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Breaking Tradition: Re-defining the Modern Sales Team

By
Debbie Qaqish
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0
Modern Sales Team

Pedowitz GroupI recently spoke with a marketing leader who was lamenting the static nature of sales leadership in her company. The CRO (chief revenue officer) was on a hiring tear for a sales profile he referred to as “door knockers.” I was absolutely floored when I heard this! Here we are living in the digital age complete with abundant demographic, behavioral and predictive data about prospects and customers that can be served up in real-time and this guy wants to hire “door knockers.” This particular CRO is running a traditional sales team. So, what does a modern sales team look like and what are the benefits?

Profile of a Modern Sales Team

Imagine…a sales process nearly devoid of guesswork; one where salespeople track what their prospects are researching – and thinking – without having a conversation or meeting. In this new world, cold calls have become obsolete, replaced by technologies and data that provide salespeople with real-time insights into the prospect‘s digital body language and purchase intent. What if…at a critical point in the buyer‘s evaluation, but before they engage with a competitor, an alert is sent to the salesperson‘s inbox or phone telling him/her it‘s time to engage?

This is what salespeople really want. In today‘s competitive arena, it‘s what they must have to survive. These new capabilities are causing a seismic shift in the traditional sales cycle, ultimately changing how leads are managed and opportunities are converted into sales.

Salespeople who don‘t have it, want it. Those who have it, say they couldn‘t live without it.

Definition of Insanity

As I peer into 2019, I see lots of sales leaders deploying the ―”Re” strategy. They are re-thinking, re-organizing, re-doing, and re-aligning all the same things they have done before and expecting a new result in what has become a dramatically different selling game. This is true from the beginning of lead generation, to the opportunity pursuit, to the final closing of business. Let‘s analyze this further and see what the market leaders are doing that is so different.

Read More: The Dawn of the Platform Age: Digital Marketing Maturity at Last?

For companies today, the lead production process occurs in three different ways:

(1) Sales scratches out their own leads by prospecting their personal networks, sending one-off or batch emails.

(2) Marketing turns over long lists of leads, which are typically no more than a contact with a pulse. (3) Marketing practices Revenue Marketing™ and is part of a repeatable, predictable, scalable revenue machine.

In the first two cases, the essence of effort is thick-skinned people (door knockers) trying to overcome the telephone rejection. When finally presented with a genuinely interested prospect, they are smart enough to stay out of their own way. For the most part, they blindly cold call and email contacts for months, hoping to set up a meeting and begin a sales cycle. Eventually they move on to a fresh list and classify previous prospecting failures as disqualified leads.

Once disqualified, the leads fall into a Zombie Lobby, waiting for the “new guy” assigned to begin the blind cold call / email process all over again. Worse, they‘re never contacted by your company again. Or the cruelest outcome — marketing repurchases the Zombies for the 3rd, 4th or 5th time. The nightmare recycles and you can’t wake up!

In this traditional sales landscape, it’s difficult to get a sense of what is (or isn‘t) working. What are your salespeople really doing, how are prospects really acting, and just how hot are the opportunities they are chasing? Most sales leaders just keep coming up with the next ―”Re” strategy because they have no better way to attack these age-old challenges.

Read More:  What We Learned at DMEXCO 2018: Wedding Running Shoes and Dating Your Customer

The Impact of Digital

You see it every day: technology is changing at warp speed. Some of it annoys, some amazes. As sales leaders and professionals, it’s up to us to recognize which changes and which advances can have a profound impact on our selling efforts and competitive position.

The use of the Internet for research has produced a radical break in the model of how individuals and companies buy. But, there‘s been little corresponding response in the way most companies sell.

There are exceptions though. New technologies – especially automated Sales Enablement tools – provide sales leaders with a way to rapidly respond to this new buyer behavior by aligning the sales process to the customer‘s buying process. This alignment translates into more revenue and a stronger competitive position.

Read More: AI-powered Conversation Bots Empower CMOs to Prove ROI

Here‘s an example of how the Internet has changed conventional “relationships”:

Many car buyers are now using the Internet to do extensive research on makes, models, options, pricing, service, and more, before they ever walk into a dealership. By the time they’re ready to buy, they know what they want and what they are willing to pay for it. When they walk into the dealership, there is little need to interact with a sales person. These are self-informed informed buyers and they‘re ready to begin negotiations.

Do you have prospects like this? They are potential customers armed with more information about you, your competitors, and the market than ever before. They know much more about you than you know of them.

Here‘s a scenario of what the process might look like if the dealership used automated Sales Enablement tools.

The dealership can “watch” in real time, an individual prospect‘s online

behavior as he/she builds a custom model on the company‘s web site, choosing specific features and a particular color of paint. These online behaviors and choices are the typical tire kicker activities of a casual shopper on the dealer lot. When that same prospect returns to the site to research financing options, chances are he/she is getting more serious about purchasing. When there’s a search for a local dealer, this prospect is ready to spend money.

Read More: The Anatomy of Sales Decisions: Blending Data Science and Behavioral Science to Accelerate Sales Results

With automated Sales Enablement tools, you can customize automatic sales alerts and communication responses. For example:

* When the prospect visits the financing options page, an alert is sent to a salesperson via Smartphone, email, or as a task in CRM with all key prospect information, including web site activity.

* Subsequently, the prospect is sent an offer of special financing via email.

* Simultaneously, the prospect is added to a lead nurturing program of promotional communications that maintain digital dialogue until they are ready to buy.

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The class of software that includes Marketing Automation, Lead Management, or automated Sales Enablement can be described in simple terms: It’s

(1) the gathering and understanding of a prospective customer‘s online behavior, demographic details and propensity to buy and

(2) the ability to take automatic and/or real-time action on that behavior – whether as a lead or an opportunity.

Automated Sales Enablement tools allow you to have specific individual behavior information pushed, via alerts, to the top of your sales team‘s “To Do” lists. For a sales rep, this is nirvana.

* How would your forecasting accuracy improve if your salespeople took part in the prospect‘s evaluation meetings?

* Would your revenue achievement see a significant uptick if you had the inside track on their buying process?

* How would it help if you could deliver the right message at exactly the right time during the solution investigation?

Read More: It’s Time to Give Marketers Control Over their Data

Conclusion

Finally, the modern sales organization has a synergistic, revenue-based relationship with marketing. Both groups now work together as the “revenue team.” The contentious relationship between sales and marketing is long gone. New technologies give marketing the ability to produce more and better quality leads. These technologies provide the sales force with visibility into what marketing is doing on their behalf. Better qualified leads transform marketing into a demand generation department and a key player in the sales cycle.

You Can’t Go Home

Once salespeople have access to the capability of Sales Enablement tools, most say there just isn‘t any going back to the old way of doing things.

One veteran salesperson in the healthcare field described these tools as ―the machine used to run his business. “Once the machine is up and running, the contacts have been added and the templates begin to go out,” he said. “There’s no stopping it.”

“I tell my customers all of the time – I have been doing this for 20 years. I have carried a bag, been a VP of sales, I‘ve done it all. I would never, ever go to work for a company that doesn‘t have this technology,” he said. “I finally have a machine that keeps an eye on my business and my customers. I don‘t have to worry about what they‘re thinking anymore. For a salesperson, that unknown is what drives us nuts! I won‘t ever go back to worrying like that.”

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Matrix Solutions’ 2018 Ad Spend Churn in America Report Unveils Two in Three Advertisers Return to Advertise on Broadcast, One in Three Churn

By
MTS Staff Writer
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0
Matrix Solutions’ 2018 Ad Spend Churn in America Report Unveils Two in Three Advertisers Return to Advertise on Broadcast, One in Three Churn

New Report from Matrix Solutions Yields Churn Data Across Brand/Advertiser, Platform and Industry

At a time when metrics and KPIs rule all decision making in the media buying process for advertisements, a new report examining churn across broadcast, digital broadcast and radio found that broadcast is least likely to experience churned accounts at a 36.34 percent churn rate; followed by radio with a churn rate of 43.76 percent; with digital broadcast proving the most volatile with a churn rate of 50.09 percent.
 
However, the stakes are higher for broadcast and radio when an account churns than it is for digital broadcast platforms. On average, a churned account for broadcast yields a loss of $7,887 per media deal; for radio it’s $5,626; and for digital broadcast, even though it has the highest churn rate, the impact of that churn, on average, costs $3,920.
 
The findings come from Matrix Solutions’ 2018 Ad Spend Churn in America Report, a comprehensive report on the state of the advertising spend churn rates derived from the activity of more than 400,000 active accounts within media ad sales teams from Matrix’s global ad sales platform Monarch. The data analyzed media ad deals between July 2016 to June 2018 to determine churn activity across industries and broadcast, digital broadcast and radio platforms.
 
“When thinking about advertising spend, the industry tends to only look at the money that exchanges hands between the advertiser and the media company—and we wanted to instead look at the money that never left the negotiating table,” said Mark Gorman, CEO at Matrix Solutions.
 
“Broadcast clearly fares better than its digital counterpart, and it’s all because of measurement. There are fewer reasons for advertisers to doubt the effectiveness of their broadcast ad buys, hence why the platform is least likely to churn. There’s less proof to show what is and isn’t working. In contrast, digital broadcast has more of a burden to bare in that it captures more metrics to paint a picture of success for a digital ad buy—but failure as well, hence the platform’s 50 percent churn rate.”

 Churn by Industry

Possessing a window into churn rates for specific industries enables media companies to better develop their media sales strategies. Churn history helps forecast the likelihood of which advertisers might fail to return revenue to a platform and which advertiser is likely to repeat business.
When examining industries least likely to experience churn:

Broadcast

  • Non-Profits/Community – 45.44 percent churn rate at $4,700 ad dollars (on average)
  • PD Prog/Dir Response – 43.59 percent churn rate at $2,816 ad dollars (on average)
  • Media/Communications – 43.17 percent churn rate at $24,210 ad dollars (on average)
  • Beverages – 40.90 percent churn rate at $10,406 ad dollars (on average)
  • Travel & Leisure – 40.82 percent churn rate at $10,693 ad dollars (on average).

