Merkle (www.merkle.com), a leading customer relationship marketing (CRM) firm and the nation’s largest privately-held agency, announced that it will host a new webinar series in support of its recently released 2012 Marketing Imperatives – Blueprint for CMOs. The Blueprint is a downloadable book that explores the essential skills for creating sustainable competitive advantage through customer strategy as a business strategy. The webinars will enable both commercial and nonprofit marketing organizations to incorporate the imperatives into their CRM strategies to maximize ROI and shareholder value.  

 The first webinar, entitled Customer Centricity and Business Strategy, will take place March 13 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Led by Merkle EVP and chief marketing officer, Craig Dempster, together with EVP, client and advisory services, Steve LaValle, this session will focus on placing customer needs, behaviors and value at the center of all interactions. Attendees will learn about the philosophy of connected CRM and its ability to improve results on ROI and shareholder value.

 The second webinar will take place April 4 at 2:00 p.m. ET and will be led by Merkle’s Scott Nuernberger, vice president and marketing mix optimization lead and Peter Vandre, vice president of digital analytics. This session is entitled Marketing Investment Strategy and will focus on understanding marketing accountability, success metrics and attribution by touchpoint, and how they drive the allocation of resources across the marketing mix.

 On May 2 at 2:00 p.m. ET, the third webinar will be led by Mark Weninger, Merkle’s chief creative officer and agency group leader. This session, entitled Customer Experience and Communication Management, will focus on the importance of building a brand experience that is personal and meaningful for customers.

 “As we have observed the macro trends in marketing, such as the digitization of media and channels, socially enabled mass engagement of consumers, and the challenges of our economic climate, several truths have become apparent about the state of customer relationship marketing today and what’s required to gain competitive differentiation,” said Dempster. “We are excited to be able to share the CMO imperatives to help organizations build long-term competitive differentiation, by building customer strategy as a business strategy.”

 Marketers can learn more about the 2012 Marketing Imperatives – Blueprint for CMOs and the webinar series by visiting the Merkle website at or contacting the Merkle events team at [email protected].