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Knowledge Marketing CEO Duane Crandall was featured in Plymouth (Minnesota) Magazine today, talking about Good Donor, an online charitable giving site created by Knowledge Marketing to help charities reduce their solicitation costs and help donors more efficiently schedule donation pickups of their unwanted household items. Donors can schedule free donation pickups at www.gooddonor.org with a growing number of charities across the US.
To view the article in its entirety, click here.
To learn more about Good Donor, go to http://www.gooddonor.org/
Knowledge Marketing Ranks No. 1,746 on the 2011 Inc. 500|5000 with Three-Year Sales Growth of 153%
NEW YORK, August 30, 2011 — Inc. magazine today ranked Knowledge Marketing No. 1,746 on its fifth annual Inc. 500|5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent entrepreneurs. Online retailer ideeli tops this year’s list. Knowledge Marketing joins Spirit Airlines, television maker Vizio, Honest Tea, Dunkin Donuts and Metrokane, makers of the Rabbit corkscrew, among other prominent brands featured on this year’s list.
Continue reading “KM Named to Inc. Magazine’s 500|5000 List” »
Plymouth, MN – March 22, 2010 – KM is pleased to announce, CEO, Duane Crandall has recently been nominated for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. The program honors the individual who puts everything on the line and translates an idea into a viable, sustainable enterprise.
“This nomination is a milestone for myself as an entrepreneur, but also KM as an organization. It’s a barometer of where KM has been and the direction we’re on track to go,” said Crandall.
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. Recognized globally, the award honors the most outstanding entrepreneurs who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Upper Midwest program is one of 26 U.S. regional programs, and includes companies from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota. A distinguished panel of judges will review the nominations and select the finalists and winners. This year’s awards will be presented on June 10 to outstanding leaders of our area’s most successful and growing businesses.
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About Duane Crandall:
Duane provides 20 years of sales, technology, and leadership experience as Founder and CEO of KM. He oversees KM’s rapidly expanding business by combining his strong innovative spirit to drive the company’s strategic vision while demonstrating a solid track record of growth in the software environment. Prior to founding KM in 2004, Duane launched several internet companies: Tecknowledge Management, Geo Teck Systems, Good Donor, as well as the first internet kiosk provider, Public Internet.
About KM:
KM (KM), a software as a services (SaaS) company, provides affordable-enterprise Web tools integrating Email Marketing, Online Surveys/Data Collection, and Digital Editions. These solutions, along with their cross platform reporting, drive their mission to help marketers successfully build, manage, and grow a profitable online channel.
It is trusted by a span of industries including: B2B, Retailers, Publishers, Non-profits and more. In 2009, KM was ranked in Inc. Magazine’s Top 500 Fastest Growing Companies. KM is privately held with headquarters in Plymouth, MN. For more information, visit www.knowledgemarketing.com or call 1-866-844-6275
New Employees Bring Nearly Thirty Years of Industry Experience as KM Continues to Grow
Plymouth, MN (April 26, 2011) – KM (KM), a marketing software as a service (SaaS) company, recently added three new team members to the growing company. With over thirty years of combined industry experience, they are key additions to KM, a company twice named to the Inc 500|5000 fastest growing companies list.
Beth Bigelow has joined the KM sales team as Regional Sales Director and will be leading expansion efforts in the Government Solutions vertical market. Beth has over eleven years of sales experience and more than six in software sales. Prior to joining KM, Beth led government email marketing sales efforts companies such as GovDelivery, Epicor, and ERP software.
Also joining the sales team is TJ Drudi in the role of Regional Sales Director for the Chicago market. Based in Chicago, TJ will lead KM’s efforts to create a large market presence for the company in one of the largest markets in the country. TJ brings seven years of email marketing sales experience at Email Marketing Power Inc. to KM and also has significant experience in telecommunications management.
Brian Michaelis was recently hired as Creative Director and will be leading KM’s efforts to create unique digital content and help grow the KM brand. In addition, Brian will be managing online marketing efforts, including redesigning the current company website. Brian brings over ten years experience in brand management and design to KM.
“Beth, TJ, and Brian are key additions to our already stellar team at KM,” said Linda Crandall, Chief Relationship Officer. “Their experience and leadership in our industry are part of the continuing evolution and growth of our company and the services we are able to offer our clients.”
For more information about KM contact:
Tim Martinson
Internet Marketing/Client Service Specialist
Phone | 763.746.2780 ext. 216
About KM:
KM (KM), a marketing software as a services (SaaS) company, provides affordable-enterprise Web tools integrating Email Marketing, Online Surveys/Data Collection, and Digital Editions. These solutions, along with their cross platform reporting, drive their mission to help marketers successfully build, manage, and grow a profitable online channel. It is trusted by a span of industries including: B2B, Retailers, Publishers, Non-profits and more. KM is privately held with headquarters in Plymouth, MN. For more information, visit www.knowledgemarketing.com
With KM’s SmartForms, your website can be turned into a lead generating machine, gathering data and automatically engaging visitors to your site. In just a few clicks, you can generate a powerful data collection tool to gather information from visitors to your site and have them automatically flow into your email marketing list.
For example, a SmartForm can be created and placed on your Contact Us page to engage visitors to your site who are eager to learn more about your services. A SmartForm can be generated in KM’s Enterprise Communications Network (ECN™) and placed on your website that will gather information you wish to receive from the visitor. More than just a contact form, the data entered by the visitor into the SmartForm is instantly added into the ECN™ group of your choice for follow-up campaigns and messages from your sales team. The SmartForm can also be set up to automatically send a “thank you” message to the visitor for their interest in your company.
KM customers in such diverse vertical markets as nonprofit management, B2B marketing, and publishing use SmartForms to automate their marketing process. Examples of SmartForms being used by KM customers include:
- Contact Us page to engage visitors to learn more about their company
- Event Registration
- Email Opt-in such as a newsletter, whitepaper, quote request, etc.
- Subscription management
Creating a SmartForm in ECN™ is easy. Within the Groups menu, click on the icon in the SF column for the group for which you wish to create a SmartForm. Then click on the Single Optin SmartForms button to begin creating the SmartForm. The HTML code that is generated can then be added directly to your website or landing pages, helping you to turn your website into a fully automated lead generating tool.
For more information on SmartForms and how to create them, please contact your KM account representative.
In 2009, Nielsen concluded that the growing popularity of social media would signal the end for email and in particular, email marketing. It was a bold conclusion and caused shockwaves among email marketers. Yes, social media was growing in popularity, but was it an email killer?
Over the course of the next year, Nielsen reviewed their original hypothesis, analyzing the email usage of high level, medium level, and low level social media users as well as those that were not using social media at all. Just a year later, the results caused them to reverse their claim. Email marketing was not dead and in fact was growing as a result of social media. Nielsen concluded: “Social media makes people consume email more—particularly for the highest social media users.”
Additional research by Merkle in 2010 provided more specific information about how social media users interact with their email inbox. They found that 42% of social media users check their email four times or more per day, compared to 27% that do not use social media. Also in 2010, a study by MarketingSherpa found that 75% of social media users said email is the best way for companies to communicate with them, compared to 65% for non social media users. Email marketing—it would seem—was not in decline because of social media but rather thriving as a result of increasing use.
The lesson for marketers: Email marketing is not dead and is still the preferred method of social media users to interact with companies and brands. Additionally, as we discussed in our whitepaper “Email and Social Marketing: How to Use Social Media to Enhance Your Email Marketing”, when done properly, email marketing and social media can be fully integrated to grow together. A successful digital strategy includes both email marketing and social media and not one or the other.
