What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Multimedia technologies provide direct marketers with an incredible diversity of opportunities for communication to as well as with customers in a more appealing manner than old-fashioned printed advertisements or mailings (Coviello, Milley, & Marcolin, 2003). Direct marketing is one of the most important application domains of innovative multimedia products. An increasing share of marketing spending is invested in network activities, particularly WWW advertising and online shops. Online marketing activities have become so prominent that the 2000 Superbowl has been labeled the “Dot com Bowl” (Noe & Parker, 2005). In this article, we outline: • how companies improve their business by multimedia and networks, and • the challenges for direct marketing brought about by multimedia. The remainder of the article is structured as follows: in the first section, we provide a definition of direct marketing, illustrate the opportunities opening up for marketers by the new technologies, and present a scheme of tasks in direct marketing. Additionally, we describe the features of direct marketing using multimedia in the four domains of product, price, place, and promotion. In the subsequent section we address the possibilities for contemporary relationship marketing in the framework of content, commerce, and community. Thereafter, we discuss innovative direct marketing activities using the examples of advertising in personalized digital TV environments and mobile telephony. The article concludes with a comparison of different direct marketing media and a synopsis of success factors.