Case Study: Davis Publications

    Gathering, processing and using customer and prospect information across the enterprise provides the basis for the benefits most companies realize from using CRM and Sales Force Automation software.  This is truly the case for Davis Publications, an art education publisher in Worcester, MA.  Davis Publications has been a GoldMine CRM software user for five years.
     Toni Henneman , marketing manager at Davis, (left in picture)  is exuberant when she talks about what GoldMine means to their operation.  “We love GoldMine”, Henneman said.  “It keeps all of us in the company, from customer service to sales to accounting, on the same page as we communicate with our customers.  Nothing falls through the cracks in our effort to build strong relationships with them and continue to earn their business.”    Lynn Babineau, sales support coordinator, echoed Henneman’s sentiments:  “GoldMine is such a valuable tool. I have all of the information in front of me when a customer calls.  I immediately have access to notes of past conversations as well as emails and other interactions.  My customer’s needs come first and I have everything I need to address them.” 

     Davis Publications provides art textbooks for grades K thru 12 as well as School Arts magazine, a publication written by art educators for art teachers. Davis Publications provides resources for educators all the way up to the college level.  Thus, a strategic focus is current customer penetration across product lines.  Henneman and Babineau both agreed that the proliferation and sharing of customer information enhanced penetration, especially by being able to identify needs ongoing and target customers accordingly.  GoldMine’s sales force automation functionality helps to target customer groups at Davis by filtering according to roles such as teachers, supervisors and administrators.  E-mail marketing plays a key role here, as well as automated processes; with automated processes Davis can schedule a series of repetitive tasks such as e-mail promotions and activities to be scheduled at whatever intervals needed.   GoldMine sends the e-mails and schedules the calls automatically; in essence, they have a virtual sales assistant!

     Both Henneman and Babineau were quick to point out that GoldMine’s sales force automation wasn’t just used with current customers.  They have a structured prospecting program to drive new business.  As prospects inquire on Davis’s website to test drive an E-book, an automated process begins that alerts a sales rep by e-mail of the prospect and their interest-and three weeks later the sales rep is alerted that the test drive will be ending in 10 days and it’s time to follow up.  As Henneman pointed out above pertaining to current customers – the same can be said for their prospecting program: “nothing falls through the cracks.”

     Davis Publications is now looking to GoldMine for help in addressing the economic downturn.  As Lynn Babineau summed up, “with the economy the way it is we are looking to save costs by marketing much more via e-mail than through conventional mail.  We can quickly download prospect lists into GoldMine, create specific groups and have information in their hands – sometimes the same day.  Since we can save considerable money in printing costs and postage, we’re looking real close at this as a way to go to market.”

Learn more about Davis Publications at:  www.davisart.com