Merkle(www.merkle.com), the nation's fastest growing customer relationship marketing (CRM) agency, today published a new whitepaper entitled CRM 2.0:Customer Strategy as a Business Strategy- Creating Sustainable Competitive Advantage in a New Digital World. This latest installment of Merkle's ongoing Thought Leadership Series details both the challenges and opportunities facing marketers as they struggle to adapt to CRM 2.0 and an increasingly customer-centric business environment. The whitepaper describes Merkle's Integrated Customer MarketingTM (ICM) approach, which places the customer at the center of an organization's business strategy. In addition to the CRM 2.0 whitepaper, Merkle's experienced industry business leaders have developed point of view papers highlighting the opportunities they forsee in individual business sectors for the upcoming year. To find out more, download either the CRM 2.0 whitepaper and industry point of view papers at www.merkle.com/CRM.

The digital revolution that created so many new business and marketing opportunities is now driving the customer revolution. Digital media and channels allow for more data capture, and the ability to gather information in real time is enabling real-time interactions. The report shows that marketers must recognize that each customer has unique needs, perceptions and value to the organization, and must engage him or her accordingly.

"To succeed in the new customer-driven environment, organizations must use information, technology and analytics to effectively engage customers across medias and channels to drive the value of their customer portfolios," said Merkle CEO and Chairman David Williams. "Future competitive advantage will depend upon an organization's ability to understand, track, engage, measure and influence consumer behavior. With the digital revolution, customers have grown accustomed to real time, individualized interaction and they expect this level of engagement from the brands they value."