Advertisements are uniquely coded and this key code is linked to any contacts recruited to be able to track the advertisement’s initial success and subsequent impact. Advertising costs can be recorded in detail to monitor effectiveness. Arx offers a choice of advertising reports that show a full break down of the customers, associated costs, the sales and profit achieved. This is invaluable information to negotiate future magazine space, Internet banner rates and other advertising.

Arx allows you to create targeted lists using sophisticated selection techniques on your contact database to maximise response rates. Every time you send a catalogue or offer brochure you need to be able to track the results and work out its profitability. Arx has unrivalled reporting on mailings that give a unique insight into performance. You can look at the average order value distribution, months since last order, product performance, customer performance, buyer performance, prospect performance, daily distribution of sales, by order source and cost centre. Armed with this information you can quickly see the breakeven point and select accordingly.

Arx can quickly handle millions of customer and prospect records and provides all the facilities to contact them and track responses. The system also caters for outbound telemarketing, and customer and prospect correspondence using Mailsort. Arx supports all the Royal Mail services that enable preferential mailing rates to be claimed and thereby reduces the cost to mail for list selections. The Mailsort selection can be output to files for third party mailing houses or printed directly onto brochures or labels. All addresses are checked against regularly updated Post Office Address File (PAF) data to ensure accuracy and avoid wastage in undeliverable mail. Foreign zip and postcode formats are supported.

The production of high-quality product catalogues and offer mailers has always been a continual challenge. The Arx Catalogue Management module uses the central database so that all product data is maintained consistently in one location. Printed catalogues are supported via the industry standard Quark Express and Indesign and other layout software systems. Arx increases productivity by using completed layout files to create alternative price and currency versions reducing errors and saving a substantial amount of DTP.

Arx allows you communicate more with your customers and pick up on trends and attitudes. Sets of questions can be prepared and selectively triggered during order entry or as a stand-alone, input form. Paper questionnaire responses can be set up and keyed in using quick codes to improve speed and accuracy. Questionnaires can be instantly rendered on a website with all responses going straight into the Arx database. Exporting tools allow straightforward analysis. Questionnaires increase sales by stimulating a dialogue, monitor customer satisfaction and lead to higher customer service levels. Analysis is linked to the people taking the order, picking, checking and packing so problem areas can be pinpointed for action.

The ability to easily and accurately process orders from your website is a major consideration for a multi-channel marketing company as internet order volumes grow. The website allows an order placed on your web site to automatically show up in your back office in real-time. It is tightly integrated with our back office system; everything such as stock availability, account information, offers and promotions are right up-to-date. The system can be configured to release orders for picking in the warehouse without any manual intervention. All you are left with are the exceptions where the system has detected a duplicate or customer comment. Arx's data shadowing can maintain an up to date system with enough resilience to keep going if the network goes down and catch up again when the link is restored. All of the sophistication of Arx's order entry system is available to the web site so complex discounting, individual customer offers etc. are available on the Internet.