Digital Broadcast

  • Health & Beauty – 64.38 percent churn rate at $2,753 ad dollars (on average)
  • Grocery/Food Items – 58.60 percent churn rate at $2,885 ad dollars (on average)
  • Beverages – 58.13 percent churn rate at $2,935 ad dollars (on average)
  • Retail/Stores – 56.02 percent churn rate at $2,370 ad dollars (on average)
  • Restaurants – 55.37 percent churn rate at $2,245 ad dollars (on average)

Radio

  • Health & Beauty – 50.74 percent churn rate at $6,925 ad dollars (on average)
  • Entertainment – 46.50 percent churn rate at $2,691 ad dollars (on average)
  • Non-Profits/Community – 46.20 percent churn rate at $2,095 ad dollars (on average)
  • Services – 46.03 percent churn rate at $4,405 ad dollars (on average)
  • Beverages – 45.95 percent churn rate at $8,081 ad dollars (on average)

Churn by Brand

Some brands are more reliable than others—in addition to Matrix Solutions’ 2018 Ad Spend Churn in America Report highlighting specific churn rates, and the cost of that churn across platforms and industries, it has also captured data on brands with the highest loss in revenue due to churned accounts that come out of a national sales office across broadcast, digital broadcast and radio.

Broadcast

  • Charter Communications, with an average loss of $342,831
  • Honda Dealer Association, with an average loss of $119,251
  • Blue Diamond, with an average loss of $113,597
  • FX Networks, with an average loss of $96,654
  • Bank of America, with an average loss of $80,871

Digital Broadcast

  • TIAA.org, with an average loss of $454,720
  • McDonald’s, with an average loss of $34,836
  • Verizon Wireless, with an average loss of $30,694
  • Cracker Barrell, with an average loss of $23,860
  • Ford Auto Dealers Association, with an average loss of $20,798

 Radio

  • Mattress Firm, with an average loss of $419,310
  • Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, with an average loss of $151,663
  • Polaris, with an average loss of $130,947
  • T-Mobile, with an average loss of $125,325
  • Marathon Petroleum Company, with an average loss of $119,276

Recommended Read: MailUp Enters the Artificial Intelligence Space; Acquires Datatrics

Has Your Website Refresh Been Successful?

By
Mark Hensley
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1
Website

Liferay LogoLike maintenance work on your car, a refresh of your organization’s website is one of those tasks that seems to roll around every few years and entail far higher costs than anticipated. However, also like car maintenance, a website refresh is often critically necessary. Your organization’s branding or messaging may have changed, or maybe your site just looks like something that was built on GeoCities in 1995. Whatever the reason, you’ll want to ensure that you’re measuring the results of a website refresh in order to adequately justify the costs.

The most basic, and most powerful, question we can ask is “is our site better?” The problem of course is that that’s an incredibly vague question. What do we mean by “better?” Typically, we’re looking at KPIs like page views, number of sessions, bounce rate, time on page, exit rate, conversion rate, etc. The sort of numbers you can get from any basic web analytics tool like Google Analytics. I typically regard these numbers as “surface-level metrics;” they provide a good starting point but don’t say much about whether visitors are deriving value from your website.

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To illustrate, page views and the number of unique sessions help you understand site traffic. However, they don’t say anything about how “good” your site is, just how many eyeballs you’re getting and perhaps how well you’re doing in terms of SEO. Bounce rate, time on page and exit rate go a little deeper. These metrics can point to the quality of content on your site or, more directly, to whether the content on your website adequately meets the expectations of visitors. For example, if visitors to “bike.com” are expecting to find information about motorcycles but discover content focused on bicycles, they are likely to leave disappointed, and in a hurry. Unfortunately, depending on how engagement is defined in Google Analytics, metrics like bounce rate can result in both ​false positives and false negatives​, leading marketers to draw the wrong conclusions.

Ultimately, one of the best KPIs to consider is conversion rate: the percentage of visitors that complete the action we want them to. This could refer to signing up for a demo, downloading a trial, joining a mailing list, etc. To quote ​WordStream​, “a high conversion rate is indicative of successful marketing and web design: it means people want what you’re offering, and they’re easily able to get it!” More than anything else, conversion rate is the KPI that marketers look at when assessing website performance.

Read More: It’s Time to Give Marketers Control Over their Data

However, even a site’s conversion rate tells only part of the story. It doesn’t say anything about why

​ a visitor did, or did not, take a particular course of action. Yet answering “the why” is critical if we want to deliver more value to visitors and ultimately boost all other KPIs. For example, did a visitor not sign up for a demo of our software because it’s not relevant to them or because the content on our website doesn’t do a good job of speaking to their pain points? That’s why I recommend focusing on something a little unconventional by today’s numbers-focused approach to marketing analytics: examining and gathering qualitative data. One way to do this is through polls/surveys.

Read More: Five Tips to Perfectly Time Your Webinar and its Promotion

Despite the importance of other KPIs in determining how successful a website refresh has been, polls/surveys are unmatched when it comes to answering the question of “why.” It’s easy to deploy a survey using an inexpensive tool like Hotjar and collect visitor feedback both before and after a website refresh has gone live. While these certainly aren’t “scientific” polls, they do provide important nuggets of feedback that can prove useful when reviewing website performance.

In short, determining the success of a website refresh is more of an art than a science and requires a multifaceted approach. Although traditional metrics like page views and bounce rate are an important source of information, they should be complemented by a more “qualitative” approach in the form of surveys, which can add more color to visitor behavior. I would also advise readers to think of website optimization as a continuous process, rather than a sharp “before” and “after.” While there will certainly be a go live date for any website refresh, components like content and navigation can, and should, be continuously tweaked over time to incorporate visitor feedback.

Has your organization recently gone through a significant website overhaul? How did you measure success? Let me know in the comments below!

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SiriusXM’ Acquisition of Pandora Creates the Largest Audio Entertainment Enterprise Globally

By
Viraj T
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1
SiriusXM’ Acquisition of Pandora Creates the Largest Audio Entertainment Enterprise Globally

SiriusXM & Pandora to Continue with Their Products, Services, and Offerings.The Acquisition Values Pandora at $3.5 Billion

SiriusXM has officially announced that it will acquire Pandora for $3.5 billion in an all-stock transaction. Together, these companies have declared that they will see revenues in excess of $7 billion by the end of 2018 and long-term growth opportunities.

The acquisition automatically transforms SiriusXM as a leader in the subscription radio domain. SiriusXM is renowned for curating exclusive audio content and the subsequent programming. Pandora, the largest US audio streaming platform, adds more muscle to SiriusXM’s already burgeoning inventory.

SiriusXM predominantly operates in the sphere of the in-car radio. By acquiring Pandora, SiriusXM can now expand substantially into newer avenues of home radio, mobile radio etc. As for subscribers of both the aforementioned platforms, nothing changes!

Also Read: Apple and Salesforce Join Forces to Deliver the Best Business Experiences

“We have long respected Pandora and their team for their popular consumer offering that has attracted a massive audience, and have been impressed by Pandora’s strategic progress and stronger execution. We believe there are significant opportunities to create value for both companies’ stockholders by combining our complementary businesses. The addition of Pandora diversifies SiriusXM’s revenue streams with the U.S.’s largest ad-supported audio offering, broadens our technical capabilities, and represents an exciting next step in our efforts to expand our reach out of the car even further. Through targeted investments, we see significant opportunities to drive innovation that will accelerate growth beyond what would be available to the separate companies and does so in a way that also benefits consumers, artists, and the broader content communities. Together, we will deliver even more of the best content on the radio to our passionate and loyal listeners, and attract new listeners, across our two platforms,” Jim Meyer, Chief Executive Officer of SiriusXM, said.

“We’ve made tremendous progress in our efforts to lead in digital audio. Together with SiriusXM, we’re even better positioned to take advantage of the huge opportunities we see in audio entertainment, including growing our advertising business and expanding our subscription offerings. The powerful combination of SiriusXM’s content, position in the car, and premium subscription products, along with the biggest audio streaming service in the U.S., will create the world’s largest audio entertainment company. This transaction will deliver significant value to our stockholders and will allow them to participate in the upside, given SiriusXM’s strong brand, financial resources and track record delivering results,” Roger Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Pandora, said.

Also Read: Seven Examples of Outstanding B2B Marketing Campaigns

A long-term strategy to drive the growth of the companies is mentioned below:

  • Combined, Pandora and SiriusXM have more than 1 billion subscribers with the latter claiming an additional 23 million-plus trial subscribers. Hence, cross-platform marketing campaigns are a key factor in their long-term growth strategy
  • Pandora is gearing up to benefit from SiriusXM’ large in-car subscriber base, a nascent territory for the company. On the other hand, SiriusXM will integrate its niche and stylized content into Pandora’s ad-supported platform to maintain a steady stream of revenue
  • SiriusXM will continue innovating the combined platform in order to accelerate platform monetization. Both the companies expect a good ROI through their ad-supported and subscription services
  • Both the companies will strive hard to maintain and further bolster Pandora’s brand value and image
  • SiriusXM intends to create a platform that dynamically connects artists and fans. This is universal for new and old listeners as well as established and emerging artists

Recommended Read: Pinterest and AspireIQ Collaborate to Expand Influencer Marketing Initiatives for Brands

5 Predictions About the Future of Conversational Commerce

By
Pankaj Malviya
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0
Conversational Commerce

ConversyOnce the territory of a few niche companies, Conversational Commerce is trending with some of the biggest brands in the world — and it’s working better than anyone could have hoped.

