Even though Hallmark (www.hallmark.com) cards, gifts, and other related goods are sold at 43,000 retail outlets in more than 100 countries throughout the world, the greatest selection of Hallmark products can be found in Hallmark's 3,500 independently owned Hallmark Gold Crown stcres and in Hallmark's close to 500 company-owned stores. A key element of Hallmark's customer data base and overall mar- keting efforts is its Crown Rewards loyalty program. About 14 million customers participate in this program. According to Jay T. Dittman, Hallmark's vice-president for marketing strategy, "At corporate we provide insight that turms data- base information technology into marketing programs." Prior to shifting to its current SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform in 2007, Hallmark had to perform several steps before its data base could be used for marketing strategy development and analysis. Data had to be downloaded from a mainframe to a server and then imported into Microsoft Access. Then Microsoft Excel was used to view and analyze the data. In the past, this process could take several days. Now, data analysis can occur without these intermediate steps. This enables Hallmark to more quickly ascertain trends, to respond faster to business opportunities, to better segment customers, and to more effectively use marketing expendi- tures. The new system also allows its marketing analysts to do more data mining by looking at information over multiple years of data. One recurring problem/opportunity for Hallmark is to identify which market segment is most likely to respond to a specific promotion, such as Mother's Day. Because uniform promotions are costly and sometimes ineffective, Hallmark seeks to send different versions of cards to different Crown Rewards segments. One version of a card might be more appropriate for older mothers who are purchasing cards for their daughters, while another version may be more fitting for young mothers with children. The new software enables Hallmark to eas- ily track the results of different versions of each communi- cation and then cormpute the return on investment with each advertisement or E-mail used. Dittman and his fellow market researchers have also used the Enterprise Intelligence Platform to evaluate Hallmark's marketing budget expenditures throughout the year. Their research concluded that Hallmark was spending too much in January and at Easter but was underspending for Father's Day. Their analysis concluded that Hallmark could build on the momentum of Mother's Day and then reassign advertising spending from Easter to Father's Day. They also found that direct mail-based promotions were more effective than television advertis- ing. As a result, for Father's Day, Hallmark experienced double-digit increases in sales with no adverse effect on Easter sales. Another important research finding is that consumer card purchasing in July, August, and September is impor- tant in driving holiday sales in November and December. Because there are no traditional card or gift-purchasing events during these summer months, Hallmark is now heavily promoting birthdays and anniversaries during this time period. Direct mail- and E-mail-based promotions are used in favor of television during the summer seasoni. Explain how Hallmark's loyalty-card program can be tied into its overall retail information system.