Month: September 2018

LinkedIn Hits 575 Million Members

LinkedIn Member Counts (August 2018)
LinkedIn Member Counts (August 2018)

LinkedIn continues to grow its global membership base at an impressive clip. The firm reached 500 million members sixteen months ago and has added nearly 15 million members per quarter since then, recently reaching 575 million.

North America continues as their most important market with over 150 million members in the United States, 15 million in Canada, and 12M in Mexico.

AsiaPac is also growing strongly with India recently hitting the 50 million member mark and China poised to soon pass the mark (42 million members). China was slower to develop but has grown rapidly since a localized version was launched a few years ago.

In Europe, there are at least 14 countries with one million members or greater. The United Kingdom is the third largest anglophone market with 25 million members. France (16M), Italy (12M), Spain (10M), and Benelux (10M) all represent strong markets.

LinkedIn is relatively underrepresented in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) as it continues to compete against German language professional network XING.

Other Anglophone markets include Australia (9M), South Africa (6M) The Philippines (6M), Nigeria (3M), Singapore (2M), Hong Kong (1M), New Zealand (1M), and Kenya (1M).

LinkedIn has also enjoyed success in Latin America with Brazil long being a significant market (34M). The firm also has a significant presence in Colombia (6M), Argentina (6M), and Chile (4M).

LinkedIn was barred from Russia several years ago.

Monthly active user figures are estimated at around 25% of members.

Membership, segment, and usage statistics for LinkedIn are less available since the firm was acquired by Microsoft in December 2016. Revenue, however, continues to accelerate, growing 37% to $1.464 billion in Q4 2018. Q4 marked the fifth-straight quarter of revenue acceleration.

“This strong engagement is driven by quality of the feed, video, messaging and acceleration of mobile usage, with mobile sessions up more than 55% year-over-year,” said Satya Nadella last month. “We will continue to invest to make LinkedIn the essential platform to connect the world’s professionals and help them achieve more with experiences powered by LinkedIn and Microsoft graphs.”

“We have united the world’s leading professional cloud with the world’s leading professional network and proved that we have an integration model that works, enabling LinkedIn to accelerate growth while retaining its member-first ethos,” continued Nadella.

 

Congressional Research Service Reports

Congressional Research Service reports are finally available via a centralized, government database.
Congressional Research Service reports are finally available via a centralized, government database.

It only took twenty-five years, but Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports are finally available through the Library of Congress.  Members of Congress have long released the reports to third-party databases, but now the reports are available directly from the Library of Congress.  As the research is paid for by taxpayers and conducted at the behest of Congress, limited access to this research has long been an affront to legislative transparency.

According to their FAQ, the CRS is “a federal legislative branch agency located within the Library of Congress, [which] serves as shared staff exclusively to congressional committees and Members of Congress. CRS experts assist at every stage of the legislative process — from the early considerations that precede bill drafting, through committee hearings and floor debate, to the oversight of enacted laws and various agency activities.”

CRS research is non-partisan and takes a multi-perspective approach to current issues and legislation.  Reports are both on demand and anticipatory.  “CRS approaches complex topics from a variety of perspectives and examines all sides of an issue. Staff members analyze current policies and present the impact of proposed policy alternatives.”

CRS services include reports on major policy issues; tailored confidential memoranda; briefings and consultations; seminars and workshops; and expert congressional testimony.

“With public policy issues growing more complex, the need for insightful and comprehensive analysis has become vital. Congress relies on CRS to marshal interdisciplinary resources, encourage critical thinking and create innovative frameworks to help legislators form sound policies, reach decisions on a host of difficult issues and address their constituents’ concerns and needs. These decisions will guide and shape the nation today and for generations to come.”

  • Congressional Research Service FAQ

The CRS database was included in The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018.  “We worked closely with Congress to make sure that we had a mutual understanding of the law’s requirements and Congress’ expectations in our approach to this project,” said Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress.

As governmental work product, CRS research is not subject to copyright.  Thus, CRS research may be broadly disseminated without permission.  However, some research may contain copyrighted third-party images or material.