Walmart, king of consumer goods, recently formed an incubator called Store No. 8. The debut product of this incubator, Jetblack, provides personalized shopping support to customers through text messages. Jetblack’s AI assistants make suggestions to shoppers based on their previous activity. Thanks to this investment, Walmart is dominating consumer shopping communications.

One of Walmart’s biggest competitors, Amazon, is also diving headfirst into Conversational Commerce. Amazon’s strategy focuses on bolstering the capabilities of its smart assistant, Alexa. With Voice Shopping projected to hit $40 billion by 2022 (compared to just $2 billion today), Amazon is leagues ahead of the competition and will likely dominate that $40 billion market for quite a while.

Below titans like Walmart and Amazon, big brands such as 1-800-Flowers are also jumping on the Conversational Commerce train. Through cooperation with Amazon’s Alexa, Facebook Messenger, and IBM, America’s most popular floral brand hopes to create more intimate Customer Relationships and provide the high level of personalized service that modern customers have come to expect.

These brands are among those leading the way, but Conversational Commerce is not limited to megacompanies. As consumer standards become higher, more companies will need to adopt Conversational Commerce strategies to keep pace in an evolving market.

Where Will Conversational Commerce Go Next?

As it stands today, bots are and will remain the most prominent channel of Conversational Commerce for years to come. Advancements in Artificial Intelligence allow conversation bots to track website visitors and run their behavior through Machine Learning algorithms, then pop up at the right time and place to turn browsers into buyers. Unlike the chatbots of the past, which could only respond to direct commands, modern conversation bots detect interactive cues and handle customer interactions on their own.

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Consumers will expect to see real-time conversation bots on websites. Businesses using the AI-powered conversation bots will notice these 5 trends flourishing in the digital space:

Conversation bots will change how Customer Relationships start.

Companies today spend tons of money on ad campaigns to boost their web traffic. Unfortunately, most ad-attracted visitors bounce quickly once they arrive on the brand’s website. Even those who do stay a bit longer rarely fill out a lead-generating form. This is a common problem in online Lead Generation for B2B companies. However, conversation bots will overcome this issue by engaging with website visitors to create Personalized, Interactive experiences that encourage brand preference.

Today, people don’t want to enter their information into a form. They’re used to automation that complete forms for them and they’re also concerned about privacy. Conversation bots allow brands to interact with website visitors one-on-one while they have the person’s attention. By using relevant information, the brand provides them with the friction-free interactions that shoppers have come to expect. Conversation bots can also recognize purchase intent based on ad campaign metadata to start or continue conversations that build Customer Relationships. As ad spend continues to leave television in favor of digital channels, unique brand experiences will become even more important for Customer Engagement and Customer retention.

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Businesses will embrace hybrid workforces.

Conversation bots aren’t coming to take human jobs — they’re coming to make human jobs easier and more productive. Soon, conversation bots will help employees make more informed decisions, whether that means qualifying a lead, presenting relevant product upsells to a prospect, or providing faster service to an authenticated user that is logged in to your SaaS. Most employees welcome this advancement, with Dell reporting that 82 percent of people expect to work alongside AI-powered conversation bots within five years.

Employees won’t just gain productive tools, though. Conversation bots can act as extensions of the workers themselves, taking on unique personality traits and reflecting workers’ tones and senses of humor. The future conversation bot will be more than a speaking repository of information: it will be a natural extension of its coworker. People can use AI-powered conversation bots to enhance human workforce skillsets and reinvent business processes.
Some companies have already begun to take advantage of a hybrid workforce. From scheduling appointments to closing deals on their own, modern conversation bots are far more advanced than they used to be — and they’re only getting smarter.

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Employees will enjoy a higher quality of life.

Sales Agents, Live chat Agents, and Customer Service representatives deal with tons of inbound support questions that are repetitive and, as a result, mind-numbing. The more requests roll in, the more overwhelmed employees can become. But with conversation bots on staff, employees can automate answers they frequently provide to reduce the burden.

Conversation bots that handle customer questions free employees from their desks, allowing people to respond to more complex messages with less anxiety. One report from The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that 40 percent of employees rated their jobs as “extremely or very stressful,” and most employees believe they are more stressed than workers in the past. However, when employees have intelligent conversation bots to help them delete work that doesn’t add value to their daily lives, they are less likely to suffer from burnout and more likely to identify new opportunities to drive growth.

With a hybrid workforce that includes conversation bots and humans, businesses will enjoy increased efficiencies; customers will get enhanced digital experiences; and employees can solve the advanced problems, leading to an increased sense of purpose and job satisfaction.

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Click fraud will decrease.

B2B companies think they need gated content to acquire prospect information because that’s how they’ve always done it. Unfortunately, people today don’t trust web forms like they used to. Worse, spammers working for click farms in foreign countries fill out web forms with fake information, leading marketers to waste their time filtering through nonexistent leads. These click farms can drain budgets and cause great campaigns to shut down because they skew marketing metrics.

Conversation bots, however, don’t treat spammers at click farms kindly. Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, they can spot illegitimate interest and disqualify fake leads before they pollute your CRM. This saves Marketing and Sales teams significant amounts of time and prevents click farms from sucking marketing budgets dry.

B2B companies will democratize bot-initiated conversations.

Traditionally, companies employed chatbots in Customer Service roles. However, brands in the future will use and democratize conversation bots, implementing them across multiple departments, including Sales and Marketing. Sales will use conversation bots to qualify leads, as covered earlier. And marketers will use AI-powered conversation bots to increase Personalization and engagement with potential and current customers.

Read More: AI-powered Conversation Bots Empower CMOs to Prove ROI

Fortunately for marketers, conversation bots will increase the effectiveness of marketing initiatives. Where traditional content ends, conversation bots will continue the engagement, turning a one-time interaction into sustained brand interest. This power is especially useful for B2B sellers with long sales cycles and multiple people on the buying committee who must be convinced to engage with prospects based on their behavior and interests. Conversation bots can recognize interactions across multiple screens before a deal is ever closed.

Conversation bots might not be the focal point of automation yet, but they will be soon. The platforms businesses are using to design AI-powered conversation bots are evolving rapidly. They have the potential to change the playing field in every industry, from Finance to equipment Sales to Healthcare. The challenge for Business Leaders is to change the way they think about pre and post-sale Customer Engagements. Five years from now, brands will look back and wish they had invested in conversation bot technology sooner.

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Alpha Group Unveils Pigeon – A Facebook Messenger App Experience for Merit-Based Content Sharing

By
PRNewswire
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1
Alpha Group Unveils Pigeon - A Facebook Messenger App Experience for Merit-Based Content Sharing

Pigeon Exits Stealth with More Than 35,000 Users Who Have Shared More Than 60,000 Posts. Pigeon Users Spend an Average of Six Minutes per Session, Outperforming Other Top Social Media Apps

With a commitment to creating an engaging social media experience that is based on the best content, not on identity or influence, Alpha Group, the in-house incubator for Advance Local announces its latest venture and unveils Pigeon. Pigeon is an anonymous, chatbot based Facebook Messenger app experience that transforms how people interact with and share content.

According to Statistica, the number of worldwide social media users in 2018 has grown to 2.34 billion. While social media presence is ubiquitous, there is a growing desire for users to escape the competitive nature and often disproportionate influence power users have on what gets shared across social platforms. The rise of paid influencers and increase in profit-driven algorithms that determine what content is shared has changed the nature of social media and linked it closely to an individual’s personal identity.

“With so much of social media tied to identity and personal branding, we’ve seen a comparison culture emerge where people feel the need to measure themselves against others,” said Michael Donoghue, co-founder and CEO of Pigeon. “We wanted to create a stress-free social media experience where people can share content they find interesting or worthwhile, without having to seek validation or worry about public perception.”

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Introducing Pigeon 

As an anonymous, content-driven meritocracy, Pigeon removes the anxiety of most social networks and instead focuses on encouraging users to share and vote for the best content to spread across its community. The more upvotes a post receives, the further it travels across the platform. By decoupling identity from social sharing, the app is moving away from the cult of personality that has come to define social media today and focuses instead on highlighting the best content.

Operating in stealth since late 2017, Pigeon has acquired more than 35,000 users at the time of its public launch. Engagement on Pigeon is high, with users spending an average of six minutes each time they open the app, outperforming reported average session times for Facebook (4.8 minutes), Instagram (3.1 minutes) and Twitter (2.8 minutes).

Founded in 2017 by Mike Donoghue, David Cohn, Kevin Wong and Harris Novick, Pigeon is the third product spinout from Alpha Group. The team previously launched The Tylt, a social polling and opinion platform with a monthly reach exceeding 300 million people, and Elsewhere, a video editing app with more than 100,000 downloads in the first year.

Also Read: InsideView Targeting Intelligence Receives Highest Score in Current Offering for B2B Marketing Data

Key features of the Pigeon app include:

  • Anonymous, Content-Driven Meritocracy: Unlike competitors who rely on user connections and complicated algorithms to determine what gets seen, Pigeon employs a simpler formula: the best content, as determined by the community, gets the most exposure.
  • Simple and Stress-Free Sharing: Using Pigeon is simple and fun. The chatbot presents people with a single piece of content at a time, which they can spread or bury by voting it up or down. Poorly rated content is quickly buried and filtered off the app. On Pigeon, all users need to do is share and engage with content they find interesting, free of the pressure to carefully curate a persona, profile or following.
  • Any Niche, Any Platform: By design, Pigeon is not permanently tied to any one niche or platform. The chatbot’s underlying technology is highly extensible and can be applied in any number of sharing communities, from apps that let users anonymously solicit feedback on their music to communities built around a particular interest.

As Pigeon evolves, the vision is to identify and create other niche communities for special interest groups and individuals looking to participate in anonymous, merit-based social sharing.

