What's more, Correspondent has helped Garber refine his marketing goals and skills. "The software isn't a management tool in the sense that it's a decision maker," cautions Merlo. "You don't have a situation where it tells you that if this happens you should do this. It's an information builder, which allows a manager to go in and think about what to do with the information that is at his or her disposal." Merlo attributes Garber's success to two factors: "There's the part of actually using the software, and there's the part of changing his business habits to take advantage of the software. The software doesn't make things happen," he insists. "You have to have a marketing structure, a marketing scheme in mind before the product becomes useful. It's our job as part of selling the software to go in there and force that kind of thinking."
The Correspondent program is essentially an integrated database and word processor. The database consists of three different files, or types of capabilities. The first is a people file that allows users to profile in some detail who or what it is they are tracking. In the case of London Wine, Garber can profile a customer's name, whether it is an organization or a person, the address, and the customer's buying patterns and preferences.
The second part of the database is an activity file that keeps a log of all the transactions that occur with each customer. So whenever London Wine sends a piece of direct mail, gets a phone order, or places a telephone call, the transaction is recorded.
An event file is the third part of the database. This serves as a scheduling device for things that should happen in the future. If London Wine gets a phone call today placing an order for two weeks from now, it can not only record the order in the activity file, but also schedule in the event file that in two weeks it will have to make the delivery. The event file can be called up for a given week, and all the events that should take place during that week will be displayed, resulting in an effective "tickler" file.
The word processing of Correspondent allows the user to compose documents from scratch or to store documents that can be retrieved at a later date. Because Correspondent's word-processing and database systems are integrated, it is relatively easy to call up and print out desired labels of names with specific characteristics from the database, as well as create a direct-mail campaign complete with a series of follow-up letters that can be stored in the system. The preferences of individual customers can be called up and used to personalize letters that are composed on the word processing portion of the software. And reports on how a particular mailing performed are easily produced.
Correspondent operates on the IBM PC, IBM PC/XT, or any IBM-compatible hardware with 256 kilobytes of randomaccess memory, a 10-megabyte hard disk, a display monitor, and a letter-quality printer. It sells for $1,500 for the bare-bones diskette with instruction manual, or $4,000 for customized software with some applications consultation, plus $400 a day for additional Selkirk consultation.
The information-building and organizational capabilities of Correspondent have been a godsend for Garber in managing the increase in his business. "There's about 80 things going on at the same time," says Garber. "We try to do prospecting every month, say a few hundred letters . . . followed up by telephone calls within a couple of weeks after the letters go out. There's also a certain amount of direct telemarketing, even without letters, with positive response stuck in the database. Then there are mailings to the entire list of people who are active in the program. We try to get a piece out every four to six weeks. A good deal of our time is being drained in filling all the orders coming in."
So far, London Wine has limited the use of Correspondent to its retail store, which had 1983 sales of almost $1 million. While Correspondent was not commercially available until January 1984, the company has been using it since November 1983 as a part of Selkirk's test program. London Wine plans to use the software in early 1985 for its wholesale arm, Eastern Wine Cellars Inc., which Garber estimates will do more than $1.5 million in sales in 1985, its first full year of operation. "It will allow our wholesale salespeople to track business and not lose sight of that business," says Garber.
Correspondent is not the only software on the market that is capable of doing a complete business-to-business direct-mail campaign, however. Binary Systems Inc. of Newton, Mass., has developed a software package called Market Master, which is similar to Correspondent in some capabilities. Until recently, however, the software, called Executive List Management, was available for use only on the Canon computers for which Binary is the New England manufacturer's representative. An IBM version of Binary's Market Master is now being marketed through N-Sure Systems Inc., in Monroe, La., which markets IBM PCs with specially tailored software to insurance brokers, agents, and companies. To date, N-Sure has sold about 15 Market Master packages at $895 a shot, but, to N-Sure's knowledge, none of the purchasers has the system up and running yet.
While Selkirk is still in the early stages of marketing its package as well, its customers seem pleased with the program. Softbridge Microsystems Corp., for example, a software development company in Cambridge, Mass., that is developing software for financial planners, purchased Correspondent software not only for its direct-mail capabilities but also to use in prospecting for customers and conducting market research. Cathy Cassia, who works in Softbridge's marketing department, has been using Correspondent for two months. She describes it as an "unbelievably easy system."
"I don't even want to discuss the other marketing software I used," says Cassia. "It was here when I got here and was probably much less expensive, but it was deadly. . . . Correspondent just spells it all out."
