DealSignal Unveils Platform Enhancements and New GDPR Risk Assessment Module
Marketers Can Now Quickly Assess Their GDPR Risk and Establish Account Controls for Data Compliance in DealSignal’s On-demand Contact Data Platform
Recently at the SiriusDecisions 2018 Summit, DealSignal Inc., the leading On-demand Contact Data Platform for B2B Marketing and Sales, unveiled a new product module to help marketers quickly assess their risk ahead of the May 25th General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance deadline.
“B2B marketers are faced with many challenges today: identify and engage their total audience, try to keep their audience data fresh and accurate, and comply with new regulations like GDPR. Given the negative consequences associated with GDPR, most marketers are scrambling to review and re-verify the location and status of their contacts. Our GDPR Risk Assessment module can help teams quickly enrich their spotty CRM data with accurate contact locations and flag EU-based leads and contacts for further action,” said DealSignal Founder & CEO, Rob Weedn.
Because the majority of CRM data is woefully incomplete and inaccurate, marketers have no idea where their contacts are actually located, so they face huge risk under GDPR, as well as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)—even if they’re not actively marketing to companies based in those regions.
Using a unique combination of AI, APIs, robots, and professional data researchers to ensure the industry’s highest B2B coverage, match rates, and accuracy, the DealSignal platform can help B2B marketers quickly enrich their CRM and marketing automation data with accurate contact location details so teams can properly assess their GDPR risk. DealSignal’s latest release also includes built-in account controls to ensure future compliance as marketers use the platform for on-demand contact data discovery, enrichment, and verification.
DealSignal helps B2B demand generation and sales teams increase conversions from account-based marketing (ABM) and sales outreach by providing 100 percent guaranteed fresh and accurate contact and account data, on demand. It’s your total audience, perfected. Using your fine-grained personas and ideal customer profile, the DealSignal On-Demand Contact Data Platform can provide a TAM analysis, as well as contact discovery, enrichment and verification, so your team will have all the data needed to effectively personalize their outreach.
Campaigner Launches Landing Pages to Help Marketers Take Customer Engagement One Click Further
New Feature Extends Personalization Capabilities Beyond Email and Offers Comprehensive Campaign Management
Campaigner Inc, the email marketing brand of j2 Global, recently announced its new Landing Pages feature, enabling advanced marketers to take engagement with customers one click further than ever before. Campaigner Landing Pages improve marketers’ ability to personalize content for each subscriber, drive lead generation, and track and report engagement for comprehensive campaign management on one consolidated platform.
“In today’s increasingly competitive marketing landscape it’s more important than ever for marketers to personalize content to reflect the individual tastes and preferences of their customers,” said EJ McGowan, Vice President and Managing Director at Campaigner. “Where views and open rates have long been the standard for email marketing measurement, marketers must now demonstrate true engagement with customers. Our new Landing Pages feature enables just that and helps marketers craft personalized end-to-end campaigns, driving real ROI for their businesses.”
Marketers can easily create hosted Landing Pages that integrate directly with their email marketing content on the Campaigner platform. They can merge existing contact information and related content to create Landing Pages that present unique content to each page viewer, for a tailored and personalized experience in a rich medium beyond email. The campaign-specific pages can direct customers and prospects to complete a specific call to action, including completing a purchase, subscribing for content, downloading digital materials or providing additional information.
“Marketers today demand comprehensive tools that enable them to consolidate and simplify their technology stack,” said Seamas Egan, Director of Marketing and Sales at Campaigner. “With our hosted Landing Pages solution, email marketers have another tool in their belt to take their campaigns one step further without using disparate resources.”
Campaigner Landing Pages include pre-designed templates as well as a full HTML editor so content creators can design fully customizable content that meets any brand guidelines. The solution features tracking and reporting capabilities for marketers to monitor views, clicks, subscribes, conversion rates and bounce rates – offering a complete view of a campaign’s performance and customers’ engagement.
Outbrain and IAS Form Strategic Partnership to Deliver Brand Safety Solutions to Marketers
Outbrain, the world’s leading content discovery platform, and Integral Ad Science (IAS), the measurement and analytics company that empowers the advertising industry, today announced they have formed a partnership to bring IAS’ brand safety solutions to Outbrain’s brand marketers.
The partnership represents a significant addition for marketers working with Outbrain, the most trusted and largest content recommendation company serving premium publishers globally, by enabling full control and confidence that their campaigns are associated with the brand-appropriate content. IAS’ global presence aligns well with Outbrain’s core markets throughout Europe, North and South America and Asia. Using its diverse reach across the digital ad ecosystem, IAS measures and collects over 500 billion media quality points daily, and is thus able to offer partners like Outbrain the most holistic and accurate data segments. With this partnership, IAS will be able to provide its brand safety data to content discovery placements powered by Outbrain.
“A trusted brand-safety partner like IAS is a core component of our strategy of giving brands 100 percent confidence in telling their story across our publisher network,” said Gilad de Vries, SVP, Strategy at Outbrain. He added, “our partnership with IAS is a natural evolution of our total focus on quality and on powering the most premium publisher network globally. We are in the process of implementing many steps to help increase the confidence for brands while improving trust and transparency across our network.”
“We are excited to empower marketers using the Outbrain platform with our leading brand safety solution, ” said Jim Egan, VP of Publisher Development at IAS. “Joining forces with Outbrain allows us to continue to pursue our work in making digital advertising a safe place for brands to grow their businesses.”
The IAS – Outbrain partnership will enable Outbrain’s global marketers to exclude non-safe categories through controls on their Outbrain campaign dashboards. With both in-campaign and publisher site scoring, the IAS solution enables a brand safe environment for both advertisers and publishers. The product is launching globally later this year with full access for brand marketers following an initial beta period.
Revcontent Sees 1,100% Increase in Profitability, Bolsters Client Roster and Product Offerings Under New Leadership
Revcontent Worked with TAG to Ensure Partners Are Given Extra Transparency and Protection
Content recommendations platform, Revcontent has announced that it has completed the verification process. The company has been approved by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) as a participant in the TAG Registry. Companies that are TAG Registered have been verified as legitimate participants in the digital advertising industry through a proprietary background check and review process.