Pigeon Leadership

  • Mike Donoghue, Co-founder and CEO
  • David Cohn, Co-founder, Chief Strategy Officer
  • Kevin Wong, Co-founder, Chief Product Officer
  • Harris Novick, Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer

Recommended Read: Inpixon Appoints Retail Industry Veteran Adam Benson as CTO

Outreach Launches SalesEngagement.com, Announces New Book & Podcast

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Outreach Launches SalesEngagement.com, Announces New Book & Podcast

As Sales Engagement Gains Momentum, Outreach Creates The Go-To Resources For The Modern Sales Team

Outreach, the leading sales engagement platform, announced the launch of SalesEngagement.com, a set of educational resources focused on leveraging the latest in Sales Engagement to change the way teams sell. As the Sales Engagement category grows in importance to the modern sales stack, SalesEngagement.com serves as an all-encompassing resource for sales teams and offers exclusive insight into Outreach’s upcoming book “The New Rules of Sales Engagement” and podcast “The Sales Engagement Podcast”.

“Sales Engagement has revolutionized the way teams approach their day to day,” said Max Altschuler, VP of Marketing at Outreach. “Tools like Outreach create a new place for teams to take action by combining meaningful analytics and a seamless omnichannel experience. After seeing the impact this category offers companies, we developed SalesEngagement.com to create a community and share what the future holds for this emerging category.”

Also Read: Outreach Recognized as Top Startup by LinkedIn

Including insight from leading B2B sales veterans such as Ralph Barsi, Trish Bertuzzi, Jeb Blount, Anthony Iannarino, Jill Konrath, Mark Roberge and Craig Rosenberg, “The New Rules of Sales Engagement” breaks down how to humanize sales and educates readers on ways to leverage technology to close more deals. The book, available for purchase in early 2019, will be published by Wiley, the company also behind “Inbound” from Hubspot and “Beyond the Cloud” from Salesforce. The first edition of “The Sales Engagement Podcast,” an audio show focused on engaging buyers and customers in today’s sales climate.

Outreach pushes beyond the boundaries of existing categories like Sales Enablement or Sales Acceleration and offers sellers an intuitive system of action to accomplish tasks and engage with prospects. As a result, Outreach accelerates growth by optimizing every interaction throughout the customer lifecycle and provides a simple experience for every person on the team.

Also Read: Outreach Unveils New Outreach Voice Suite, Launches New Features to Help Sales Teams Close More Deals

“We’re on a mission to get the world’s innovations to market faster,” said Manny Medina, CEO and Co-Founder of Outreach. “We believe that Sales Engagement is the key to making that happen. That’s why Outreach established the Sales Engagement space in 2014 and continues to push its boundaries today with the latest in AI, machine learning and data science.”

As more companies recognize the power of Sales Engagement, a Forrester-confirmed category since 2017, it continues to gain momentum. According to G2 Crowd, Sales Engagement is revolutionizing the sales industry.

“Sellers need to rethink the way they interact and communicate with buyers, and ensure that they have the modern sales tools needed to create an engaging relationship,” said Michael Fauscette, G2 Crowd’s Chief Research Officer. “Sales Engagement is one of the hottest new categories on G2 Crowd, and is becoming a must have in every sales technology stack.”

Recommended Read: Outreach Acquires Sales Hacker; Demonstrates Commitment To Fostering Global B2B Sales Community

Experian Reinforces Its Commitment to Help Companies More Accurately Identify and Better Connect with People

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Experian Reinforces Its Commitment to Help Companies More Accurately Identify and Better Connect with People

New Whitepaper and Advertising Week Panel Discussions Aim to Educate Marketers on How Data and Technology Can Drive Better Customer Experiences

Customer identity is the foundation of any successful business, yet many businesses still struggle to properly identify their customers. According to recent research from the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) and Winterberry Group, only 15 percent of businesses can identify their audiences accurately and consistently. To help, Experian  unveiled a new whitepaper designed to educate companies on how to tackle the identity resolution challenge head-on and deliver communications that resonate with both prospects and customers.

Experian’s whitepaper, Connecting the Dots of Consumer Identity, breaks down the key concepts of identity resolution, addresses the nuances of an individual’s identity, and provides actionable steps to solve the identity challenge. Additionally, it details both online and offline touchpoints, such as names, addresses, devices, emails, social handles, etc. According to the whitepaper, organizations that recognize the value of identity resolution and establish it as the foundation for downstream marketing activities experience greater impact in all of their marketing campaigns.

Also Read: Salesforce Kicks Off Dreamforce 2018-A Celebration of Trailblazers

“With the proliferation of devices and media channels, marketers face unprecedented challenges when it comes to customer identity management,” said Kevin Dean, Experian’s president of Marketing Services. “We’re committed to helping marketers gain a better understanding of their target audience. And, the driving forces in identity resolution solution are quality data and technology. If we can help marketers bridge that gap, brands can then make the right marketing decisions and have more meaningful interactions with their intended audiences.”

In addition to the whitepaper, Experian executives will participate in multiple panel discussions during Advertising Week, October 1-4, in New York. With a focus on identity and data-driven advertising, Experian’s participation in the industry-leading event further exemplifies its commitment to help businesses maximize the power of data and adapt to the ever-changing environment.

  • Tuesday, October 2 – Jason Ellman, Experian’s senior director of innovation for Marketing Services, will participate in a panel entitled Data Transparency Label At-A-Glance. The focus of the discussion will be on the importance of data transparency and the proposed data labeling standards.
  • Wednesday, October 3 – Aimee Irwin, Experian’s vice president of strategy for Marketing Services, and Bruce Biegel, Winterberry Group’s senior managing director, will present a discussion entitled No Case of Mistaken Identity: Knowing Your Customers is the Key to Your Success
  • Thursday, October 4 – Irwin will participate in a session entitled Future Tellers. The discussion will focus on how data-driven advertising has allowed brands and marketers to predict consumer behavior.

Also Read: BrandTotal Raises $6 Million in Series A Round to Expand Rollout of Agile Marketing Platform

The DMA and Winterberry Group research also shows marketers have increased attention and resources on identity to deliver enhanced, privacy compliant customer experiences. In fact,58 percent of companies have intensified their focus on identity over the past year, while nearly half reported that their organization will invest more capital and resources in identity solutions over the coming 12 months.

“Beyond the delivery of personalized communications, accurately identifying individuals reduces wasted ad spend for brands. Marketers can be confident that the audience they are seeking has a genuine interest in their product,” continued Dean. “That means a stronger return on campaign investment, and the reallocation of resources to other priority areas.”

Recommended Read: SmartBug Media Hires Award-Winning Marketing Strategist Dan Quirk

Enhanced Customer Service as Natterbox Extends Voice to Salesforce Omnichannel

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Natterbox Closes Record-Breaking H1 2021 with 253% Year-on-Year Growth in U.S.

Telephony Integration Allows for Better Handling of Queries Across All Channels

Natterbox, a leading provider of global voice cloud services, has announced it is now offering its full telephony capabilities as part of Salesforce Omnichannel, helping customers to fully manage inbound queries across all channels. By including voice, businesses can now deliver a connected customer experience without overloading agents.

Salesforce Omnichannel allows users to manage how different channels, such as chat, email and text, deliver data to agents. By including Natterbox, this will now add voice, meaning that businesses can control workloads by rerouting other data services when agents take calls. At a time when engagement is growing across a variety of channels, this means customers will continue to receive the best possible experience, irrespective of how they want to communicate with businesses.

Also Read: Oracle Lauded for Predictive Analytics, Machine Learning Solution

Ian Moyse, Sales Director at Natterbox said “Customers expect fast, accurate responses to their queries, no matter what method they’re using. Different channels deliver different types of queries and requests, so it’s critical that businesses can manage which agents handle them in a seamless manner. By including Natterbox in Omnichannel, we’re helping our customers properly integrate voice without overloading their agents. This means they can focus on the customer they’re speaking to, without worrying about inbound requests from chat or other sources.”

 “They may be using multiple vendors to deliver other communication channels … Now that they can access voice through Omni-Channel”

Ian Moyse, Sales Director at Natterbox

As well as manage workloads, including Natterbox in Omnichannel means that all call activity, routing and reporting data is captured and sits under the Omnichannel umbrella, alongside data from other channels. Businesses therefore get simpler, more comparable sets of data to aid resource planning and inform future channel investment.

Also Read: Greater Marketing Insights as Natterbox Joins Salesforce Communities

“Our customers want to deliver a fantastic experience to their own customers, while maximising investment and resources,” explained Ian. “They may be using multiple vendors to deliver other communication channels – that’s why we’ve worked to give them the most straight forward way of viewing data. Now that they can access voice through Omnichannel, they can contrast and compare activity and workloads quickly and seamlessly.”

Omnichannel cannot be ignored and it is critical that traditional telephony and new mediums all integrate seamlessly to help a business and its employees to best serve customers in a time efficient and informed manner. Salesforce combined with Natterbox delivers a solution to meet the needs of the ever demanding customer and business looking to service them.

Recommended Read: Bold Ideas Need a Bold Platform to Push Out-of-Home Advertising Forward

Dreamforce TechBytes With Jason Loh, Global Head, Sales Solutions, Anaplan

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Jason Loh

Jason Loh
Global Head, Sales Solutions, Anaplan

At the ongoing Dreamforce by Salesforce event, we interviewed Jason Loh, Global Head, Sales Solutions, Anaplan. Jason shares his views on sales technology for modern sales professionals and the role of AI/ML in sales ops.

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Tell us about your journey in sales and how you reached Anaplan.

I started my career in field sales in the enterprise applications space. Like so many other sales professionals, they gave me a computer, a corporate AMEX, and pushed me out the door to sell. I cut my teeth traveling the world, racking up airline miles, and achieving lifetime platinum status at both Starwood and Marriott chains. Ha! My first sales job was at a niche CRM Marketing solution provider, which was later acquired by PeopleSoft.

