CheckFree Corp., Atlanta, has launched an updated version of its Marketing Direct system, an e-mail marketing program that uses Internet billing procedures to target customers.
Marketing Direct 2.0, one module in the company's CheckFree solutions, allows firms to cross-sell products and services to their customers by placing messages in e-mail bills.
The e-mail campaigns can be sent to large groups of people who have shown similar consumer habits or can be targeted on a customer-by-customer basis. The messages can appear at the top, bottom or side of the e-mail under the constructs of Marketing Direct 2.0's template, whose appearance emulates the physical characteristics of a personal check.
The features included in the enhanced version are management of multiple campaigns at one time and the ability to place ad messages in the bill summary. Another enhancement lets companies use click-through rates to evaluate the effectiveness of e-mail billing.
MCI and AT&T have already begun using the updated marketing system, said Bill Zielke, vice president of product marketing at CheckFree. He said Marketing Direct 2.0, like the CheckFree solutions as a whole, can be used for business-to business billing as well as by business-to-consumer companies.
Zielke said a wide range of firms would be targeted with the updated system in the coming weeks, including insurance companies and other financial firms.
Visit www.checkfree.com for more information.