TAG is an advertising industry initiative to fight criminal activity in the digital advertising supply chain focusing on four core areas: eliminating fraudulent traffic, combating malware, fighting ad-supported Internet piracy to promote brand integrity, and promoting brand safety through greater transparency.
At the time of this announcement, John Lemp, CEO and Founder of Revcontent, said, “Brand safety and transparency are so vital in the digital marketing industry in order to gain trust and credibility with marketers, publishers and most importantly users.”
John added, “Becoming TAG Registered is an important milestone for our network and confirms our commitment to quality advertising. We are thrilled to support TAG’s efforts in improving the digital environment for brands and ensuring advertising takes place in a trustworthy, transparent environment.”
Revcontent has a reputation for being proactive in implementing brand safety standards. Revcontent worked with TAG to ensure partners are given extra transparency and protection by providing a way to identify responsible, trusted players across the digital advertising ecosystem.
“We are very pleased that Revcontent has completed the TAG Registration process to verify their role in the advertising ecosystem, ,” said Rachel Nyswander Thomas, TAG’s senior vice president for operations and policy.. “We look forward to continuing to work with Revcontent to improve transparency, strengthen brand safety, and fight criminal activity in digital advertising.”
As a company that is approved as a participant in the TAG Registry, Revcontent is assigned a unique TAG-ID, a global and persistent identifier that enables partners to verify Revcontent’s legitimate status in digital advertising.
Approval into the TAG Registry is the first step in applying for TAG’s seal programs, and Revcontent plans to apply for the “Certified Against Malware” and “Certified Against Fraud” seals.
Last month, Revcontent became the first native advertising network to join the Board of Coalition for Better Ads, a program created to improve the overall ad experience for consumers.
Currently, Revcontent is the largest content recommendation network, according to Quantcast, powering 350 billion content recommendations per month. Revcontent partners with the largest media brands in the world such as Newsweek, The Atlantic and more.
RTB House Bids on Innovation, Opening AI Marketing Lab
RTB House Once Again Challenges Itself and the Advertising Industry with Its Creation of The AI Marketing Lab
RTB House, a global company that provides state-of-the-art retargeting technology for top brands worldwide, welcomes a new research division, AI Marketing Lab. It will research and develop cutting-edge martech solutions for both publishers and advertisers.
After successfully deploying deep learning algorithms throughout 100 percent of its campaigns, RTB House once again challenges itself and the advertising industry with its creation of the AI Marketing Lab – an internal unit that will conduct research and development in across broad marketing area. Separate from the main R&D department, the new division will focus on creating an environment for inventing and developing new mar-tech solutions.
“We’ve been highly focused on improving our primary personalized-retargeting system. In 2017, we achieved one of our biggest goals – introducing deep learning technology into 100 percent of the crucial elements of our predicting mechanism. This was a huge breakthrough not only for us but for the digital marketing industry as a whole. We’re now looking to the future, to expand our knowledge, technology, and resources to new areas in order to develop another game-changing solution. One of the most promising areas is improving the effectiveness of acquiring new traffic by advertisers,” said Robert Dyczkowski, CEO of RTB House, who will lead the initial stage of the project.
The first-year budget for the AI Marketing Lab is planned at USD $5 Million.
RTB House is listed among top 10 fastest growing companies from technology sector in Europe according to Financial Times 1000 list, and one of the few companies in the world that managed to develop and implement its own technology for purchasing advertisements in the RTB model (real-time bidding) – a solution in which buyers participate in real-time advertising space auctions. The company operates worldwide and runs campaigns for global brands in almost 70 markets across Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
Brainshark Wins in The American Business Awards for Seventh Year in a Row
Sales Readiness Leader Honored as a ‘Customer Service Department of the Year’ for Helping Companies Improve Sales Productivity and Results
Brainshark Inc., delivering SaaS-based sales enablement and readiness solutions, announced that it is a Stevie Award winner in The 2018 American Business Awards. Brainshark’s customer care department – made up of implementation, support, training and customer success groups – was honored as a “Customer Service Department of the Year.” This is the seventh consecutive year that Brainshark has been recognized in The American Business Awards – with the company winning more than 20 Stevie Awards for helping customers dramatically improve sales effectiveness.
The American Business Awards are the nation’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the US – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small – are eligible to submit nominations. The program received more than 3,700 nominations this year.
Recognized for its sales readiness expertise and high satisfaction rates, Brainshark’s customer care department is dedicated to driving customer success. The department helps companies develop and implement sales readiness plans, maximize technology ROI and enable their sales teams to close more deals faster.
“Customers are, of course, the lifeblood of our organization, and we’re committed to treating them all like VIPs,” said Karin Moffett, vice president of customer care, Brainshark. “This award underscores our commitment to providing first-class training, implementation, support and resources – so companies can maximize the value of Brainshark’s software, improve sales productivity and accomplish their sales enablement goals.”
Brainshark sales readiness software equips businesses with the training, coaching and content needed to prepare salespeople when, where and how they work. With Brainshark, companies can: enable sales teams with on-demand training that accelerates onboarding and keeps reps up-to-speed; validate readiness with sales coaching and practice that ensures reps master your message; and empower sales organizations with rich, dynamic content that can be created quickly, updated easily, and accessed anywhere.
PowerInbox Leverages Email Expertise to Help Publishers Capitalize on Multichannel Digital Monetization Opportunity
PowerInbox DynamicMail Business Unit Acquired by Optimove; Proceeds Will Fuel Investment in Product Innovation on the Heels of Profitability and a $30 Million Run Rate
PowerInbox, the trusted audience engagement partner for publishers and marketers, announced that it will launch new content monetization technologies aimed at helping publishers drive new revenue through multichannel digital monetization. The strategic shift comes on the heels of three straight years of over 100 percent year-over-year company growth, driven by PowerInbox’s industry-leading dynamic email personalization and monetization solutions.
“Our core technology has set the standard in email monetization, and now we’re applying those same principles to help publishers diversify and grow revenue across every digital channel,” said Jeff Kupietzky, PowerInbox CEO. “Our proven expertise, technology and expansive network give us a strategic advantage in leveraging the email address as a unique identifier for subscribers, allowing publishers to achieve one-to-one personalization across every digital touchpoint. And, we are solidly profitable—a rarity in an industry where companies raise significant sums of other people’s money.”