I was then one of the first original hires at SAP when they first entered the CRM market. It was at SAP where I got my first taste of SPM (Sales Performance Management) applications. Eventually, I moved to Oracle where I spent 11 years growing their SPM business from the ground-up.

I left Oracle to help build a new software division for another SaaS company before joining Anaplan, where I’m currently charged with leading our sales and marketing solutions (Anaplan for Sales and Anaplan for Marketing) to bring Connected Planning to organizations around the world.

I’ve been at Anaplan for almost a year now, and I’m thrilled to be here, helping develop a product that’s already transformed business planning at hundreds of companies worldwide.

If not in sales, where and which industry would you have most likely built your career?

Like so many others, when I graduated college I didn’t expect to have a career in sales.

I often say that I didn’t go looking for this career – it found me. What drew me to sales originally was the ability to craft stories, and tell compelling narratives that helped reframe problems and present solutions. Knowing that I suppose I may have found my way into a marketing or advertising profession. Or perhaps, another line of work that involves creative problem solving, and storytelling.

How do you consume information on the latest technology news and sales updates?

As Anaplan’s Global Head of Sales Solutions, it’s my job to keep abreast of developments in both technology and sales. To do the first, I stay attuned to publications like the MIT Technology Review, Wired, the many smaller sites that chronicle the ever-changing tech world, and of course SalesTech Star.

To keep up with trends in sales, I keep track of the work done by many of our Anaplan partners: SiriusDecisions, the Sales Management Association, McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture, and many more.

I also spend a lot of time talking to people. Customers, analysts, partners, friends: I’ll ask them all what they’re thinking about. There’s always something new to learn!

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a sales leader?

Over the course of my career, it’s been fascinating to observe how advanced data analysis, and now AI and machine learning, are rapidly becoming crucial parts of the sales enterprise. To be sure, sales still rests on salespeople forging human relationships with their customers. At the same time, sales leaders are able to harness AI to acquire far deeper insights into the market and deploy their sales teams in much more sophisticated ways. These insights are making sales teams significantly smarter and far more effective.

As global head of sales solutions, part of my job is to show sales leaders and enterprise companies how AI and other advanced technologies can help sales teams make better, more informed decisions.

Tell us about your expectations at Dreamforce ’18 and your preparation for the event?

I always look forward to Dreamforce! It gives me the opportunity to do two things I love: talk to customers and take the pulse of where the sales industry is heading.

This year, I’m very excited to talk about how Connected Planning helps companies leverage their CRM systems for greater value. While CRM is crucial for helping salespeople track prospects, deals, and campaigns, what a CRM can’t do—what it isn’t designed to do—is to help sales leaders manage their larger sales strategy. Territories and quotas, predictable sales forecasts, optimized pipelines, capacity plans, incentive programs: these are the things sales leaders need to stay on top of, since they make up a sales organization’s larger go-to-market strategy.

As great as CRM systems are, they’re just not designed to manage these activities, Anaplan is. That’s why I urge sales leaders to utilize a platform, like Anaplan, that enables Connected Planning because it gives sales leaders a tremendous advantage over their competition.

What is Anaplan for Sales and how different is it from other Business Planning and Performance management solutions?

Anaplan for Sales on the Anaplan platform allows sales leaders and other decision-makers to create and manage their entire go-to-market strategy, top to bottom. It gives sales leaders one place to collect and analyze data from across the enterprise, and to chart the future of their organization.

The advantage of Anaplan is that it is designed to connect every single part of your go-to-market strategy. As sales leaders know, what happens in one part of a sales organization inevitably affects everything else in it.

Changing your sales territories?

Well, you’ll also have to change your quotas. Change your quotas and you have to modify your sales forecasts. Modify your sales forecasts and you have to shift your budget. That budget affects headcount, resources, the supply chain, finance, and much more. These things all cascade into one another.

Anaplan offers the only solution that puts all these decisions into a single, shared platform. Everyone across the organization sees the same data, in real-time. Sales leaders can see how changes anywhere will affect everything else. Since Anaplan offers very robust modeling capacities, sales leaders can also try out new ideas and optimize them very quickly. This power enables better, more forward-thinking decisions.

What are the major hurdles and opportunities in connecting corporate strategy to improve sales execution?

The biggest hurdle most companies see is the disconnect between levels and functions in their organizations. The larger the organization, the more susceptible it is to fall into ossified silos. When people at different levels of a company use different data and different tools, the more likely they are to make decisions without understanding their wider impact. This, in turn, makes it exponentially more difficult to connect high-level strategy to execution in the field.

With a platform like Anaplan, functions throughout the organization remain connected at all moments. The whole company can stay aligned. This dramatically improves sales execution. It also keeps a company far more flexible, able to adapt as market conditions change.

What are the challenges to selling Anaplan’s Connected Planning platform to a global audience?

The biggest challenge in selling Connected Planning for sales is that the idea of “planning” isn’t yet a widespread term for what sales organizations do. In finance, for example, companies like Hyperion introduced the idea of financial planning almost twenty years ago. So, saying “we’re pioneering the category of Connected Planning” to finance audiences makes more intuitive sense in those contexts.

Sales, in contrast, is still very much seen as a people-focused activity, even though, as I described above, today sales teams are using data and advanced analytics to become much smarter about what they do.

The main challenge is that people in sales don’t necessarily call this work “planning.” It is planning, of course, but the challenge is getting sales leaders to put what they do in these terms. Once they do that and understand that those decisions are interconnected across their larger sales strategy, they almost immediately see the value that a platform like Anaplan’s offers.

What are the core tenets of Anaplan’s sales management solution? How does it empower sales teams to deliver?

While Anaplan’s SPM solution helps hundreds of companies with specific use cases—running incentive comp, optimizing territories, producing far more accurate sales forecasts—at its heart, Anaplan’s SPM solution is about connecting people and data across the organization, empowering everyone to make better decisions.

“Everyone” here literally means everyone: on-the-ground salespeople, frontline sales managers, sales ops teams, finance professionals, HR stakeholders, executives, and so on. By leveraging information from across the enterprise, all of these people can be smarter about what they do.

To give one example: today, performance targets are no longer one-size-fits-all. Front-line sales managers can use Anaplan to quickly develop quotas and pipeline goals individually calculated for each sales rep. Gone are the days of blanket pipeline multipliers (eg 3X, 5X). Companies can now personalize multipliers based on the selling behaviors of individual reps and roles.

Top-down numbers might come from finance, but bottom-up numbers come from assessing the TAM (Total Addressable Market), potential and white space from the accounts they have in their patch. Sales leaders can draw territories that extract more value from each account.

Pipeline health can be measured and scored across various dimensions to ensure teams focusing on those deals that most align to their company’s longer-term goals. More accurate sales forecasts let teams better allocate resources. Reduced administrative time improves efficiency throughout the organization. Greater connectivity across the org keeps companies more adaptable to changes in the market.

All of these empower teams to deliver on their performance targets.

How do automation and intelligence tools help businesses drive sales? How do they make work easier?

The easiest answer is that automation and intelligence tools can sift through large piles of data to help sales teams make smarter, more informed decisions. Which customers to target, which incentives work best, what the ROI on various campaigns is, which deals are worth pursuing and how, prices, and many more: all of these can now be approached and optimized with tools unavailable to us even five years ago.

For many years, the most successful sales teams were the ones that were the most hungry. Today the most successful sales teams are the ones that are the smartest. In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, automation and intelligence are the only way to get there.

What advice do you have for salespeople in the tech industry?

My advice to salespeople in the tech industry is threefold. First, stay up-to-date on the advances in your industry. Customers are always looking for approaches that will let them do more. The more you can show customers something that nobody else can, the greater your advantage.

Second, be prepared for change. The tech industry changes unbelievably quickly, far faster than it did for earlier generations. It’s a bit cliché, but if you don’t keep yourself flexible, or are unable to retool any of your approaches at a moment’s notice, you’ll fall behind.

Third, don’t forget that Sales is still often driven by the personal connections forged between salespeople and their customers. Technology can help you be more focused on how you go about this, but you still need to be a trustworthy, reliable advocate for your customers.

Whose answers to these questions would like to read from the industry?

I’ve had the opportunity to partner with several thought leaders and influencers throughout my career. If I had to pick one, right now I would pick Jason Jordan from Vantage Point Performance. He co-authored the Amazon best-selling book Cracking the Sales Management Code. Now he’s gearing up to release another book, Crushing Quota, later this year. He and his team perform tons of research in the world of selling. I’ve had the opportunity to partner with him several times over the years, and he always has fresh perspectives that I find insightful.

Thanks for chatting with us, Jason.

Stay tuned for more insights on marketing technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

Wibbitz Pursues Further Growth in Europe with New Office in London, Appoints Jane Loring as Managing Director

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Wibbitz Pursues Further Growth in Europe with New Office in London, Appoints Jane Loring as Managing Director

Expansion in the UK Accommodates Increasing European Market Demand for Digital Video

Wibbitz, the leading AI-powered video creation platform, announced the opening of its fourth international office in Paddington, Central London, spearheaded by Managing Director and digital media expert Jane Loring. In her new role, Jane will work across the Wibbitz existing client roster of multinational media companies with a predominant presence in Europe, including Bertelsmann, Daily Mail, Reuters, Hearst, and Bloomberg, and oversee the development and daily operations of the new office. The expansion will introduce Wibbitz’s automated video creation platform to more UK publishers, brands, and agencies, simplifying video creation processes to help them produce impactful video content for every platform and channel.

Digital video viewing has become omnipresent among European audiences, driven by the integration of mobile devices and social media platforms into daily lives. Among nearly 44 millions of viewers in the UK, almost two thirds watch video content on mobile and the average time spent is about an hour per day. Showing a market value of over 64 billion pounds, the UK digital media industry is expected to continue growing at around seven percent annually, validating the demand for quality video content and the urgent needs for effective video creation tools that content creators can leverage to keep up with the consumer demand.

