Harte-Hanks Helps Companies Eliminate Lead ‘Black Holes’ with Allink® Lead Accelerator

December 13, 2005; 08:46 AM

ORLANDO, FL – December 13, 2005 – Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE: HHS), a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company, today announced the release of Allink® Lead Accelerator, a global lead optimization solution that is designed to improve lead productivity and value, and to facilitate the lead-to-sale conversion process.  With Allink Lead Accelerator, companies can receive and prioritize business prospect lead data from disparate sources quickly and accurately, append relevant prospect information from internal proprietary and commercially available sources, and route leads to the appropriate destination for more timely sales follow-up.  The result is the ability to tailor worldwide marketing activities to identify and capitalize on best prospects quickly, while maximizing the company’s return on investment.

           In spite of large expenditures to generate leads, many companies struggle to realize and measure the full potential of their lead generation efforts, especially in the business-to-business (b-to-b) sector.  Further complicating their efforts is the typically broad range of lead sources, including numerous marketing channels – Web events, in-person and online seminars, telemarketing, direct mail, e-mail marketing and awareness campaigns – as well as a number of different partner, event management and marketing agencies around the world that are engaged to generate sales opportunities.  Existing processes for cleansing, managing and routing lead data to the appropriate sales channels for cultivation into qualified sales prospects are often sluggish and manual, which can result in lead opportunities finding their way into a “black hole” where they remain unattended and erode.

        To solve the issues of lead “black holes” and lost sales productivity, Harte-Hanks has developed Allink Lead Accelerator, a proprietary bundle of products and services which is designed to enable companies to collect, cleanse, enhance and manage large volumes of lead data and then quickly prioritize and route them appropriately to a sales force automation (SFA) system or to a sales representative.  Based on a methodology that combines b-to-b marketing expertise with business automation and technology, such as Allink® CDM 360RT for data matching powered by Trillium Software System® for data quality, Allink Lead Accelerator enables companies to track and distribute all leads consistently and timely, and to eliminate questionable data efficiently.

        “With Harte-Hanks Allink Lead Accelerator, companies can increase the value of leads, achieve visibility into the sales process and measure activity through reports that detail the sources and volumes of response to lead-generation efforts,” said Kathy Calta, corporate officer and senior vice president, Harte-Hanks, Inc.  “The system integrates leads from a range of internal and external sources into a single data management process for action, tracking and visibility.”  

        “Most database marketing strategies focus on lead generation and customer management,” Calta said. “Rarely does a solution seek to link, manage and even optimize the lead management process — that time period between ‘hand-raising’ and ‘customer conversion.’  With Allink Lead Accelerator, companies can take a more strategic and proactive approach to lead management, identify any key defects in their current processes and create faster response times that drive more qualified leads though the pipeline, increasing conversion rates.”

        Allink Lead Accelerator is the latest addition to Harte-Hanks sales lead generation and sales lead management services, which also includes:

-        Targeted lead generation via direct mail, telephone and e-marketing, as well as seminar and online event management support;
-        Sales lead qualification and nurturing via phone and e-mail;
-        Sales lead management and delivery via nexTouch, a Web-based system that maximizes lead follow-up and closure worldwide; and,
-        Harte-Hanks CI Technology Database (CITDB) Purchase Alerts and SuperPlans – ready-to-buy prospects and leads for the high-tech industry that are identified via 75,000 telephone interviews conducted monthly to update the CITDB in North America, Europe and South America.
 
In addition, Harte-Hanks offers database, analytics, data management and data quality solutions for lead-driven b-to-b and consumer markets, developed over three decades.  Harte-Hanks provides these services to a variety of industries among them high tech, financial services and manufacturing.