Like many people, I prioritize tasks based on expected results; specifically by evaluating the impact of each likely outcome on the future of SAS’ marketing efforts. Ensuring deliberate actions have purpose and meaning—today and tomorrow—is important, because a forward thinking mind-set keeps one moving in the right direction.

There’s a lyric from a Blues Traveler song that goes “It won’t mean a thing in 100 years.” I love the song, but disagree with the premise. Choosing to make all 480 workday-minutes count towards future success is good advice, and unlikely to show up on a Phrases Your Boss Doesn't Want to Hear list anytime soon.

Much has changed in the Database Marketing world in the nine years I’ve been with SAS. 2001 was all about using SAS Data Quality solutions to reduce the time it took to pull and standardize lists for direct mail campaigns. Over the years our internal usage of SAS Software evolved, and today we also use SAS Marketing Automation for campaign management, to segment and target our email, direct mail, and contact center lists.

While there are many accomplishments to be proud of, I’m most proud of my team’s ability to remain focused on tomorrow; on the next impact they can deliver. One highlight here is a new project focused on lead nurturing and optimization. At a basic level, we’re working on two main objectives:

1. Combine the power of SAS Enterprise Miner to create predictive and descriptive models, with SAS Marketing Optimization to maximize the performance of our database when marketing campaigns compete for the same data.
2. Develop and deliver a B2B Lead Nurturing program we can be proud of.

Over the next few months I’ll update you on this project, providing details on what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. And I’ll be happy to entertain questions along the way.