PowerInbox’s fast-growing network of 85 million unique monthly subscribers across 600+ publishers powers its unique email-based personalization engine, which is more effective than using cookies or device targeting which are often inaccurate due to device sharing.
The company’s solid annual growth, profitability and $30 million revenue run rate have been bolstered by its lean business strategy, focused on investing heavily in product innovation rather than opulent office spaces or a high-overhead sales bench. As part of its new multichannel strategy, PowerInbox has sold DynamicMail to Optimove, and true to its customer-solution focus, will invest the proceeds directly into product development, leveraging its core technology into cross-channel digital monetization.
In addition to focusing on its RevenueStripe, AdServer for Email and other email monetization solutions, PowerInbox is developing innovative new monetization capacity across other subscriber engagement channels, including browser notifications, chatbots, mobile news aggregators and more.
“Social monetization has become much tougher amid privacy concerns, lack of control and ever-changing platform policies that drive publishers’ content off the newsfeed,” Kupietzky said. “Our new tools will give publishers the ability to drive engagement and revenue across emerging and alternative channels with the one-to-one, dynamic personalization subscribers have come to expect across every touchpoint.”
The PowerInbox digital monetization ecosystem is powered by its personalized recommendation engine that serves up dynamic, multimedia content in over 175 categories. With one-to-one hypertargeting, accurate tracking and CPM billing, PowerInbox enables publishers to drive revenue, subscriber engagement, trust and loyalty for instant ROI across multiple platforms.
A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to attend MarTech West in San Jose, California. MarTech is a tech conference for marketers and marketing conference for technologists – it’s where all the best ideas and latest innovations in marketing, technology and management collide.
For Simple, it was an opportunity for us to launch our Intelligent Marketing Platform in the US, discover what’s hot in MarTech land and bond with colleagues that we usually only get to meet with via a Hangout.
As I was packing my suitcase with Koala keyrings and Boomerang magnets, I started to think about what was to come over the next four days. How many times would AI and Machine Learning be mentioned? If I received a dollar each time they were mentioned, how much money would I walk away with? Ok, so my thoughts were a little more in-depth than that, and yes, I came back with a few more insights – here’s a quick wrap-up.
The Marketing Technology Landscape – yep, it’s bigger than ever!
No matter how many times this slide is referenced it’s still mind-blowing. Scott Brinker (MarTech chair, editor of chiefmartec.com and all-round amazing guy) unveiled his latest Marketing Technology Landscape and this year, I really had to squint!
Over 1,500 MarTech solutions have been added since last year – that’s a 27% increase, meaning we’re now looking at 6,242 vendors in 48 categories. This, combined with more than 100 exhibitors at this year’s event made me realize just how exciting it is to be a marketer!
We’re at the forefront of emerging technologies and while it can sometimes be a little overwhelming, we have access to an unprecedented number of tools that, if used correctly, will help transform the way organizations work. I think it’s time we find a way to work around the chaos and complexity and embrace the tools which are going to help us get stuff done.
And while there’s a lot of talk around ‘robots taking everyone’s jobs’, much of what I discovered at the event made me realize that it doesn’t matter how many tools become available — you’re still going to need the insights, intelligence and instincts of marketers to piece the puzzle together.
“Marketers aren’t born to be project managers” – it all starts from the top!
This came up in a discussion I was having with a fellow delegate around why so many teams fail to successfully implement planning/collaboration software. It’s a familiar situation – you choose a great piece of software, roll it out internally and assume all the hard work is done.
It became clear in the days that followed, that with so many tools available to us, we need to read between the lines and ensure that we adopt tools that make not only our lives but our teams’ lives, easier.
Scott Brinker and Anand Thaker highlighted this as they delved into The State of MarTech. Technology can sometimes magnify challenges within your organization. This means that your people and processes need to be in order before any implementation – here’s how they described it:
Customer values a brand by experiences
Experiences are delivered by people
People are managed by leaders
Leaders set the tone
In saying this, the entrants in this year’s Stackie Awards (there were 54 entries) provided great insights and showed that it can be done at scale. Large enterprise organizations such as Cisco and Janus Henderson (previously Janus Capital Group and Henderson Group) have managed to streamline their marketing tech stacks and make them work on a global scale.
There are a lot of ‘shiny things’ for us to focus on, but how many times do we take a step back and evaluate some of the tools/processes we put in place right at the beginning?
I had a few conversations around marketing pain points and many of these revolved around basic principles that we’ve implemented and then set and forgot: everything from briefing to workflows and even the initial setup of software solutions.
Lissa Daniels reinforced this as she spoke about data-driven marketing and in particular, attribution marketing; while Sameer Khan also tied attribution into the importance of understanding the customer journey.
This got me thinking – while the introduction of new technologies is exciting and definitely something we need to embrace, we must be prepared for how we’re going to use them. You can get all the data you like coming in, but if you don’t have a firm foundation for how to understand and generate usable insights from that data, how are you supposed to build on top of it?
All in all, MarTech West came at the perfect time. For Simple, we were able to better understand the market we’re playing in and we came away confident that we have the product, people and positioning to be very competitive in that market.
And for me personally, I’ve learnt that while there’s so much happening in our space, sometimes you need to take a step back, reflect and take the time to filter through the insights, uncover the right intelligence and trust your own instincts.
SparkPost Celebrates Opening of New Maryland Headquarters to Accommodate Rapid Growth
New Building More Than Doubles Company Footprint in Howard County
SparkPost, a cloud email API service preferred by leading internet and technology companies, announced that it has opened new headquarters in Maryland to accommodate rapid company growth, expanding from approximately 13,900 square feet to 29,665 square feet at its new location at 9160 Guilford Road in Columbia, Md.
SparkPost’s new, two-story Maryland headquarters features innovative design and was carefully chosen with longevity in mind. Approximately 88 employees will work in the building initially, but SparkPost’s new space will allow the company to grow to more than 200 employees in Maryland. The company anticipates hiring software engineers and filling administrative, customer support and product management roles in 2018.
Joined by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman and an array of local officials, SparkPost CEO Phillip Merrick and company employees celebrated the opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony recently.
