News From Coravue

Coravue Adds Personalized RSS to Online CRM System

Trackable RSS webfeed delivers tailored marketing messages to the desktop.

LOS ANGELES, CA — May 18, 2004 — Coravue, Inc. announced today that it has added a personalized RSS content distribution feature to Coravue CMS, the Web content management portion of its integrated suite of hosted CRM applications.

The personalized RSS feature in Coravue CMS allows marketers to deliver headline links and content summaries that match the interest profile managed by each subscriber. In addition, RSS clickthroughs are tracked by individual reader and stored in the individual's usage profile.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a method used to publish a site's current headline links to other Web sites and to individuals using RSS reader software. However, these webfeeds have included all headline links on a topic without regard to each user's interests.

"Our personalized RSS webfeed allows companies to target their marketing messages right to the desktop of customers and prospective customers," said Cliff Allen, Coravue's CEO. "And, being trackable means that our CRM system captures valuable activity data that's tied to all other data collected about each subscriber."

Web marketers can use either the standard point-and-click personalization technique, or a marketer can develop a completely custom approach to personalizing an RSS webfeed.

Applications for RSS Personalization

A personalized RSS webfeed works especially well for companies selling a wide range of products and companies selling into a wide range of market segments.

Examples of the content that can be delivered via a personalized RSS webfeed include:

• Events near the subscriber
• Updates for products important to the customer
• News releases from key departments

Tracking and Reporting

"One of the most important functions of one-to-one marketing is listening to customers and observing how they respond to marketing messages. This is key to learning how to deliver greater value to customers," said Allen, who is author of best selling books on one-to-one marketing. "Until now, very little data on RSS usage has been available to accomplish this."

Coravue's personalized RSS feature helps marketers overcome this problem by connecting an individual's RSS usage data to all other data about an individual subscriber or customer collected by Coravue's CRM system.

The personalized RSS function tracks usage each time a registered user clicks an RSS headline link to view a Web page. The system reports the total clickthroughs for each RSS headline link, as well as which users clicked each link. Since this data is similar to the clickthrough tracking provided with Coravue's personalized e-mail newsletter application, RSS tracking reports are similar to clickthrough tracking reports.

The RSS tracking data can be correlated with a user's interest profile data, other Web pages viewed, and e-mail newsletter clickthroughs, as well as purchase data collected through Coravue Commerce.

This information can be used by marketers in many ways, such as to:

• Determine the number of RSS-linked pages viewed, number of pages viewed beyond the initial RSS-linked page, and the number of sessions originating from RSS clickthroughs
• Measure the loyalty of RSS visitors compared to other visitors
• Measure the exact reach and frequency of exposure to Web content
• Measure the amount of additional revenue that is generated from RSS subscribers over traditional Web visitors

Creating a Personalized RSS Webfeed

While most marketers will want to require registration that includes e-mail address, marketers can use the RSS webfeed without requiring personally identifiable information. Anonymous personalization allows prospective customers to receive personalized news, product information, and other content from a company without providing their e-mail address or other information.

In order to use the RSS webfeed feature, a Web site editor identifies which sections of Web content should be available via RSS. Then, as new Web pages are added to those sections of the site, the RSS webfeed automatically delivers those headline links and summaries that match each user's interests.

Pricing and Availability

The personalized RSS webfeed feature is now available at no extra charge for companies using the Coravue CMS content management system. The monthly usage charge for Coravue CMS is based on the number of users.

About Coravue, Inc.

Coravue, Inc. is an application service provider (ASP) that provides mid-market companies with an integrated suite of Web-based customer relationship management applications. These include lead and campaign management, personalized Web and e-mail, e-commerce, and sales force automation.

The personalization functions of the Coravue Connect applications make it easy for marketers to apply one-to-one relationship marketing techniques by tailoring online and offline marketing materials to each individual. The "on-demand computing" nature of Coravue's hosted CRM system allows a company's marketing and sales team to access a single, unified database in real time from anywhere in the world, which improves productivity and performance.

More information about Coravue is available at the company's Web site located at www.coravue.com .

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