The post of Campaign Programmer sits within Occam’s Service Management Team.  The role divides into two main elements: the selection or counts from clients’ managed databases hosted at Occam using Occam’s campaign selection tools and ad hoc bureau data processing jobs.

Main Roles and Responsibilities

1          Campaign Selection

• Interpret client briefs and identify any areas that need further clarification.
• Carry out and execute campaign selections or counts using Occam’s campaign management and selections tools.
• Gain a full working knowledge and understanding of Occam’s campaign management and selections tools to provide technical advice to other Occam teams as required.

 2          Data Processing

• Processing of bureau jobs following a job summary provided by the relevant account manager / service manager.
• Creation of bespoke programs as required to meet the requirements of more complex jobs.

 3          General

• Gain knowledge of client terminology and way of working.
• Ensure all jobs are carried out accurately and within the agreed timeframe.
• Investigate problems and advise options when queries arise, liaising with other departments or staff when required.
• Adopt and encourage an open-minded approach to new projects, considering company wide implications as well as departmental.
• Provide technical advice to other departments as and when required.
• Identify and suggest ways of continually improving the process of running jobs.
• Ensure that the team leader is kept up to date with the progress of jobs, making them aware of any issues that may affect delivery.
• Attend internal or external client meetings when required.
• Handle all data securely and responsibly, observing The Data Protection Act and Occam’s information security policy

 Line of Reporting

This role will report to the Head of Service Management.

Skills and Experience

• Excellent campaign management skills (Alterian, FastStats or Unica experience an advantage)
• Programming experience such as Microsoft Visual FoxPro or similar
• A logical, analytical mind with the facility to grasp complex concepts and ideas
• Demonstrate a strong aptitude and experience of  data processing and data manipulation
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Good organisational and planning skills, and the ability to work under pressure to tight deadlines
• Good time management
• Able to work as part of a team and individually
• Direct Marketing experience preferred but not essential
• Knowledge of Occam internal systems and processes – full training given

If you would like to apply for this role and feel that you have the necessary skills and experience, please send your CV with a covering letter to nikki.hatherell@occam-dm.com

As part of the marketing department, reporting to the Marketing, Strategy and Insight Director, this role will be responsible for the internal development and external management of all Occam products.

These products currently include:

• Zebra Self Serve – A stand-alone product allowing clients to manage their own database
• Reciprocate – the leading charity data pool
• Occam’s Core Components – industry leading data management software and the heart of all Occam solutions

Occam also have a desire to launch a number of new products in the future and this individual would be responsible for taking these products to market.

Specific Responsibilities

• Ownership of all key Occam products.  This would cover:
  • Development of plans around the maintenance and enhancement of existing products.
  • Assessing and improving the customer engagement with Occam products.
  • Owning all customer orientated product documentation including training manuals, customer satisfaction surveys, user manuals, help screens, etc.
  • Training and implementation plans with existing clients.
  • Liaison with the Occam technical function to ensure that any product developments are on track and within agreed time and cost.
• Responsible for the assessment, recommendation and business case development for any new Occam product.
• Manage the development of any new products from agreement to market launch.
• Keeping up with industry developments to ensure that Occam products are ‘best of breed’.
• Running the Occam Product Board, consisting of senior staff and responsible for all major product management decisions.
• Meet with the Marketing, Strategy and Insight Director once a week to review your activities

Skills

• The role requires background with an appropriate degree level qualification.
• 5 years+ product management experience including examples of successful product launches.
• Experience of Database Marketing technology, in particular name and address cleaning and processing; database development, build and hosting; database marketing software such as Alterian, FastStats or UNICA.
• Experience of developing and presenting business cases.

If you would like to apply for this role and feel that you have the necessary skills and experience, please send your CV with a covering letter to nikki.hatherell@occam-dm.com

To manage the overall relationship between Occam and a number of existing accounts that are strategic to the future revenue growth of Occam.

