Some businesses only use their CRM system for the most basic functions such as a customer database. This management system is customizable and to obtain its full benefits, think of CRM as the most effective marketing and sales hub your business has.

Progressive profiling is not a new concept. Unfortunately, the theory behind it hasn't been put into practice as much as it should be.

A dashboard to organize and manage the company’s content can do wonders for sales and increase business productivity. However, it is easy to say in a meeting, “let’s get a dashboard,” and not realistically see how a dashboard will affect a company.

The reality is that marketing returns are higher than sales returns. While marketing campaigns do also require the time and energy of talented employees, it doesn’t require hiring more workers to up the marketing ante.

A cost-effective way of using technology to assist the nonprofit while employing business-to-business marketing strategies is to use open-source software. This has inherent challenges ranging from familiarity at the end-user level to technical support to compatibility issues. While these challenges persist, open-source software provides a high level of functionality and practicality while keeping costs low. The key is utilizing the software that best meets the need effectively. A useful way to determine which open-source software to employ for any business, not just nonprofits, is to remember the three R’s; research, review and read. Using the three R’s can stop potential problems before they impact performance.

A cost-effective way of using technology to assist the nonprofit while employing business-to-business marketing strategies is to use open-source software. This has inherent challenges ranging from familiarity at the end-user level to technical support to compatibility issues. While these challenges persist, open-source software provides a high level of functionality and practicality while keeping costs low.

Over at Business 2 Community, Felicia Savage wrote a compelling piece about Indiana University Health’s decision to live tweet a kidney transplant and what it taught her about marketing. Why would anyone do that? According the people at IU, it was fairly simple—they wanted to educate people about the process, thereby dispelling their fears, and get people to visit their kidney donation page and contribute money to research. It worked in a big way.