

“What should I ask during a customer reference check?”

A: Many experts consider the customer reference check to be the most important part of the vendor evaluation process. Why? Because nobody can provide more insight into how a company does business, and how effective its solutions are, than its own clients. Here are 8 questions you should ask during the reference check.

Once you’ve received the list of references from the vendor, double-check it to make sure it includes several companies who are within your industry, or who share common business issues and goals. Then, you can begin making your calls. Be sure you speak to at least one member of each functional department that works with the solution, as well as the IT team that oversees the technology. Ask the following questions:
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Email marketing is still one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to take your message and your value proposition to the masses.

On average, a company reaps more than $51 for every $1 it spends on email marketing programs, according to a 2006 survey by the Direct Marketing Association. But, with tens of thousands of emails being blasted to existing and potential customers each day - how can you make yours stand out from the crowd and maximize campaign ROI?

Here are 5 great ways to leverage your CRM system to improve the effectiveness your email marketing programs.

1. Segment Your Audience

Irrelevent email content is likely to lead to poor response and conversion rates. Instead of taking the “one size fits all” approach to your email initiatives and blasting the same message to a large list of contacts, increase the impact of your content by breaking your audience down into several sub-groups, based on set of common characteristics. Then, create seperate custom-tailored messages, offers, and promotions desgined to appeal specifically to each group.

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You ask the questions, and our resident CRM guru shares her wisdom.

Q: “Should I hire an outside consultant to oversee my CRM initiative, or am I better off appointing an internal project leader?”

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Need to stay up-to-date on the latest news and happenings on the CRM circuit? Here’s a summary of some of the most recent announcements and advice from vendors, industry analysts, and other experts.

Vendor News

Late-breaking information flows rapidly from the leading CRM providers. What’s going on with your existing vendor, or the vendors you are evaluating? Recent reports include:

* Oracle reported stellar results for its fiscal third quarter, the best in the past five years according to company CFO Safra Catz. Both profits and new software sales outpaced analyst expectations.

* SAP is being sued by rival Oracle, who is seeking an injunction to stop the German-based company from aggressively signing up its customers to product support deals. Oracle also seeks unspecified general and punitive damages in the suit.

* Salesforce.com has just announced the release of AppSpace, a collaborative exchange environment for businesses. The company is touting AppSpace as the “corporate equivalent of MySpace”, and will be featured in the company’s Spring, 2007 product release. Read more »

Patty Azzarello was the youngest person to become a general manager at Hewlett Packard at the age of 33.

She ran a $1B global software business at the age of 35, and became a CEO for the first time at the age of 38. A few of her roles were as VP and General Manager of HP OpenView, CEO of Euclid Software, and Chief Marketing Officer for Siebel Systems.

Patty is currently the CEO of Azzarello Group, a unique services organization focused on helping business leaders actually get done what they want to do, and get a bigger payoff from their hard work.

Azzarello Group delivers practical, experience-based tools to business leaders, through products and services including articles, e-books, mentoring programs, executive coaching, public speaking, small business retreats, and business execution workshops.

More Azzarello Group resources for Small Business can be found at: www.BigHelpForSmallBusiness.com.