Role Description

• Manage a number of strategic Occam clients to deliver an agreed level of GP for each account on an annual basis.
• Manage a number of strategic Occam clients to ensure that high customer satisfaction levels are maintained.
• Manage a number of strategic Occam clients to ensure that the client services team are exceeding against contractual obligations.
• Through expert relationship management at all levels and intelligent prospecting in the strategic accounts, you will be tasked with identifying cross sell, up sell and new project opportunities and then managing the opportunity through to closure.
• You will need a good commercial understanding across all business sectors together with an excellent understanding of the business benefits and legislation driving the value propositions for direct marketeers.
• You will be required to gain an in-depth understanding of the nature of the customers’ business and where they are likely to derive additional benefit from increased usage of our solutions.
• You will be required to assist the client in structuring ROI models and justification of business cases.
• The role requires the individual to build high quality professional relationships across the client’s business and ensure Occam awareness is maintained.
• You will work closely with the Client Services team for each strategic account to ensure clear communication channels and customer satisfaction levels.
• Having identified opportunity you will manage it from initial bid review through to closure working with teams across the Occam business to deliver compelling proposals.
• You will work closely with the Occam Marketing team on campaigns specific to your strategic accounts along with organisation of relationship management activities. 
• You will be expected to spend more than half of your time with clients furthering your relationship and creating/closing opportunity.
• You will be required to maintain an opportunity pipeline in line with overall targets and report on this on a regular basis.

Skills

• Driven by a sales culture and a commitment to succeed
• At least 2 years field sales experience at Key Account Manager level
• Manage quota and deliver consistent results over an extended period of time
• Winning business in challenging circumstances
• Building strong relationships at all levels in a customer organisation
• Bid management
• Presentation creation and delivery

If you would like to apply for this role and feel that you have the necessary skills and experience, please send your CV with a covering letter to nikki.hatherell@occam-dm.com

• The Solutions consultancy team within Occam are the professional services window into the technology and services that Occam provides to the market. This team work alongside our sales teams and work directly with clients and prospects to solve problems, recommend solutions and oversee the delivery of service excellence.
• The team currently consists of 8 full time staff, headed up by the Marketing, Strategy and Insight Director. 
• The purpose of this role is to provide pre-sales support to help win new name business for Occam by designing best in class solutions based on client requirements.

Specific Responsibilities

• Pre-sales consultancy and new business development support for Occam’s solutions.
• Produce high-level business requirements based on received information and client meetings.
• Support our technical division in the estimation of effort for solution developments.
• Presentation and proposal preparation.
• Provide software demonstrations to support sales activity.
• For new business opportunities, be the main point of contact for understanding the design and details of the solution and the associated services that Occam provide.
• Help sales people create, develop and define sales plans for their given targets.
• Support marketing and sales teams to improve and enhance the Occam offering to the market, understand present and future client needs as well as evaluating progress of competitors.
• Work in an integrated, focused and clear partnership with Sales, Marketing and the Strategy Director.

Skills

• The role requires background with an appropriate degree level qualification preferred.
• Highly accomplished problem solving, communication, proposal writing & presentation skills along with a customer focussed approach.
• 5 years+ client and/or agency roles with design, development and use of marketing technology based solutions incorporating analytical, data, technology and marketing processes.  In particular, experience of tools such as FastStats, Alterian or UNICA would preferable.
• Preferably with multi-channel expertise and direct experience of marketing and sales support activities.

Remuneration

• Salary between £50k-£60k depending on experience.
• Can be increased based on commission on successful sales.
• Full range of benefits.

If you would like to apply for this role and feel that you have the necessary skills and experience, please send your CV with a covering letter to nikki.hatherell@occam-dm.com

To generate the targeted number of sales leads from a target list and to support the Sales Director and his team in the processing of new business and strategic account sales bids.

Specific  Responsibilities 

• To generate targeted number of approved sales leads by telephone calling a prospect database
• To collect and maintain prospect insight by telephone calling
• To manage a new business prospect database
• To be a focal point for all leads generated in the business and track them to initial bid review
• To provide regular management reporting on all lead generation activities
• To support the new business and strategic accounts sales teams in processing their bids
• To gather and manage information from across Occam for input to bid documents
• To document information needed for completion of tender bids
• To ensure accurate records are maintained on sales forecast
• Be responsible for setting up and co-ordinating various sales meetings
• To work with the marketing team to align marketing and sales activities
• To maintain the sales bible and ensure sales bible awareness across the business
• General administration of the Lead Generation and Sales Bid processes
• You will also be required to provide lunchtime and occasional cover on reception