Also Read: Demandbase Launches New ABM Product Integration

With years of experience driving innovations and digital revenue for the country’s leading media business and agencies, including GroupM, Omnicom, UM and IPG, and monetization solution platforms, including Microsoft Advertising and Playbuzz, Jane has witnessed first hand how video has transformed the digital space and the challenges publishers and brands face in striving to effectively produce compelling video content.

Jane elaborates: “many publishers and brands have realized the importance of video storytelling, but are restricted by limited resources, time constraints, and lack of video talent. The Wibbitz platform eliminates the creative bottlenecks in their daily workflow and put video production in the hands of more people. The powerful automation paired with a full spectrum of customization capabilities ensures an unprecedented scale of video while still meeting quality standards. I’m extremely excited to be part of the Wibbitz team and introduce our sure-fire video solution to the UK’s thriving market.”

Also Read: JoTo PR Reveals Value of Disruptive Public Relations in B2B Marketing Podcast

“Our vision has always been to empower more storytellers in the world to tell their stories through video, and to break the creation barriers of region, language, and culture. Jane’s expertise in digital media and her profound understanding of visual storytelling are in perfect alignment with the Wibbitz vision. We are thrilled to have her lead the development of our new branch in the UK and further growth in the European market,” said Zohar Dayan, CEO and Co-founder of Wibbitz. “The new office will join our New York and Paris business teams in bringing the Wibbitz platform to more publishers and brands, helping to improve the quality of their content offerings and support their business growth.”

Recommended Read: Tacton Revolutionizes B2B Sales Through Launch of Visual Configuration with Augmented Reality

iHeartMedia, Jelli and Foursquare Team up to Launch New Attribution Product for Advertisers

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iHeartMedia, Jelli and Foursquare Team up to Launch New Attribution Product for Advertisers

iHeartMedia, Jelli and Foursquare announced the launch of a new attribution product for broadcast radio that will offer marketers a unique combination of iHeartMedia’s massive reach and Jelli’s programmatic buying capabilities, with the attribution and insights tools from location technology company Foursquare.

“iHeartMedia continues to reach more Americans than Google, Facebook and TV and the advertising community can now be taking further advantage of the scale and effectiveness of broadcast radio to build a brand, and drive awareness, engagement and sales”

iheartmedia-_-jelli

Radio is the No. 1 mass reach medium reaching 93 percent of the US population and engaging consumers longer than even the largest digital platforms. While radio has the highest consumer engagement of any major medium, prior to the launch of iHeartMedia’s programmatic and automated ad buying solution in 2015, broadcast radio had been perceived as being more difficult to buy and measure. iHeartMedia invested in Jelli’s programmatic platform to make the purchase of data driven radio campaigns as easy as digital, and now with the addition of Foursquare, more in-depth campaign measurement and real world attribution data is now available to advertisers who buy via Jelli’s demand side platform SpotPlan.

Also Read: Local Media Consortium Adds Five New Companies to Expanding List of Partners

This new attribution capability will leverage Foursquare’s location platform to measure the impact of a broadcast radio campaign purchased through the Jelli platform, SpotPlan, and its effectiveness in driving consumers to actual brick and mortar destinations. The Foursquare Attribution product, currently used by more than 250 industry-leading advertisers, publishers and platforms, uses cutting-edge machine learning techniques to measure the true impact of an ad on real-world visits.

“iHeartMedia continues to reach more Americans than Google, Facebook and TV and the advertising community can now be taking further advantage of the scale and effectiveness of broadcast radio to build a brand, and drive awareness, engagement and sales,” said Brian Kaminsky, iHeartMedia’s President of Revenue and Data Operations. “This initiative with Foursquare and Jelli is the next evolution in the development of our platform, providing retailers and QSR’s the same measurement and accountability for broadcast radio, as Google is in search and Facebook is in social.”

Also Read: DoubleVerify Announces Authentic Brand Safety Targeting for Programmatic Buyers – Securing Brand Protection and Driving Campaign Performance

“By leveraging Jelli’s API and pairing the real-time data provided by our supply-side platform, RadioSpot, with Foursquare’s location platform, iHeartMedia can provide advertisers with a new level of campaign intelligence and attribution,” said Michael Dougherty, co-founder and CEO of Jelli. “We are excited that Jelli’s platform is powering iHeartMedia and Foursquare’s partnership, delivering advertisers enhanced campaign and audience analytics and demonstrating the power of radio.”

“Our latest measurement innovations, driven by advancements in machine learning and rooted in our first-party data, is what sets Foursquare Attribution apart. We’re proud that iHeartMedia selected Foursquare as the company’s measurement partner, working in concert with Jelli’s API,” says Peter Krasniqi, Foursquare’s Vice President of Global Enterprise and Business Development. “This is just the beginning of what we can do together. iHeartMedia is also committed to a test phase with our Pilgrim SDK, which will give them even stronger analytics on audiences and foot traffic trends.”

Also Read: Future of Mobile Advertising – How EasyVisual Launched Mobile App for Brands Promotion

The partnership is part of iHeartMedia’s ongoing focus to assist brands with digital-like targeting and attribution data and tools, to help them leverage their consumers across iHeartMedia’s quarter of a billion monthly broadcast listeners. In May, the company announced iHeartMedia Analytics, the first fully-digital attribution service which allow advertisers to track audience reach, branding metrics and even sales outcomes for iHeartMedia radio ad campaigns in real-time by using data science to fuse information about its digital audience, with broadcast ad logs, on-air programming and commercial content.

iHeartMedia Analytics is part of the company’s industry-leading marketing optimization tools including SoundPoint (programmatic real-time radio ad buying platform) and the recently introduced SmartAudio, which enables advertisers to do impression-based audience planning and dynamic radio ad creative that utilizes real-time triggers such as weather, pollen counts, sports scores, mortgage rates and more to deploy different campaign messages based on what is happening in a specific market at a specific moment. SmartAudio has allowed brands to use broadcast radio ads to dynamically serve the most relevant message in each market, at each moment, just as they do with digital campaigns to ensure increased relevance and impact.

Recommended Read: Infor Supports Digital Transformation at John Henry Foster

LiveRamp Announces Availability of AbiliTec for Offline Identity Resolution

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LiveRamp Announces Availability of AbiliTec for Offline Identity Resolution

Accelerates LiveRamp’s Pursuit of Providing World’s Largest Omnichannel Identity Graph

LiveRamp, an Acxiom company, announced it is expanding the availability of LiveRamp’s AbiliTec offline identity resolution platform to its martech ecosystem partners. Since taking ownership of the platform from Acxiom earlier this year, LiveRamp has enhanced the offering to not only serve the needs of marketers, but also those of marketing technology companies. The addition of AbiliTec to LiveRamp’s IdentityLink portfolio strengthens the world’s largest neutral and open omnichannel identity graph by ensuring all players in the ecosystem can create exceptional experiences for their customers.

“In order to be successful, today’s marketers must deliver personalization at scale, which is precipitated by the ability to identify and recognize customers as actual individuals, and not just another number in a data set”

Technology platforms must be able to reliably connect their customers’ data wherever it resides in order to keep pace with a marketer’s needs. With the incorporation of AbiliTec into IdentityLink, companies that are building in-demand products that connect different data sets, like customer data platforms (CDP), master data management platforms and enterprise data warehouses, can offload identity resolution to a trusted, proven partner. As a result, consumers can expect to have a more meaningful and seamless experience with the brands that they value and prefer.

Also Read: LiveRamp to Power People-Based TV Campaigns for Adobe with IdentityLink

“When martech platforms demonstrate a cross-channel identity resolution strategy that can seamlessly adapt to the needs of their marketing customers, it unlocks value for both,” said Anneka Gupta, co-president, LiveRamp. “With the new capabilities AbiliTec adds to IdentityLink, technology platforms will have broader reach and accuracy when connecting their client’s disparate data, and can more quickly adjust to changes that occur in a consumer’s life—whether it’s a marriage, move, or contact change.”

AbiliTec is able to resolve disparate personally identifiable information (PII)—name, address, email, and phone number—to a single person, in a privacy-first manner, using sophisticated machine learning algorithms and a patented identity resolution process. AbiliTec applies a unique, persistent Privacy by Design (PbD) identifier to all customer records to create a people-based view of the customer with evidence-based IDs. This, in turn, enables the platform to provide an accurate representation of a brand’s customers and improve targeting accuracy at the personal level. LiveRamp customers using AbiliTec can expect greater reach, higher accuracy, increased interoperability, and advanced insights.

“In order to be successful, today’s marketers must deliver personalization at scale, which is precipitated by the ability to identify and recognize customers as actual individuals, and not just another number in a data set,” said Martin Wexler, VP of strategic business development, TapAd. “We’re excited to see these capabilities made available to platforms as part of LiveRamp’s IdentityLink offering. Providing our clients with an enriched view of their end user will enable them to build high-performing segments for acquisition, cross-sell, upsell and churn-prevention across channels.”

Also Read: Introducing Salesforce Customer 360 – Unify the Customer Experience on the World’s #1 CRM Platform

“With the sheer number of consumer touchpoints that exist across physical and digital mediums, access to data and insights is critical to unlocking customized brand experiences in real time across the enterprise,” said John Nash, chief marketing and strategy officer at RedPoint Global. “LiveRamp provides unparalleled intelligence through its offline identity resolution platform. Through this exciting partnership, we can further unify martech and ad tech for our customers, enabling them to have an even better view of the consumer across the entire lifecycle. With AbiliTec, we can provide our customers with the insights they need to drive contextually relevant interactions with their consumers, regardless of where they are.”