“This is an exciting time for SparkPost and its employees in Maryland, who will all benefit from the opportunities this expansion presents,” said Merrick. “With offices around the globe, SparkPost is thrilled to double down on Maryland and continue to build its team in Howard County.”
SparkPost, also based in San Francisco, first opened offices in Maryland in 2008. The company has operated out of a 13,900-square-foot building in Columbia since 2012. SparkPost’s new headquarters building is located just across the street from the company’s former location, near hiking and jogging trails in the heart of Howard County.
In addition to being in an ideal location for employees located between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the new SparkPost headquarters building features a modern design and open floor plans for easy cross-department collaboration. The building features expansive breakrooms fully stocked with complimentary food, a wellness room, and 20 communal rooms including quiet spaces and meeting areas designed to encourage teamwork.
SparkPost’s new Maryland headquarters also offers a 4,000 square-foot multi-function assembly area with room for more than 100 people, perfect for company-wide meetings or to be used by employees seeking a space to recharge.
“We designed the building to provide our employees with the best possible facility for the collaborative and innovative culture that has fueled SparkPost’s tremendous growth,” Merrick said. “The building will provide an environment encouraging innovation, but has amenities to facilitate a positive work-life balance, an important part of our company culture.”
SparkPost plans to use the multi-function area to host industry meet-ups and other networking and training events, as well as for fun uses such as family movie nights, fitness and yoga classes and more.
TCS Wins Six Stevies at the 2018 American Business Awards
Tata Consultancy Services Honored for the TCS NYC Marathon App, its Ignite My Future In School Program and as a Top Employer of Choice
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced that it has received six Stevies at the 2018 American Business Awards, the nation’s premier business awards program. TCS was recognized with a Gold Stevie for Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year, a Silver Stevie for Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year, and four Bronze Stevies including Company of the Year, New Product or Service of the Year for Human Capital Management, Human Resources Department of the Year, and Human Resources Team of the Year for Talent Engagement.
More than 3,700 nominations from organizations of virtually every size and industry were considered this year, and more than 200 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s Stevie® Award winners.
TCS received a Gold Stevie in the Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year category for its 2017 TCS New York City Marathon App, which included new features designed to boost engagement for runners, spectators and fans. The app received a world record 334,000 downloads in 2017 – up 5% year-over-year – and the iOS version of the app ranked #1 on race day among free apps in the App Store.
TCS received a Silver Stevie in the Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year category for its Ignite My Future In School (IMFIS) program, a first-of-its-kind, multi-million dollar initiative that leverages computational thinking and new teaching resources as a catalyst to transform the way K-12 students learn across America. The program has a vision of engaging 20,000 educators and 1 million students over a five year period; and in its first school year has already engaged 2,500+ educators through in-person full-day professional development and virtual sessions, reaching 155,000+ students, and gaining national recognition from nearly a dozen Congressional leaders.
Several factors contributed to TCS winning four Bronze Stevie awards, including Company of the Year:
TCS’ recent partnership with Transamerica to digitally transform its life and annuities business through a groundbreaking $2+ billion multi-year agreement while hiring more than 2,200 Transamerica employees nationally.
Being recognized as one of the three most valuable brands in the IT Services industry by Brand Finance, and investing nearly $3 billion in the U.S. over the past three years.
TCS’ HR leadership and commitment to being a world-class organization through its digital workforce management practices and in-depth training programs such as FRESCO PLAY (TCS’ internal digital learning platform), which aide employees in their development and growth at the company.
“TCS has been deeply invested in helping American businesses and local communities to grow and transform for more than 40 years. We also pride ourselves on engaging our employees through a culture of learning, collaboration and performance,” said Surya Kant, President, North America, UK and Europe, TCS. “Recognition by the American Business Awards is a testament to our focus on helping US businesses to navigate and digitally transform in today’s Business 4.0 era, plus our commitment to being a lead corporate citizen and employer of choice.”
“The nominations submitted for The 2018 American Business Awards were outstanding. The competition was intense, and those recognized as Stevie Award winners should be immensely proud of this accomplishment,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards.
The American Business Awards, nicknamed the ‘Stevies’ for the Greek word ‘crowned,’ will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Monday, June 11.
Lee Auerbach talks about the dynamic elements driving B2B sales revenue model at Chatmeter.
Know My Team
Chatmeter’s sales team is around 20-strong. As most salespeople, money is the main motivator, but a large part of talent retention falls on office culture, achievement recognition, and growth. We have a small team, but the dynamic revolves around bonuses, commission, and office celebrations, whereas long-term sales are focused on promotions and seniority (and bragging rights).
Tech-savvy teams
I’d rate the team high at a 9.
Our teams focus more on industry education than selling Chatmeter. It’s one of our major differentiators. They can discuss anything from our API and new Google Updates to Ranking Algorithms and historical SEO timelines.
Chatmeter Team in September 2017
Training young sales professionals
The most important factor is knowledge of the industry which can be learned through alerts, blogs, and mentors. But, some other major skills that many overlook is time management, typing speed (please be over 40wpm minimum), multi-tasking (cliché, but so true in martech), and improvisation.
I specifically look for candidates that can think fast, connect the dots, and create stories to explain confusing Martech concepts.
B2B Marketing Strategy and Customer Acquisition Models
My role at Chatmeter is widespread. I have a hand in most activities from Marketing, Support, Product, Accounts, Sales, and Roadmap. We only had a few employees when I started with very few structures. This was not my first tech “startup” rodeo, so I hit the ground running.
That’s me, Lee Auerbach
Creating a new image, story, marketing and promotional documents, hiring, networking, and scaling. Definitely had my work cut out for me.
Measuring marketing analytics and sales performance
Almost every day. From the start to the end, a large part of Chatmeter’s success is a result of daily reporting. We are militant with our CRM, MarCom, and sales automation software… track every detail so that we can help avoid the same mistakes and focus on the successes.
Chatmeter Time
B2B sales revenue model
All executions are accomplished by having an outstanding team on my shoulders. I can’t do everything as a party of 1. I surround myself with high caliber talent in each department, from our head of operations, marketing manager, team leaders, and sales engineers. I also attend conferences and industry events to understand future technology, potential pivots, and industry changes.