The new website provides the same search functionality as Congress and is keyword searchable.  Full-text searching is available along with filtering by topic, date, author, and additional keywords.

What is Fit Data?

A Subset of the D&B Hoovers location selects with regional filters for the US and UK.
A subset of the D&B Hoovers location selects with regional filters for the US and UK.

Last month, I discussed intent data, one of a trio of datasets that assist with lead scoring.  This month I’m touching upon Fit data and next month I’ll be discussing Opportunity data.

Fitness data consists of firmographics, technographics, and verticalized datasets that help define whether a company is a good prospect.  Biographic values such as Job Function, Level, Skills, and Responsibilities should also be employed when evaluating contacts or leads.

Firmographics are the basic variables that have long been used to define a good prospect.  Firmographics include location, size (e.g. revenue, employees, assets, PE/VC funding, and market cap), industry, and year founded.  Other commonly used dimensions include Ownership Flags (Minority Owned, Woman Owned, Veterans Owned, SOHO, Franchise), Ownership Type (Public, Private, Nonprofit, Government), and Parent/Sub/Branch.

Ownership flags are used for both inclusion and exclusion with SOHO and Franchise flags generally used to exclude small businesses and those with limited purchasing authority.  Subsidiaries and Branches are often excluded as they also have more limited purchasing authority, but are included when looking for locations to sell into after an MSA is signed or when evaluating entry into overseas markets.  In these cases, knowing all of the locations of current accounts and top prospects is quite valuable.  Likewise, logistics companies look for companies with many locations.

Several vendors support radius searching around a ZIP code.  This select is valuable for both event planning (e.g. 50 miles from a tradeshow) or for sales reps when traveling and looking to include additional accounts and prospects on a trip.

A recent study by Dun & Bradstreet found that three of the top five dimensions used when targeting B2B accounts are firmographic (Location, Industry, and Company Size).

Firmographic variables such as geography, industry, and company size are commonly used for specifying target accounts (Source:
Firmographic variables such as geography, industry, and company size are commonly used for specifying target accounts (Source: “The 6th Annual B2B Marketing Data Report,” Dun & Bradstreet, Sept 2018).

Furthermore, Account specific lists for ABM generally employ firmographic criteria when building or extending ABM lists.  (Online activity is an intent variable which was discussed in my last What Is.)

Technographics are an example of a verticalized dataset.  Generally they consist of vendors, products, and product categories.  Originally, such data was only available from technology sales intelligence vendors such as DiscoverOrg and HHMI (now Aberdeen Services), but HG Data built and licensed a technographics dataset which is now widely available in data marketplaces, predictive analytics, and sales intelligence platforms.  Aberdeen followed suite in licensing their dataset as well.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers a set of unique selects for targeting departments, department headcount growth, and employment growth.  Unfortunately, this data is not downloadable or available for lead scoring.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers a set of unique variables for building lists. Unfortunately, the variables are not exportable.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers a set of unique variables for building lists.

Biographic variables are also important when determining fit.  Job function and level help determine whether a lead is likely to be a decision maker, influencer, or noise.  Most vendors map job titles to taxonomies of between 8 and 60 job functions and 4 to 8 levels.  Other biographic variables include education, years at company, former companies, and interests.

Data availability and currency may also play into Fit both directly and indirectly.  If a select is weakly populated (e.g. Education, Skills), then many potential targets will be omitted from lists or given low scores.  In some cases, lowering the lead score due to a missing field makes sense.  Lead scores should incorporate the availability of emails, direct dials, and LinkedIn handles because this information increases the likelihood of successfully communicating with a prospect.

TIP: When evaluating vendors, ask about the fill rates on key fields you anticipate using in your lead scoring or prospecting.

In a similar vein, last update dates should also be used as a filter.  Data from SHRM indicates a 2016 average contact decay rate of 27% when accounting for job departures, lateral moves, and title changes.  And this is only at the contact level.  The rate is even higher when including company name changes, relocations, and bankruptcies / facility closures.  Thus, the last update field is a relevant fitness variable for prospecting but not inbound lead scoring.