“As a leading CDP, we specialize in helping our clients unify fragmented customer data at the individual level, while also making it easier for marketers to activate across their tech stack. A big part of the value-add comes from our ability to not only unify data across digital channels, but also across offline-to-online environments,” said Cory Munchbach, SVP strategy at BlueConic. “Building unified customer profiles that are both accurate and comprehensive is core to our platform, and we’re pleased to now be able to support this even more efficiently when it comes to capturing data from the offline ecosystem.”

Recommended Read: 4A’s Advertiser Protection Bureau Delivers Brand Suitability Framework and Brand Safety Floor in Move to Help Advertisers Assess Risk

Interview with Carson Conant, Founder and CEO, Mediafly

By
Sudipto Ghosh
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0
Carson Conant

[vc_wp_text]“A buyer-driven sales journey occurs when every sales meeting and presentation is focused on the buyer and their needs.”[/vc_wp_text]
[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/CarsonConant” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/carsonconant/”]

What’s the biggest attraction for you at Dreamforce 2018?

Dreamforce has an infectious energy of other professionals that want to implement change. This energy and excitement attracts companies that want to improve and break new ground, rather than maintain the status quo.

Who are you keen to meet and huddle at the event? Which sections would you be attending?

I’m excited to meet with Mediafly’s customers, prospects and partners. Dreamforce is a rare time where you can get together with this many people in one place.

How do Salesforce trends and technology impact your business?

At Mediafly, we are a user of Salesforce, but also a Salesforce partner. We’re proud to be a driver of Salesforce trends, including the use of artificial intelligence in sales enablement platforms. By having the opportunity to see up-and-coming trends, we’re able to benefit our customers integrating these ideas and trends into future offerings of Mediafly.

How do you plan to extend the benefits of Dreamforce to your employees, customers and technology partners?

Salesforce and CRM is the hub of Sales Enablement. The role of Mediafly is to bring best-in-class sales presentation experiences to customers and partners. Dreamforce stimulates ideas and new capabilities that we bring into Mediafly.

With 6000-plus Martech and salestech companies to choose from, how should new businesses leverage customer review platforms to make better, unbiased decisions while buying enterprise software?

Customer review platforms are one of many sources companies should use to narrow down companies that could be the right fit for their needs. Nothing beats using the software in a real-world context in a pilot/demo situation so you know what you are getting before you buy.

Could you elaborate on the idea of “buyer-drive sales’ journeys? How does Mediafly impact these sales journeys?

Too many sales meetings and presentations focus on the seller, their products and solutions and the pretty PowerPoint presentations they created. A buyer-driven sales journeys occur when every sales meeting and presentation is focused on the buyer and their needs. Mediafly moves companies from static presentations about products and solutions to interactive sales tools that can deliver unique insights about the buyer in every meeting.

Do you think lack of CRM innovation is hurting the martech and salestech ecosystem?

CRM at its core is a central database where customer-related information flows from humans (sellers) and the integrated systems — marketing automation, training, sales enablement, etc. The future innovation of CRM will be in the form of new contiguous solution areas that are tightly integrated and further improve the relationship and engagement between buyers and customers and the awareness companies have about their customers and prospects so they can make more informed decisions. The growth of contiguous solutions does not appear to be slowing. In the next two years, I foresee CRM companies starting to acquire these solutions and making them an integrated part of the CRM core.

Would you provide us your take on turning AI-driven and enabled by 2020?

As it relates to sales enablement and customer relationship, AI and Machine Learning will drive many improvements. AI/ML can identify and make suggestions based on patterns and trends that humans and traditional algorithms might not see. In the near future, AI/ML will be able to identify buying trends across integrated systems such as Machine Learning, Sales Enablement, Training and web browsing so that each informs the collective.  For example, marketing campaigns will be automatically adjusted based on what sales content was shown the most in a meeting. And what content a sales rep should present will be suggested by what emails and web pages a prospect has been viewing.

Thank you, Carson! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.

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Carson founded Mediafly in 2006 and has led the growth of its enterprise solutions that is being used by some of the world’s largest and most admired companies. Under his leadership, Mediafly has been ranked four consecutive times in Inc. Magazine’s “5000 Fastest Growing Companies” annual edition. When Carson is not traveling to be with customers, prospects, and shareholders, he spends time with his beautiful wife and two rambunctious children in Chicago.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Mediafly” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68db8f-23cbce25-4f05″]

combomark-horizontal-mediafly-1
Mediafly offers sales and marketing a modern selling experience that values the buyer and drives business growth. Using the Mediafly platform, marketing and sales teams at companies including PepsiCo, GE Healthcare, MillerCoors and Charles Schwab, are able to deliver custom, dynamic sales presentations quickly and efficiently, engaging customers with insights that are relevant to them.

Mediafly’s Evolved Selling™ solution transcends sales enablement by incorporating methodologies and technologies that enhance how brands engage with prospective buyers. Evolved selling starts with rethinking the way you interact with customers and empowering your sales team to leave the status quo behind.

The four elements of Evolved Selling are dynamic, interactive, informed and integration. Dynamic sellers can access and assemble content on the fly and pivot in the moment to meet the needs of the buyers. Interactive presentations allow sellers to capture input from the buyer that guide a tailored discussion. When sellers are informed with data from various sources, they can differentiate themselves in the field and teach buyers something new. Integrating a sales enablement tool provides a feedback loop that captures and analyzes each interaction to inform future strategy.

Mediafly’s Evolved Selling Solution offers: – Unparalleled ease-of-use. Mediafly’s intuitive customer interface acts as an extension of your marketing department. Fully branded applications enable a consistent and improved experience for your prospects and customers throughout the full buying cycle. – Real-time engagement. The Mediafly solution helps sellers become more efficient with their preparation and follow-up of meetings, while improving their effectiveness during each meeting. Sales reps using Mediafly strengthen engagement with buyers by pivoting in the moment to address their needs and share relevant and impactful insights.

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[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

Tremor Video DSP Appoints Tal Mor as Chief Technology Officer

By
PRNewswire
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0
Tremor Video DSP Appoints Tal Mor as Chief Technology Officer

Tremor Video DSP, the leading programmatic video platform, announced the appointment of Tal Mor as the company’s new chief technology officer. Mor’s addition reinforces the company’s commitment to providing its advertising clients with innovative technology and solutions to bolster their video initiatives, ensure the highest level of consumer engagement and drive the greatest business impact.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to work with the leading video DSP in the industry,” said Mor. “My goal as the CTO is to provide innovations that allow advertisers and agencies to make the most efficient and effective use of data, technology and creative in order to ensure campaigns are being delivered to the right audience and advertisers are meeting the right KPIs.”

Also Read: Leading Development and Internet Marketing Firm with Multiple Brands Deploys Journey by CAKE

With over 20 years of experience in the business and technology space, Mor also serves as the CTO of Tremor Video DSP’s sister company, Taptica, and on the management team at Taptica International Ltd. In his role with Tremor Video DSP, Mor will implement the latest machine learning models to ensure video campaigns demonstrate superior performance and provide actionable metrics. Mor will also focus on expanding the company’s differentiated data and supply partner integrations to seamlessly scale Tremor Video DSP’s unique audience reach offerings, which span billions of unique viewers a week and continues to grow.

Also Read: New Media Quality Report Includes Time-in-View Metrics to Explore Consumer Attention

At Taptica, Mor designed and launched the newest engine behind Taptica’s network, which distributes and tracks mobile ads to billions of users, helping to ensure the most efficient campaign delivery. The next generation engine leverages big data and applies AI to detect fraudulent clicks and ensure GDPR compliance. Mor also introduced advanced software engineering best practices and methodologies internally and created an agile team approach that made large strides in boosting quality and delivery time. Mor formerly held leadership positions with Spot.IM, Silo.co and BlueSnap.

“Tal’s vision and leadership will ensure that Tremor Video DSP continues to help advertisers realize the full, exciting potential of video by developing innovative solutions that blend advanced data with custom creative,” said Ofer Druker, executive chairman at Tremor Video DSP.

Recommended Read: Flipboard Designs Popular Editorial Franchises for Next Generation Storytelling

Tyler Seguin Retains SBX Group as Exclusive Sales and Marketing Agency

By
MTS Staff Writer
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0
Tyler Seguin Retains SBX Group as Exclusive Sales and Marketing Agency

SBX Group Set to Work with the Will Sports Group to Significantly Diversify, Expand and Grow Tyler Seguin’s Off-Ice Business Opportunities and Portfolio

SBX Group announced that five-time NHL All-Star and Stanley Cup Champion, Tyler Seguin, has retained the firm as his exclusive sales and marketing agency.

As an agency highly skilled in developing and monetizing top tier entertainment assets, SBX Group will work with Seguin and his sports agency, The Will Sports Group, to expand and create multiple lines of business: expansion of e-commerce and merchandising, including the TPS line of apparel and accessories; development of non-traditional partnerships outside of endemic hockey brands; extension of charitable efforts, including the Seguin’s Stars initiative; as well as the development of equity-driven ventures and launch of new proprietary brands and businesses in lifestyle, entertainment and fashion.

“Creating a working relationship with SBX Group was an important step for The Will Sports Group,” said Ian Pulver, Founder. “Partnering with SBX allows us to build our clients’ on and off ice initiatives to their full potential. Starting with Seguin’s business, we look forward to working together to continue to push and disrupt in our space. We look forward to doing great things with SBX.”

Also Read: Thasos Group Launches Enhanced Versions of Its Market-Leading Foot Traffic Products

“Tyler and SBX Group are both dynamic, disruptive players and leaders in their respective fields, and know how to achieve results at every level,” added John Walters, Seguin’s business manager and agent at the the Will Sports Group who will work directly with SBX on Seguin matters. “SBX has a great track record in sports and entertainment, and based on their success, as Tyler’s ambitions to develop business opportunities outside of hockey grew, we knew they were the perfect fit.”