Marketing and Sales Alignment: Social Media and Content Marketing Strategies
Creating effective B2B sales content
As a software company, we understand the value of software tools and what they can provide our salesforce. We use a variety of tools including Salesforce, Tout, Marketo, Email Hunter, and many plugins built right into Salesforce as well.
In addition, sales operations and marketing are working hand in hand to create a ton of content and content marketing strategies to arm salespeople with industry-leading content showing thought leadership that is opening doors and opportunities for our sales team.
Chatmeter at AIM 2017
Content and sales acceleration strategies
As mentioned above, we are utilizing many tools now to accelerate sales opportunities.
We are using marketing automation techniques from Marketo to take leads from the top of the funnel to deliver meaningful content that is targeted to their industry and the buyer persona. This opens the door to drive them toward content engagement, increased curiosity, learning, and eventually completing a lead form or opening the door for a call with our SDR to learn more who then sets a warm appointment for our Sales Executive.
Leveraging Sales Content
Case studies are at the top of my list. Sharing success stories with prospects proves our story around online to offline conversion. Instead of explaining, we have evidential data proving. Industry trends, white-papers, webinars, and research all then re-enforce that Chatmeter is the industry leader with knowledge and experience for both predicting future trends, but also improving their internal operations.
Customer Success and Technology Insights
Revisiting sales tech
I have a quarterly analysis where we’ll assess our current sales tech and examine what new tools have entered the market. Our team is highly flexible, so new technology can be adopted and scaled immediately if necessary.
Partnership model
Technology allows one person to essentially do the work of 5. It accomplishes two major goals… run lean without sacrificing quality.
Without technology, we would not be able to scale as quick and expansive as we have without raising capital.
Customer acquisition
Technology has allowed us to exponentially increase our customer acquisition. From drip campaigns to targeted marketing campaigns… we’ve tipped the scales from outbound to inbound selling, which allows for shorter timelines and increased brand recognition.
We’ve even been able to find a higher quality of talent through new recruiting technology.
Sales and Marketing coming together
We see a transition/unifying of technology to finally incorporate both Sales and Marketing teams. In the past, tools have been focused on marketing or sales, and multiple logins were needed with little integration around unity.
Recently, within the past year, we’ve seen more major marketing tools adding (or acquiring) a functional sales automation component so marketing can work with sales towards the same goals.
Advice for the MarTech industry
Innovate constantly.
The most common pitfall I’ve witnessed in MarTech is a creation of an incredible product, see it fully adopted by the industry, then see it slowly become outdated, and without innovation… it dies.
Today’s great idea today is tomorrow’s distant memory.
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Allbound Brings Quick Success to ISV’s “Channel-First” Strategy
AgileField, a SaaS-based Solution for Field Service Organizations, Partnered with Allbound to Launch Their Partner Portal
Allbound, the leading next-generation partner relationship management software (PRM), is collapsing the “time-to-revenue” benchmark for companies going to market through sales channels.
“Today, companies need their partners to start generating revenue quickly,” said Allbound CEO, Mike Chadwick. “Speed of channel partner management implementation and the pace at which partners can start selling, have become key metrics by which PRM solutions are measured.”
Chadwick noted, “When partners first sign on, they want to start selling right now. Without ready access to training and needed sales resources, their enthusiasm turns to frustration, and they move on to other revenue opportunities.”
For AgileField, a SaaS-based solution for field service organizations, time-to-revenue was key to their partner portal solution decision.
“Once we made the commitment to launch our channel-first strategy, we needed to quickly bring on quality partners and position them for early success,” said AgileField Executive Vice President of Partnerships and Alliances, Jeffrey Gregorec. “We immediately saw that Allbound was geared for our aggressive timetable.”
In partnering with Allbound, Gregorec noted AgileField’s PRM was up and running eight days after launch and the first partner onboarding took place just seven days after that. Through Allbound, partners were provided with more than 80 easy-to-access sales support resources, including training, pricing and videos.
After just the first full quarter of using Allbound, AgileField onboarded 30 partners, representing more than $250,000 worth of opportunities and registered deals.
“We just closed our most successful revenue quarter ever,” Gregorec said. “A large majority of it coming from our channel partners utilizing Allbound.”
In commenting on AgileField’s PRM experience, Gregorec said, “Selecting Allbound as our channel management software was easy. The platform is easy-to-use and maintain, the cost benefits were nearly immediate, and their team is a pleasure with which to work.”
Bidalgo Announces Support of Playable Ads on Facebook and Other Platforms, Offers Free Ad Production for Qualifying Advertisers
Clients Increase Click-Through Rates of Facebook Playables by 50 Percent Using Bidalgo’s Ai-Based Ad Automation Software and Services
Bidalgo, a leading provider of ad creative automation software and services for app marketers, announced the launch of a new suite of products and services to support playable ads on Facebook and other leading ad platforms. The announcement comes as Facebook makes playable ads available on its platform to allow users to sample a game or app before installing it, helping drive higher quality installs. One of the first Facebook Marketing Partners (FMP’s) to support the platform’s new playable ad units, Bidalgo also enables advertisers to quickly and easily deploy playables on Google’s UAC.
Bidalgo provides a comprehensive suite of products and services to support playable ads, including creative design and production, Artificial Intelligence-based media buying for optimal targeting and placement, and advanced creative analytics tools to show how assets’ performance measures up against other ads in the same industry. All services are provided free of charge for Bidalgo’s fully managed clients, or they can be purchased on a self-serve basis as well. With Bidalgo, advertisers can create and deploy playable ads in about 24 hours, without using development resources, as opposed to the several days it tends to take for marketers to do it on their own.
Bidalgo has been testing Facebook playables during the program’s beta period, and in that time Bidalgo clients have been able to increase click-through rate by 50 percent and Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU) by 33 percent in just a few weeks by using Bidalgo’s AI-based ad automation software and services.
Peli Beeri
“We are extremely proud to serve as a trusted marketing partner for Facebook as they roll out this important and increasingly popular ad format,” said Peli Beeri. “Our clients have seen promising results with playables on Facebook already and through other channels as well, and our goal is to give them the tools and resources they need to not only get up and running quickly but to master the format so that they drive performance to take their apps to the top of the charts.”
