smartFOCUS wins Hastings Direct contract

SmartFOCUS (LON:STF) said car and home insurance broker Hastings Direct is adopting its marketing software to increase communication with its customer base and gain marketing insight.

The new client is a division of Hastings Insurance Services, the global provider of e-mail and multi-channel marketing software said. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Under the contract Hastings Direct will adopt smartFOCUS's marketing database, modelling, campaign management and reporting tools to secure a single customer view and increase the relevance of communications and engagement with prospects across all the company's brands and throughout the customer lifecycle.  

Hastings Direct will use smartFOCUS's full Intelligent Marketing Solution which comprises:  Analyzer, the visual analytical technique module; Modeler, providing easy and rapid predictive model marketing campaigns; Campaigner for scalable campaign planning, and production; and Reporter for continuous reporting and measurement in multiple formats.

SmartFOCUS cited Hastings Direct sales and marketing director Mat Shepherd as saying: “SmartFOCUS was selected for its software and experience.  We reviewed the market and quickly found that smartFOCUS was the clear choice for all our criteria.”

As well as increasing efficiency of the marketing process, smartFOCUS will enable Hastings’ marketing team to lower the costs of its customer database processes and to identify and leverage cross-sell opportunities.

At a trade show earlier this month, smartFOCUS unveiled a new web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) marketing software.  The new product, currently referred to as code name Arjuna, will directly address the many challenges faced by modern direct marketers around the globe.

It said that specifically the product is designed to meet the growing need to deploy and evaluate marketing efforts across all channels - including social media.

Interim chief executive Curt Bloom said just prior to the trade show: “Beta customer feedback to date has been phenomenal and shows promising results."

Arjuna is slated for launch in the second half and represents a comprehensive revision of the group’s core analytic and campaign management software.

SmartFOCUS said it will include new features like integrated workflow management as well as flexible data loading capabilities.