Rurban Financial Corp. 'Banks On' Harte-Hanks Allink(R) Connect for Improved Customer and Prospect Management

LAKE MARY, Fla., Feb. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Harte-Hanks, Inc. , a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company, today announced that Rurban Financial Corp., a leading provider of full-service community banking, investment management, trust services and bank data processing, has selected Harte-Hanks Allink Connect to improve the efficiency of its sales and service interactions with customers and prospects. Allink Connect, powered by SugarCRM(TM), is a vertically-tailored sales force optimization application for sales management, marketing automation, customer support and reporting.

Having achieved increased customer insight by employing Harte-Hanks Allink Advantage, a fully-integrated database marketing solution, Rurban wanted to deepen its view of its pipeline for customer prospecting and sales, and take advantage of real-time reporting for enhanced enterprise-wide efficiency, the company reported. Rurban selected Allink Connect not only because it integrates with the company's Allink Advantage database solution, but also because it provides customized user interfaces and layouts, and vertically- oriented modules and reports tailored to address competitive pain points in Rurban's marketing, sales and service processes.

"By extending our relationship with Harte-Hanks and leveraging Allink Connect as the backbone of our new enterprise-wide sales culture, we expect to achieve immediate and long-term value through more efficient pipeline management and improved close ratios," said Kenneth Joyce, President and CEO, Rurban Financial Corp. "As we learn more about our customers and funnel that information into the pipeline, we'll continuously improve our ability to optimize each unique opportunity."

According to Harte-Hanks, Allink Connect will provide Rurban with collaboration and administrative tools to meet the individual and corporate demands of its sales teams. With the ability to track interactions, gain historical insights and report results, Rurban will leverage Allink Connect to optimize every phase of its customer and prospect relationships, and inform strategic decisions and initiatives. In addition, Allink Connect will help Rurban to improve marketing and sales efficiency by providing advanced data cleansing and matching through the Harte-Hanks Enhance, Verify & Match (EVM) solution.

"Allink Connect operates in real-time, which means it arms marketing, sales and service teams with the immediate information they need to manage customer relationships effectively and efficiently, while empowering frontline employees to have more relevant dialogues with customers," said Kathy Calta, corporate officer and executive vice president, Harte-Hanks, Inc. "The bottom line is, this type of enablement drives growth and improves a company's return on investment [ROI] in marketing and sales."

Harte-Hanks Allink Connect is now available as an installed or hosted solution from Harte-Hanks and integrates fully with Harte-Hanks Allink Advantage, Harte-Hanks nexTouch and many other database marketing systems. For more information, please visit http://www.harte-hanks.com/.

About Rurban Financial Corp.

Rurban Financial Corp. is a publicly-held financial services holding company based in Defiance, Ohio. Rurban's wholly-owned subsidiaries are The State Bank and Trust Company, The Exchange Bank, Reliance Financial Services, N.A., Rurbanc Data Services, Inc. (RDSI) and DCM. The two community banks, State Bank and Exchange Bank, offer a full range of financial services through 18 offices in Allen, Defiance, Fulton, Lucas, Paulding and Wood Counties, Ohio and Allen County, Indiana. Reliance Financial Services offers a diversified array of trust and financial services to customers throughout the Midwest. RDSI and DCM provide data and item processing services to community banks in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Rurban's common stock is quoted on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol RBNF. The Company currently has 10,000,000 shares of stock authorized and 5,027,433 shares outstanding. The Company's Web site is http://www.rurbanfinancial.net/.

About Harte-Hanks

Harte-Hanks is a worldwide direct and targeted marketing company that provides marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers. Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing improves return on its clients' marketing investment by increasing their prospect and customer value - a process of "customer optimization" -organized around five strategic considerations: Information (data collection/management) - Opportunity (data access/utilization) - Insight (data analysis/interpretation) - Engagement (knowledge application) - Interaction (program execution). Visit the Harte- Hanks Web site at http://www.harte-hanks.com/ or call (800) 456-9748.

The Allink(R) Solution Suite helps companies in diverse markets achieve measurable ROI (return on investment) through the application of data-driven marketing strategies for a more relevant and better-targeted approach to marketing. The Allink Solution Suite is a blend of Harte-Hanks 30 years' experience in vertical marketing strategy, analytics, direct marketing best practices, end-to-end marketing services and leading-edge technology. Each Allink solution is built to meet the unique requirements of marketers within specific vertical markets who want to increase multichannel marketing know-how and effectiveness, contain personnel resources and costs, act on customer information in real-time, and develop tailored marketing programs that give their companies a competitive advantage.

Harte-Hanks, Allink and the Harte-Hanks logo are registered trademarks of Harte-Hanks, Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective holders.