Skills

• Tele marketing/sales experience
• Sales driven
• Driven and Resourceful
• Knowledge of Occam Systems (full training given)
• Computer Literate – MS Office Experience
• Good Communication Skills
• Relationship Building
• Planning and Organising
• Problem Solving and Analytical thinking
• Motivated in Achieving Excellence
• Attention to Detail

If you would like to apply for this role and feel that you have the necessary skills and experience, please send your CV with a covering letter to nikki.hatherell@occam-dm.com

A market-leading fulfilment business, St. Ives is comprised of a group of companies that together provide the UK’s most diverse range of marketing, print and display services. It employs over 3000 staff and has an annual turnover in excess of £400 million.

Occam’s data services are expected to be widely adopted by St Ives’ customers, specifically at St Ives Direct, where in the commercial print market customers are already targeting direct mail production using data analysis and data management services. These services, allied to personalised print production, specialist design consultancy and e-mail and SMS campaign delivery will drive increased campaign response rates.

The acquisition is expected to be of significant benefit to Occam and St. Ives; increasing the delivery capability and product and service offering of both businesses.

Patrick Martell, CEO of St Ives, comments: “Occam is an excellent fit with our existing businesses; by combining data services with St Ives print, digital print, direct mail, email and SMS services we will offer a compelling proposition to our customers. Managing customer’s data more effectively, providing insight and combining this with media production to maximise return for our customers is now a reality. I am delighted and excited to welcome Occam to the St Ives Group.”

James Bagan, Managing Director of Occam, comments: “We are extremely pleased to be working with St Ives. Our business specialises in providing the very best data-centred direct marketing and data management solutions, backed by high-level consultancy, tactical planning and analysis. We have proven success in implementing solutions across a broad range of markets and we anticipate that St Ives’ capabilities will allow us to offer a unique service to marketers.”

About Occam…

Occam is a market-leading provider of marketing management software and direct marketing solutions for some of the UK’s largest organisations. Committed to developing the industry’s most sophisticated innovations in the integration of multiple systems and channels, Occam delivers marketing solutions distinguished by speed of deployment and a pragmatic approach to solving identified business needs.

Occam is responsible for some of the industry’s leading products, including Zebra, its innovative prospect and customer management software and Reciprocate, the unique cooperative solution for the charity sector and largest single source of charity data in the UK.

Since its establishment in 1993, Occam has experienced significant growth and now employs almost 100 staff with an annual turnover in excess of £9 million. Its clients include Eurostar, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Ministry of Defence, Kia Motors UK, GlaxoSmithKline, Oxfam and the British Heart Foundation, amongst many others.

Launched in 2006, PKR has over 3.5 million registered players in 239 countries and is the 14^th largest real money poker site in the world.  Already a market leader in CRM, implementation of the Unica solution will enable PKR to benefit from greater customer insight and campaign automation.

Occam will be responsible for building a two-tier customer database, one for insight and analysis and one for campaigns; both will have the capability to be updated with PKR data on a real-time basis.  Occam will also provide ongoing technical support to manage these systems effectively.  In addition, the Occam data analysis team will be working closely with PKR to provide customer insight and profiling.

Dmitriy Shlyuger, CRM Manager, PKR comments: “PKR’s objective is to take our CRM programme to the next level.  Using Unica to target and deliver our marketing campaigns will help us to keep up with our fast-growing customer base and cultivate their loyalty in an increasingly competitive market.  We will also work closely with the Occam data analysis team to help us gain valuable customer insight and turn it into actionable campaign triggers.”

Scott Logie, Strategy Director at Occam adds: “A sophisticated CRM system is a must for any online business with ambitious growth plans.  We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with PKR on this project and help them to take their CRM programme to the next level.”

Introduction

Foot Shop is a family owned retailer selling specialist footwear, socks, hosiery and foot comfort products across multiple sales channels, including mail order, wholesale, internet and retail shops.