In short, lead fitness can be defined by a broad set of who, what, and where variables related to companies and contacts.

Mmojo Data Marketplace Launched (Part III)

Mmojo Data Manager Portfolio View
Mmojo Data Manager Portfolio View

This is part III of my Mmojo coverage.  Part 1 covered data enrichment and part II covered prospecting.  My final blog covers Mmojo’s data partners and pricing model.

Both prospecting and uploaded lists may be appended via the Mmojo data marketplace.  While basic company firmographics are included with the subscription, additional data sets may be appended, some for a fee:

  • Contacts: Contact Function, Level, Title, Email, Direct Dial, Social Links.  Licensed from multiple partners.  Only Stirista has been disclosed so far.
  • Technographics: Aberdeen high-level budget figures, hardware counts (e.g. servers, laptops, printers), IT headcounts, installed technology
  • Extended Firmographics: Geolocation, Alternate Names, Parent Company, Phone
  • Extended Address Data: Secondary Addresses, Carrier Routes, Census Data, Congressional Seat
  • M&A Activity: X8 M&A Activity Index Score
  • Company Classification and Growth Indicators
  • Legal Entity Identifier (free)
  • Public Company Financials: US SEC (free)
  • Taxpayer Data: IRS by City or State (free)
  • National [Medical] Provider ID: CMS (free)
  • Social Security Data by ZIP: US SSA (free)

Premium data set descriptions are provided which include the list coverage rate, update frequency, refresh period (how long licensed without paying for the record again), price per record, fields, and column definitions.

Unlike other firms which treat their company identifiers as proprietary, Mmojo will be open sourcing their ExC company identifiers.  Currently, Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Numbers serve as the de facto global company identifier, but Mmojo will be challenging that status next year when they roll out international company profiles with open sourced ids.

The ExC numbers also support list appends and merging.

“Once appended, users can view their contacts and associated contact analytics.  The analytics enable Mmojo users to detect gaps by showing total number of contacts, percentage of companies with contacts, and the distribution of contacts by function and title, providing key data intelligence to B2B and SMB sales and marketing organizations.”

  • CEO Hank Weghorst

Members of the Austin-based Mmojo team include several former members of the Avention product team including CEO Hank Weghorst, Chief Data Officer Brad Palmer, and CTO Ray Renteria.  While there are some broad stroke similarities between the platforms, Avention never offered a data mart service.

Mmojo does not yet provide marketing automation or CRM connectors, so marketers must upload and download CSV files between Mmojo and these other platforms.

Mmojo is priced at $95 per month with additional charges for premium datasets.  The base service includes support for up to 250,000 unique companies under management, basic company and contact enrichment, and list prospecting.  Credit card and ACH billing are supported.  Premium data may be purchased in blocks of credits as follows:

Premium datasets are priced differently with contacts being 10 credits per record and technographics 16 credits per record.
Premium datasets are priced differently with contacts being 10 credits per record and technographics 16 credits per record.

Pricing varies by record type.  For example, Mmojo contacts are priced at 10 credits per record, but Aberdeen technographics are priced at 16 credits per record.  Thus, Aberdeen appends are priced between $0.112 and $0.16 per record.

Contracts may be canceled at any point.

Mmojo tracks which records have been previously downloaded and does not charge again for a record if it is being downloaded within a refresh window (six months for most vendors).  Users are only charged for premium data downloads.

An Enterprise service option is available for firms requiring multiple seats, more than 250,000 managed records, or custom configurations.

Mmojo is offering free ten-day trials.  Trialers have view-only access to the tool and do not need to provide payment details during the trial.  When lists are shared with non-users, they are also eligible for ten day trials.

The service includes a set of context sensitive help tools and videos.  A customer forum is also available for asking questions.

This is one of the most mature product launches I have seen.  The service includes a broad set of functionality, clean user interface, deep content partnerships, complete help and training tools, and a full press page.  When discussing the product pre-launch with Weghorst, there was a clear product positioning and defined target market segment.  The service also offers unique product pricing (hybrid subscription with premium data sets) and business models.