After signing a team-high $78.8 million, eight-year contract extension last month with the Dallas Stars, Seguin has solidified his role as one of the most dominant forwards in the NHL. He is tied for second in goals scored in the league over the last five years, and is on almost a point-per-game pace since joining the Stars for the 2013/14 season (173 goals, 384 points in 387 games).

Off-ice, Seguin is undisputedly one of the most charismatic and exciting personalities in the game – from being a rugged outdoorsman, fisherman and dog-owner, to his eye for fashion, accessories, cars and architecture. It is within this unique identity that SBX, Seguin and Will Sports see massive opportunity for off-ice business growth.

Also Read: FormAssembly Grows 63 Percent in Enterprise and Compliance, Launches New Customer-Centric Initiatives

“At this stage in my career, I want to ensure my focus remains on hockey while at the same time having a team around me that I know without question will be working behind the scenes and making the most of the off-ice opportunities available,” said Seguin. “After seeing what SBX has done with the personalities they have worked with and meeting their executives, I knew they were the group to team up with.”

SBX Chief Executive Officer Danny Fritz and Chief Strategy Officer David Corelli will co-lead Seguin’s account, supported by the firm’s team located in six offices across North America and Europe. Corelli and his Strategy team will develop the overall growth strategy and plan of action, while also leveraging Seguin’s profile to amplify his story and brand in North America. Meanwhile, Fritz and the agency’s Business Development team will lead the charge in bringing the plan to market and identifying, creating and securing revenue-generating opportunities.

“SBX’s core expertise is rooted in being able to empathize with our client’s desires, values and objectives, and then knowing how to both strategically and quickly build revenue-generating opportunities for them in the sport and entertainment world,” said Fritz. “We look forward to working with Ian Pulver and his team at The Will Sports Group. For starters, Tyler Seguin fits perfectly in our system as a top athlete with a standout personality and charisma, as well as a passion and burning desire to build a business that lives, breathes and endures outside of the hockey rink.”

Recommended Read: Mercedes-Benz Is Rated the Most Emotionally Intelligent Luxury Automotive Brand By Affluent Consumers In Luxury Institute’s Emotionally Intelligent Brand Index

TapClicks Secures $10 Million in Funding from Boathouse Capital

By
MTS Staff Writer
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0
TapClicks Secures $10 Million in Funding from Boathouse Capital

Company to Enhance AI and Machine Learning-Based Unified Marketing Intelligence and Workflow Management Solution

TapClicks, the global SaaS leader in marketing analytics, reporting and workflow, announced a $10 million investment from Boathouse Capital, a private equity firm with over $350 million under management. The funding will drive customer and revenue growth through product innovations and accelerated sales and marketing.

An early innovator in smart solutions for marketing business intelligence, TapClicks will leverage growth capital from Boathouse to expand the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology into its scalable analytics and reporting platform, including the continued development of its proprietary marketing and advertising recommendation engine.

Also Read: InsideView Targeting Intelligence Receives Highest Score in Current Offering for B2B Marketing Data

“We evaluated several SaaS companies in the digital marketing space and TapClicks outperformed peers due to its rapid growth and large customer base,” said Chong Moua, General Partner, Boathouse Capital. “After we invested in TapClicks, Salesforce announced its $850 million acquisition of Datorama, validating our thinking that we invested in the right market and picked one of the top players.”

“Today’s customers demand a single platform to manage their marketing operations, data and communications,” said Babak Hedayati, CEO of TapClicks. “TapClicks has disrupted the marketplace through the highest number of pre-integrated connectors, delivering high performance marketing throughout the process. TapClicks is poised to disrupt the market again by providing AI-based insights to optimize marketing budgets, ad quality, media mix and recommend marketing channels and platforms to maximize conversions and ROI.”

Also Read: TapClicks Shortlisted for 2018 SaaS Awards

TapClicks integrates more than 180 sources of marketing campaign data and performance metrics into a unified, scalable, end-to-end marketing analytics, reporting, workflow and order management solution. The company also offers a HIPAA compliant solution to ensure healthcare covered entities and their digital agencies are able to easily maintain regulatory compliance. Serving 5000+ media and advertising agencies and their 500,000 brand clients, TapClicks’ solution enables users to analyze data quickly and effectively, delivering powerful automated reports and visualizations to enhance marketing operations and performance while improving sales enablement without the burden of additional IT overhead.

Recommended Read: TapClicks Becomes a HubSpot Integrator Providing Unified Reporting Across 193 Martech Platforms

ZaiLab Enters US Channel Through New Supplier Partner Relationship with Intelisys

By
MTS Staff Writer
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0
ZaiLab Enters US Channel Through New Supplier Partner Relationship with Intelisys

ZaiLab, a next-generation software company specializing in omnichannel, cloud-based contact center software, announced its new Supplier Partner relationship with Intelisys, a ScanSource company and the nation’s leading Technology Services Distributor.

Just ahead of Channel Connect, Intelisys’ annual partner event—to be held this year in Monterey, CA—ZaiLab prepares its debut appearance as a Supplier Partner. The SaaS company recently launched in the United States as part of its global footprint expansion program, which covers the US and European markets; and now, ZaiLab’s contact center solution is available to SMB customers across the US through Intelisys’ national network of Sales Partners.

Also Read: Salesforce.org Announces $18 Million in Grants Towards Bay Area Education, Homelessness and Cleanliness at Dreamforce 2018

“Our focus, at all times, is to support the growth of our Sales Partners, and to enable them to be the leaders in their markets,” said Andrew Pryfogle, SVP Cloud Transformation for Intelisys. “With this in mind, we are very excited to include ZaiLab in our supplier portfolio. By doing so with a consumption-based pricing model, this rich and robust offering is available to the masses. We’re proud that Intelisys Sales Partners will have first access.”

Regardless of vertical, SMB customers, start-up companies, and new customer support departments stand to benefit from ZaiLab’s entry into the US market. The company’s pricing model and easy to deploy omnichannel collaboration has the potential to immediately impact the growing cloud-based contact center industry.

Also Read: TransPerfect to Highlight Artificial Intelligence Solutions at GlobalLink NEXT 2018

“This partnership has had an auspicious beginning,” said Nour Addine Ayyoub, CEO of ZaiLab. “I believe everything is connected, and it is evident in how Intelisys and ZaiLab have connected, which is mainly due to our value systems, our backgrounds, our humility, our DNA, our mutual respect for one another, and good business.”

“Our global expansion program has been a top priority. We took time in researching the right options and suitable partners who share our values and believe in what we stand for,” agreed Michael Cibelli, VP of Sales and Marketing for ZaiLab. “Intelisys was that perfect fit for us. We look forward to the next phase of our exciting company journey with Intelisys, and to forging new and strong relationships within the Intelisys Sales Partner community.”

Recommended Read: Inpixon Appoints Retail Industry Veteran Adam Benson as CTO

FastSpring Bolsters Global Presence with New Offices and Senior Level Hires

By
MTS Staff Writer
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0
FastSpring Bolsters Global Presence with New Offices and Senior Level Hires

New Hires, Doubling of Office Space and Employee Count Comes as a Result of the Company’s Successful Ecommerce Platform and Strategic Customer Counsel

FastSpring, a global leader in ecommerce management for digital businesses, announced new senior-level hires along with expanded office spaces in Santa Barbara and Amsterdam.

These developments are part of FastSpring’s broader vision to power billions in transactions with innovative commerce solutions that connect people globally in one digital economy, empowering customers to succeed in a world where global e-retail sales are expected to reach $4.48 trillion US dollars by 2021.

“We are experiencing a new wave of digital commerce which has changed the way people buy and shop across the globe,” says Chris Lueck, FastSpring CEO. “Our talented leadership bench and recent expansion across borders further validate our ability to meet evolving global customer needs, while providing digital commerce merchants with tools and teams that will handle everything from payments and subscription billing to sales tax and VAT compliance.”

Also Read: Periscope Data Announces Fall Release With a Focus on Scalability

New Offices in Santa Barbara and Amsterdam Expand Global Footprint

Headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, in this year alone, FastSpring quickly expanded to all floors of their original office and recently moved into a bigger suite on E. Carrillo Street. They also hired eight new employees in their Amsterdam office, which required expanding to a bigger office through WeWork. This move ultimately doubled the company’s office space and overall employment count, further cementing their global footprint in the ecommerce and payments industries.

New CFO, VP of Revenue Operations and VP of Marketing Join FastSpring’s Leadership Bench

This year, FastSpring welcomed Sian Wang as CFO, Brian McTeague as VP of Revenue Operations and Sarah Bottorff as VP of Marketing to help grow their global presence and take the company’s technology and brand story to the next level.

Before joining FastSpring, Wang served as CFO at SaaS company, Steelhouse and brings his expertise in developing growth and M&A strategies to the team. McTeague joins FastSpring with experience in finance, analytics, and sales operations at companies like Websense and Cylance. His focus is on developing a world-class revenue engine to drive growth for FastSpring.

Also Read: Mitek and JanusID Deliver Real-Time Identity Verification to SMBs

Bottorff comes on board with experience from Appfolio, CJ Affiliate by Conversant, and Johnson & Johnson to strengthen and optimize FastSpring’s cross-channel marketing, strategic planning and staff development to better reach current and prospective customers around the world.

In addition to these recent hires, FastSpring announced the appointment of Scott Herriman as SVP of Engineering earlier this year to lead and grow the engineering department as they continue to develop the FastSpring platform to meet the needs of today’s online digital sellers.

Recommended Read: DAX Named As Exclusive Distribution and Monetization Partner for America 2.0 Podcast

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About Us

MarTech Series is a leading publishing platform that provides daily updates on marketing technology news, in-depth interviews with industry leaders (such as CMOs and product heads), and expert-led insights on topics like AI/ML, analytics, and marketing automation. As part of the iTech Series network, it acts as a "Brand to Demand" partner.

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