Scripps Company Picks Relationals for CRM, SFA

Relationals, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) for the newspaper industry, has announced that The E. W. Scripps Company has selected Relationals as its company-wide CRM platform.

Linda Sease, Vice President of Newspaper Marketing for Scripps, said the product "simplifies sales processes, adds a critical layer of collaboration, and enables effective targeting of potential advertisers with greater accuracy and more measurable results."

Based on success at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and other properties, Scripps is positioned to roll out Relationals to all of its newspaper properties. The newspaper chain plans to use Relationals to "execute opportunity-generating telesales and e-mail campaigns, enable account activity monitoring, integrate sales efforts with existing business systems, and consistently collaborate around the sales process," officials say.

A couple years ago Relationals announced that Knight-Ridder's Charlotte Observer had selected the Relationals CRM suite to "accelerate the sales process, improve sales collaboration, and improve advertiser retention," according to Relationals officials.

Susan Gagnon, Recruitment Advertising Sales Manager at the Observer said at the time the newspaper will use Relationals to improve their "sales management capabilities, to improve our revenue forecasting and business planning… [and] have a central point for all customer information."

Gagnon says with secure access to customer contacts, new opportunities, prior purchase, and campaign history, "sales reps can focus on a more consultative approach to selling our products and serving our advertisers."

Relationals also announced that Lee Enterprise’s Columbus Telegram has selected the Relationals CRM suite to “automate and simplify sales processes and improve advertiser relationship management.”

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) Net.  For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

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