Playables are among the most promising ad units for app marketers because of their ability to let users try a game before deciding to download it helps drive higher intent for app installs. Bidalgo brings industry-leading expertise and cross-channel experience to Facebook playables, while enabling advertisers to leverage the format on other platforms as well.
$150 Million Deal… Gannett Acquires PPC Giant, WordStream
WordStream’s Acquisition Marks An Exciting Chapter in Local Search Marketing and PPC Ecosystem
Gannett, the owner of USA Today, has officially announced WordStream’s acquisition. The deal will cost Gannett $150 million, and it would enable the American media company to fortify their digital transformation journey. WordStream, founded by marketing influencer Larry Kim in 2007, is widely recognized as a leading provider of cloud-based SaaS solutions for local and regional businesses and agencies. The Online advertising enabler offers exceptionally optimized digital marketing services based on PPC.
According to the latest announcement, the purchase price for WordStream is $130 million in cash, net of cash acquired, plus up to an aggregate $20 million earnout payable in 2019 and 2020 based on achieving certain revenue targets. The transaction builds upon Gannett’s existing data-driven digital marketing services, ReachLocal and SweetIQ.
Robert Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett, said, “This acquisition marks another critical milestone in Gannett’s digital transformation, enhancing our ability to support businesses and agencies in our local markets with the intelligent, data-driven marketing solutions they need to drive growth.”
Bob added, “WordStream’s technology, extensive data and analytics capabilities together with an experienced executive team will bring tremendous value to Gannett’s expanding digital marketing services business.”
WordStream Prepares to Build Their Businesses and Achieve Their Most Ambitious Goals
In a personal blog on their website, CEO of WordStream, Howard Kogan, said, “When I joined WordStream last year, the company was already growing at an incredible rate. And yet, we have big ambitions in order to fulfill our purpose – to help small and medium-sized businesses and the agencies that serve them succeed and grow.”
Howard added, “We’ve been working hard since then refining our vision, developing new products and services, and empowering our teams so we can better serve our customers. Today, I’m thrilled to announce that a new chapter for WordStream has begun. We’ve entered into an agreement to be acquired by Gannett, a move that positions us to provide even more value to our customers so they can build their businesses and achieve their most ambitious goals.”
Branching Operations to Deliver a Greater Range of Solutions to Help Customers Succeed and Grow
The acquisition would not change much for WordStream, except for a stronger brand positioning in the US and emerging markets of Australia and New Zealand. As part of Gannett, the PPC giant would focus on leveraging Gannett’s expansive media network as well as their strong presence in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand to better serve the growing international client base. The primary focus would be to continue to offering WordStream customers with a “greater range of solutions to help them succeed and grow.”
Currently, WordStream helps thousands of businesses to harness the power of Google, Facebook, and Bing by leveraging its discovery and recommendation technologies, intelligent campaign optimization, and online training programs in its cloud-based SaaS solutions.
These Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solutions provide businesses and agencies the ability to manage and optimize performance and results on paid search and social advertising campaigns. WordStream is a proven innovator and delivers a world-class customer experience.
Through WordStream, ReachLocal, and SweetIQ, Gannett will now be able to provide the full spectrum of digital marketing services from DIY to managed service to any local or regional business or agency. WordStream will continue to be headquartered in Boston, MA.
Sharon Rowlands, said, “The market for digital marketing services in the U.S. is over $90 billion and consists of both large and small clients. The addition of WordStream’s best-in-class DIY SaaS solutions significantly enhances our capabilities and expands our addressable market.” Sharon is the President of USA TODAY NETWORK Marketing Solutions and chief executive officer of ReachLocal.
Sharon added, “WordStream enables us to provide a full range of digital marketing solutions to Gannett’s large local client base and grow our digital share of wallet.”
More Details on the WordStream Acquisition
Jefferies LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP acted as legal advisor to Gannett in connection with this transaction. Houlihan Lokey acted as exclusive financial advisor and Gesmer Updegrove acted as legal advisor to WordStream in connection with this transaction.
In the first year, WordStream is forecasted to contribute approximately $55 million in digital marketing services revenue and approximately $16 million of Adjusted EBITDA. Gannett anticipates the transaction will be accretive in the first full year of operations and funded from borrowings under the Company’s revolver. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter after the expiration or earlier termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.
Streaming Video Alliance Welcomes Google as a New Member
Alliance Gathers at Viacom’s Headquarters Recently in New York City for Annual Meeting
The Streaming Video Alliance (the Alliance), an industry forum solving challenges to improve the video experience, recently announced that Google has joined as its newest member. At an event hosted by principal member Viacom, Alliance members gathered at the company’s headquarters in the heart of Times Square.
“Viacom is pleased to host the Streaming Video Alliance face-to-face meeting, where we can continue collaborating with the member technology companies, programmers, and distributors to promote standards around distributed caching and video quality-of-service measurement that will benefit us all and our audiences,” said Glenn Goldstein, CTO, Viacom.
Keynote by Alec Hendry, Senior Director of Technology Convergence at Viacom, and Dino Covelli, Director of Emerging Streaming Technology at Viacom
HEVC Licensing Symposium in which representatives from key HEVC patent licensing pools and patent holders (HEVCAdvance, MPEG LA, and others) will discuss their licensing terms
Member-led session about Tackling the Issues & Challenges of Massive-scaled Live Synchronized Events presented by Chris Michaels of Wowza
Welcoming new members to the Alliance including Google and Videastream
“A lot has happened in the four years since the Alliance was founded. New industry technologies have been introduced and adopted, new Alliance members have joined our ranks such as AWS and Google and the consumer demand for and consumption of streaming video continues to soar,” said Jason Thibeault, Executive Director of the Streaming Video Alliance. “As we kick off our fourth annual member meeting, I’m inspired by our collective progress to date and look forward to our members’ continued contributions to the streaming video industry.”
Following the annual meeting, voting will open for the Board of Director elections, and appointments will be in announced in June 2018.
