Merkle(www.merkle.com), the nation's largest and fastest growing independent customer relationship marketing agency, released a thought leadership paper entitled Integrated Customer Marketing (ICM)tm in Practice: Building Currencies. The white paper introduces the concept of customer currency as a valuation standard and speaks to the importance of creating a coordinated, enterprise-wide approach to marketing. Specifically, it makes the case for organizations to strive for fully integrated customer marketing by transitioning from a campaign-focused approach to a customer-focused approach. To find out more, download a complimentary copy at www.merkle.com.

The paper outlines the three core components of ICM Currencies: Value, Segmentation and Measurement. Value defines the individual customer's significance to the organization;segmentation examines each customer based on their unique needs, attitudes and behaviors; and incremental measurement, which identifies what approaches are effective from a correlation-versus-causality perspective. The three core components outlined in this research form Merkle's best-practice approach to customer centricity and include examples from DirecTV, The Limited and The American Cancer Society.

Chris Crayner, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Merkle, said, "Within most organizations, the same customer is measured and evaluated using very different standards. It is essential to establish, prioritize and manage the value that each customer brings to your organization, and track this value throughout the customer lifecyle. A shared customer value currency serves to set priorities and integrate all customer communications and interactions that take place involving marketing, sales and service."

Craig Dempster, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Merkle, said, "Merkle is committed to bringing new approaches and cutting-edge research to the marketing sector. Our goal with this new white paper is to generate ideas and encourage a reexamination of how marketing is typically performed. We hope our white paper fosters an ongoing dialog that highlights the importance of integrated customer strategies within our organizations today."