Established in the early 1980’s, Foot Shop has grown from a small company originally supplying DIY shoe kits into a multi-brand, multi-channel retailer. Amongst its brands is Cosyfeet, the leading UK brand of Extra Roomy footwear; Walktall, the specialist online retailer for tall men’s branded footwear, clothing and accessories; Lookatmycrazyshoes.com, retailers of fashionable and functional footwear; and disabled footwear specialists, Healthyshoes .co.uk and Disabledaccessories.com.

Challenge

Foot Shop recognised that access to its customer data would be highly advantageous to the business, as it would facilitate a deeper understanding of its client base and enable the business to divide, segment, and then communicate with its customers appropriately and more effectively. However, with its customer data held within a SQL database off site and also within the CRM system Elucid, access to it for marketing purposes was extremely difficult.

The challenge for Occam therefore, was to provide Foot Shop with access to their customer data for querying, analysis, planning and campaign purposes with the aim of driving additional profit through intelligent targeting based on customer profile and purchasing habits.

Solution

The first step in achieving Foot Shop’s objectives was the creation of a consolidated data set from the SQL and Elucid data sources in order to identify and profile key customers for cross- and up-sell activity across the database. With a single data source in place, Occam set about applying deduplication and suppression techniques to produce a clean data source to be used for marketing purposes. Tackling data quality issues head-on at this early stage, meant that Occam could then process subsequent data supplies into FastStats much faster and more reliably, as any key issues had previously been addressed.

With the data preparation complete, the next key phase was the creation of a FastStats solution and the subsequent deployment of the Discoverer application on client site. Designed specifically to give staff access to Foot Shop’s data for querying, analysis and campaign purposes, Occam supported the implementation of its solution by providing full training and support from its software consultants.

With the system in place, response information was then fed back into the Foot Shop database and used to refine future campaigns, along with the use of transactional and basket analysis to determine the next best or most likely purchase per customer. This enabled communications to be tailored for cross-sell and up-sell depending on previous purchase patterns.

Results

Occam’s successful implementation of the FastStats solution has enabled Foot Shop to bring back in-house the insight and access to marketing data that was previously managed by an external agency. Importantly, this has been achieved very cost effectively through a combination of sensible data preparation within the originating data source and comparatively low software costs under the Occam FastStats bureau licence.

The ability to clearly identify which customers should be used for different campaigns and offers, whilst avoiding those customers who are unlikely to respond positively has significantly improved the effectiveness of Foot Shop’s marketing campaigns:

• Targeting and customer selections have improved email turnover by over 200%
• Project planning times have been cut by 50%
• In the last 6 months marketing costs have reduced by 10% due to more effective targeting of customers
• Sales have increased by 15%

Occam was among the eight leading market service providers that Forrester invited to participate in its UK Database Marketing Service Providers, Q2 2009 Wave report. Forrester thoroughly evaluated these vendors against 77 criteria, which were grouped into three main areas: current offering, strategy and market presence.

According to Forrester’s report:

• Occam is a market leader — ‘due in large part to a combination of advanced analytics, strategy services, and strong account management.’
• ‘Occam has a strong analytical and integrated offering’
• ‘Occam focuses its database services offerings on mid-tier companies (FTSE 350) and subsidiaries or departments within larger companies, delivering packaged solutions that are repeatable, industry-specific, and cost-competitive.’
• ‘Clients describe Occam as highly responsive and client-focused’

Occam was awarded the accreditation following an independent external audit conducted by British Standards Institute (BSI).The eight month process involved a comprehensive and stringent review of all the company’s internal processes and management controls. In becoming fully certified, Occam has become one of a select group of companies in the UK to achieve the accreditation across the whole organisation.

To maintain the certificate, Occam’s information security management system will be reviewed, monitored and audited on a regular basis. As part of the company’s continuous improvement programme, further investment is planned to upgrade the company’s physical security.

Scott Logie, Strategy Director at Occam said: “We recognise and understand that the security of our clients’ data is of paramount importance. With this independent accreditation our clients can be confident that we have the necessary measures and internal procedures in place to protect their data and minimise any potential security risks. In gaining the ISO 27001 across our whole organisation, we’ve set the benchmark in the marketing services industry when it comes to data security. We see this as the start of the journey and we’ll be working hard to improve our performance yet further.”