As part of the Alliance’s mission to educate the industry on challenges, technologies, and trends, Thibeault frequently speaks at events throughout the year. On June 5, 2018, Thibeault will be at the OTT Executive Summit in New York City appearing on the panel, “Reliably Streaming Broadcast-Like Quality Video (Including Live) on a Global Scale.” On June 29, 2018, Thibeault will speak on the OTT TV Infrastructure Roundtable at TV of Tomorrow in San Francisco.
Members of the Alliance include companies and individuals from across the streaming video ecosystem such as network operators, technology providers, service providers, and content owners. Founded in 2014, the Alliance is a global association of organizations from across the video ecosystem that have come together to collaborate on building solutions to the technical challenges facing the streaming video industry. Through best practices, specifications, functional requirements, proofs-of-concept, and other documents published by its working and study groups, the Alliance strives to improve the end-user video experience and promote increased adoption of streaming.
Ken Denman is an Entrepreneur, Board Member, Investor, and Serial CEO of Technology Companies, While Duncan Logan is the Founder and CEO of Rocketspace
Nex Cubed, an innovation platform that empowers entrepreneurs to bring new technologies to market, helps rising companies scale and provides paths to liquidity, welcomed Ken Denman and Duncan Logan to its Board of Directors.
“We are honored to have Denman and Logan join the Nex Cubed Board,” said Marlon Evans, CEO of Nex Cubed. “Their breadth of experience, leadership, and shared passion for developing entrepreneurs will inform and drive our strategic plan.”
Denman is an entrepreneur, board member, investor, and serial CEO of private and public technology companies. Denman is a Venture Partner with Sway Ventures, and most recently was President and CEO of Emotient, Inc., a venture-backed software startup that built an AI-based platform for measuring facial expressions. Emotient was acquired by Apple in January of 2016. Denman has also been CEO of two Silicon Valley public software companies, Openwave and iPass. Denman sits on the Board of Directors for Costco, Motorola Solutions, Mitek Systems, and LendingClub.
“The difference Nex Cubed is making by supporting the development of industry-changing technologies while also empowering entrepreneurs to make a real impact on the world is extraordinary,” said Denman. “I’m looking forward to joining the Nex Cubed family.”
Logan is the Founder and CEO of RocketSpace, a San Francisco-based technology campus and accelerator. RocketSpace has fueled the success of more than 1,000 startups, including 18 unicorns that have raised more than $21b, such as Uber, Spotify and Leap Motion. At 24, Logan started his first company, CITYPRO International, which he sold to ASAP Pic in 2000 after building it up to $8m in revenue over three short years. In 2002, Logan joined MessageLabs, a SAAS security company he helped build until it was sold to Symantec in 2008 for $700m.
“Quality attracts quality,” stated Logan. “From the leadership team to the mentor and advisor community, the quality of the Nex Cubed ecosystem assures the company is well-positioned for success. I am eager to contribute to the continued growth of Nex Cubed and its portfolio.”
Channel and Sales Enablement Software Provider, Mindmatrix Launches Salesforce Community Add-ons
The Integration Adds Value to Salesforce Community by Bringing Mindmatrix Channel Enablement Tools to the Salesforce Community Portal Making It More Powerful
Pittsburgh-based channel and sales enablement service provider, Mindmatrix introduces Salesforce Community add-ons that bring the Mindmatrix channel enablement tools to the Salesforce Community Portal, making it more powerful.
The integration brings Mindmatrix channel and sales enablement software platform’s key modules such as playbook, training and certification, assets, channel reporting and enablement to the Salesforce Community Portal. The entire integration is compatible with Lightning Bolt, the technology vastly used by Salesforce in its Community portal.
The Mindmatrix platform already integrates with Salesforce CRM, providing salespeople with all the sales tools they need to close leads faster—right from the Salesforce interface. Launched in 2014, the Salesforce CRM integration happens at five levels—assets, playbooks, contacts, campaigns and operations.
Harbinder Khera, CEO, Mindmatrix says, “The launch of Salesforce Community Add-ons is in line with our core vision that for channel enablement to be successful and to build long lasting channel relationships, channel enablement tools have to be integrated with the partner environment. Vendors must take the tools to their partners, making easy for the partners to use them. The Salesforce Community Add-Ons do exactly that by bringing the core elements of the Mindmatrix platform into the Salesforce Community portal, seamlessly.”
Mindmatrix offers Channel & Sales Enablement software for direct and indirect sales channels. Mindmatrix is the only provider of a Single Unified Platform that combines PRM software, Direct Sales and Channel Enablement, Channel Marketing Software, Marketing Automation software and Marketing Asset Management. Mindmatrix takes you through every step in the sales process from lead to revenue, enabling your salespeople and channel partners to sell more, faster.
Media monitoring reports often contain a wealth of information that can help companies navigate fast-changing landscape and spot both opportunities and issues on the horizon. Unfortunately, these insights tends to stay buried in the inbox of the PR and communications department and business decision makers lose out on a valuable source of information. So how can communications professionals – both in-house and agency – elevate their insights to the C-Suite to the point that they affect business decisions?
The biggest problem lies in relevancy as executives are often bombarded under an avalanche of requests and reports, from a multitude of sources, and a multitude of agendas. “FYI” is now code for “Safe to Ignore”, and “Urgent” is the new “Regular work”. With this constant amount of background noise, creating a report that stands out in terms of clarity and relevance is essential.
Here are some ways to evolve the way functional groups view and work with communications teams.
As communication professionals, we understand the impact of the media, and media intelligence in achieving business outcomes. However, this understanding might not be clear for all business functions, and there are plenty of anecdotes about inter-departmental friction because of this.
Instead of trying to educate and convince your colleagues, communications professionals should make the effort to understand not just company business models, but also work processes.
For example, with the expiration of the Production and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme, the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) introduced during Singapore’s Budget 2018 will take its place to provide small and medium-sized enterprises with funding support for off-the-shelf solutions to improve productivity. If your sales team has products that can be funded with governmental grants, changes to grant structures could impact their sales strategy.
Gathering this feedback also helps better define your parameters on your media monitoring platforms, allowing these solutions to pick up content that you know will be more relevant for your internal target audience – which is why a well-constructed media intelligence report will also be critical in making sure the report is read by key stakeholders. It should be constructed in such a way that the most important information is highlighted in a concise manner.
The challenge lies in balancing providing enough information while making the report concise enough for a quick read.
