National Geographic Improves ROI Using SAS® to Target Marketing Campaigns

CARY, N.C.--(Business Wire)--
By using SAS Analytics to target its marketing campaigns more precisely, the
National Geographic Society has seen a return on investment of 200 to 300
percent, with the best-performing customer segments realizing 50 percent overall
campaign performance improvement.

One of the biggest challenges for National Geographic is optimizing marketing
efficiency across multiple departments and product lines. The answer: Gather
customer information into one central marketing database that provides a
360-degree view of its customers.

"We handle marketing analysis for our direct-response divisions - magazines,
books, videos, catalog, e-mail and travel," said David Harkness, National
Geographic`s Marketing Analysis Manager. "It all converges in the marketing
database. By gathering transactional data we get a single view of what, where
and how often a customer is interacting with us. Predictive analytics from SAS
help us better understand our customers and determine which products and offers
are the most relevant.

"Not only are we forecasting with greater accuracy which customers are highly
interested in our products and services, we can simultaneously better identify
underperforming customer segments with SAS."

In addition to the power of SAS predictive analytics, National Geographic chose
SAS for its flexibility and support. "The breadth of resources available on SAS
is staggering," added Harkness. "Between user groups, educational forums,
official documentation and SAS sales and technical support you can pretty much
figure anything out. I`ve been using SAS for 13 years, and I am still finding
new things I can accomplish with it."

An integrated suite of top-ranked marketing solutions

While many enterprise marketing management vendors are narrowly focused on point
solutions, SAS` comprehensive suite of top-ranked products spans the entire
customer-focused marketing process. SAS` campaign management capabilities, part
of a broader customer intelligence suite of solutions, handle campaign
management, cross-sell/up-sell, customer retention, customer segmentation,
e-mail marketing, event-driven marketing, campaign optimization, marketing mix
analysis, marketing performance management and Web analytics.

Customers worldwide using SAS to support customer initiatives include
1-800-FLOWERS.COM, The Dow Chemical Co., First Citizens Bank, Loyalty Management
UK and US Bank.

About National Geographic Society

The National Geographic Society is one of the world's largest nonprofit
scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to increase and
diffuse geographic knowledge, the Society works to inspire people to care about
the planet. It reaches more than 360 million people worldwide each month through
its official journal, National Geographic, and other magazines; National
Geographic Channel; television documentaries; music; radio; films; books; DVDs;
maps; exhibitions; live events; school publishing programs; interactive media;
and merchandise. National Geographic has funded more than 9,000 scientific
research, conservation and exploration projects and supports an education
program promoting geographic literacy. For more information, visit
nationalgeographic.com.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest
independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative
solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more
than 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better
decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE
POWER TO KNOW®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered
trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries.
indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of
their respective companies.Copyright © 2009 SAS Institute Inc. All rights
reserved.

SAS
Angela Lipscomb, 919-531-2525
Angela.Lipscomb@sas.com
Visit the SAS Press Center
www.sas.com/presscenter

Copyright Business Wire 2009