A few questions every communications professional should ask themselves when sharing information to other internal teams:
Is this relevant information outside of a communications/PR function?
Is there a “bigger picture” or strategy that can be derived from coverage?
How does this impact other functions? What kind of actionable insights can be extracted from this coverage?
Is there any non-media information that should be shared to provide more context? (e.g. Links to relevant blogs, in-depth research papers, new online resources)
How can intelligence reports also highlight the importance of a communications function?
A competition’s major strategic campaign usually creates some ripples in the media, even if they are not explicit about it. A savvy enough communications professional can piece together not just what is being said to the media, but also better understand “behind-the-scene” strategy.
For example, if a competitor has announced a MoU with a major educational institute, and opened an incubator lab, they may be pivoting for a strong push among start-ups. Or if a brand has signed on a celebrity outside of their typical demographic, and released products targeting a niche market, it may signal a larger strategic push in another direction.
Once a potential competitive strategy has been extrapolated, the information could be used by other functions to pivot and gain the competitive advantage.
To bring intelligence to the next level, it needs to have actionable insights. While most business functions should have an idea of what next steps are, PR and communications professionals can also value-add by including potential next steps – including suggesting possible new lines of inquiry.
The old business adage of “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!” resonates here – and while PR and communications teams are unlikely to have a fully-fledged solution to most problems, the next best thing they can provide is a way forward to helping teams collaborate to come up with a solution.
For example, if a government agency announces a new budget allocation for smart cities, PR and communications teams can provide links to various RFPs that are part of this new allocation. If a competitor announces a new product, PR and communications teams can provide an updated portfolio of the competitor’s products.
Organisations face little issues with data collection. Where they struggle most is in analyzing it, picking out the most important data points and then developing a strategy around it. This is where presenting information in a standard format is key to avoid alternative interpretations of data, encouraging cross-departmental collaboration and streamlining processes to mitigate the risks of duplicating work. Ultimately, aligning each department’s strategy into achieving the organization goal.
While elevating your media monitoring requires extra time and thought, turning data into value-added insights in collaboration with different departments will potentially help your organization make that next critical decision.
Socialbakers Named a Leader in Social Media Marketing Suites, Analytics, Management and Monitoring
G2 Crowd Recognized Socialbakers as an Industry Leader by Customers in g2 Crowd’s Spring Reports for Marketing Suites, Analytics, Management and Monitoring
Socialbakers, the leading AI-powered social media marketing platform, has been named as a leader in four categories of Social Media Marketing Suites, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Management and Social Media Monitoring on G2 Crowd, the world’s leading business solution review platform.
Leveraging the largest social media data-set in the industry, Socialbakers’ social media marketing platform helps brands large and small ensure their investment in social media is delivering measurable business outcomes.
In today’s competitive digital marketing environment Socialbakers has become the go-to social media marketing partner for thousands of enterprise brands and SMBs around the globe. Socialbakers’ industry-leading AI-powered marketing platform helps brands like Nestlé, Desigual, Lexus and National Geographic to ensure their digital investment is delivering measurable business outcomes.
At the time of this announcement, Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO at Socialbakers, said, “We are excited to be named a leader by G2 Crowd in four digital marketing categories, Marketing Suites, Analytics, Management and Monitoring categories as this is a direct reflection of our customers’ satisfaction.”
Yuval added, “The business of digital marketing has never been more complex than it is today. With the Socialbakers Suite we simplify the lives of marketers by giving them a platform to help them understand their audiences across social media and other digital sources, create more effective content to engage and grow their customer base, as well as to measure and benchmark their impact on their business goals.”
Michael Fauscette, chief research officer, G2 Crowd, said, “Rankings on G2 Crowd reports are based on data provided to us by real users. We are excited to share the achievements of the products ranked on our site because they represent the voice of the user and offer terrific insights to potential buyers around the world.”
Socialbakers’ users reported its social analytics (95% user satisfaction) and brand safety (91%) as its two highest rated features. Currently, Socialbakers is recognized as a social media management partner to thousands of enterprise brands and SMBs.
Criteo’s Global Commerce Review for Q1 2018 Highlights Mobile-First Psyche of Customers
Results Reveal that On-the-Go Omnishoppers Lead to Highest Lifetime Sales Value, Along With Driving Higher Conversion Rates and In-App Sales on Mobile vs. Shopping Apps
Criteo, a commerce marketing company, has disclosed its Global Commerce Review conducted for Q1 2018. The report analyzes purchase and browsing data from more than 5000 retailers spread across 80 countries. The outcome indicates that present-day shoppers opt for purchases on-the-go, and they are active across every browsing environment.
Jonathan Opdyke, Chief Strategy Officer, Criteo, says, “Our latest study shows continuing shifts from desktop to mobile shopping, as well as from retailer websites to apps. Today’s shopper is on-the-go and researching across multiple screens, requiring a cohesive, data-driven approach to intersect and influence buying decisions. For retailers with physical stores, app adoption and improved data infrastructure are opening new horizons in omnichannel marketing, with online and offline blending into a seamless and measurable shopping journey.”
The Criteo Global Commerce Review for Q1 2018 provides the following key takeaways:
Retailers need to optimize and prioritize shopping apps else they will face revenue declines because mobile transactions have now gone beyond mobile websites
While customers use multiple devices, mobile is still the chosen transaction vehicle
Syncing online and offline data is critical to tap purchasing power and buying intent particularly because omnichannel consumers lead to highest lifetime value as far as sales are concerned
Apart from the above, additional highlights from the study include:
Increase in adoption of mobile apps
More than 70% of mobile ecommerce transactions take place through apps in North America
In-app transactions on a global scale have increased by 22% year-on-year
Maturity of Mobile Market
Sales transactions on smartphones have increased by 22.5% year-on-year
Beauty/health and sporting goods constitute 44% and 43% of mobile sales respectively
Time for Omnichannel
Just 7% of customers are omnichannel, yet they contribute to 27% of all sales
Omnichannel data is the pivot to optimize marketing ROI
The Criteo study is a clear indication of things to unfold in the retail and ecommerce space in 2018. It’s time to further bridge the online and offline data gap. Retailers who can do this successfully will steer ahead in the competition.