Mmojo Data Marketplace Launched (Part II)

 

 

Mmojo offers segmentation analysis and look-a-like prospecting.
Mmojo offers segmentation analysis and look-a-like prospecting.

(Part II of my coverage of the Mmojo launch.  Yesterday I covered Mmojo’s enrichment capabilities and tomorrow I will cover pricing and data vendors)

Mmojo’s prospecting module supports both traditional prospecting and ABM list cloning.  The Build a List User Interface is straightforward with filtering by

  • Location: State, City, ZIP
  • Company Name
  • Company Attribute: Public/Private/Government, HQ/Sub/Branch
  • Size: Revenue, Employees
  • Technology
  • Industry: Industry Keyword, SIC
  • Contacts: Function, Level, Keyword
  • Indicators: Home Office, Woman Led, Minority Led, Franchise

Type-ahead suggestions help with quickly entering cities. technologies, industry, and job functions/levels.

Missing geographic selects included counties, MSAs, ZIP Ranges, Email and Direct Dial Availability.  The inability to easily refine by location may be a hindrance to SMB sales.

The Industry selects are by keyword and SIC code, but the keyword search which supports typeahead suggest is sluggish. NAICS codes are coming next month.

Mmojo offers a matrix for quickly selecting job functions and levels.
Mmojo offers a matrix for quickly selecting job functions and levels.

A nice feature is the ability to quickly select contacts by function (Sales, Marketing, Engineering, IT/IS, HR, Finance, Operations, Planning) and Level by clicking or dragging the clicked mouse across a grid (see image on right).  Users can also enter keywords, but the list was mostly high-level titles and general functions.  Missing were key roles such as purchasing, sales operations, accounts receivable, accounts payable, security (except CISO), and compliance (except CCO).

Another welcome feature is the ability to save multi-variable filters allowing marketers to store territories or industry segments for quick recall.

Previously uploaded or built lists may be used for list suppression (e.g. exclude current customers and prospects) or as a constraint list (e.g. subsetting of a current list for targeting).  The system also maintains a Master List for this purpose.

When prospecting, marketers can grab a random subset of the list for a campaign or for forwarding directly to sales reps.

Lists can also be used to find mMore-like-these cloned companies.  The peer feature allows users to define the relevant variables and weights to be assigned to them.  Thus, a regional tradeshow list can be used as a seed file for additional prospects, but with the location variables relaxed; additional variables (e.g. deployed technology, growth indicators, corporate attributes) can then be assigned corresponding weights.  This feature is easily managed via a drag-and-drop tool and visual indicators.  As a segmentation analysis is also displayed, marketers can analyze the seed file as they adjust the selection criteria and weights.

I had one significant concern: the workflow from building a list to viewing it is not clear and is likely to frustrate trialers and new users.  Nevertheless, the user interface is otherwise straightforward and the dynamic segmentation (see left side of top image) is beautifully rendered and informative.

Part III discusses Mmojo content and pricing.

Mmojo Data Marketplace Launched

Mmojo Match List results display match scores with a drill down option on match criteria.
Mmojo Match List results display match scores with a drill down option on match criteria.

A new data marketplace, called Mmojo, was launched late last month.  The service provides cloud based prospecting, hygiene, segmentation analysis, look-a-likes, and data enrichment for B2B marketers.  CEO Hank Weghorst sees the SMB market as Mmojo’s sweet spot.  Mmojo describes itself as “the B2B data marketing data everything application.”

“Excellence in B2B Marketing depends on data, particularly in today’s world where data is everywhere,” explains the firm on its website.  “The problem is you have to do all the work: find the data, license the data, cross-reference the data, analyze the data, and maintain the data. Your Marketing Automation and CRM systems are not designed to do this. In fact, they REQUIRE data to feed them and make them effective. What if you had an easy-to-use system that did all that work for you? Mmojo does all of this for your existing data and for new data to drive your marketing programs.”

The Mmojo database spans 20 million US companies and 80 million contacts with plans to add international data in 2019.  Contacts include titles, job functions, emails, direct dial phones, and social handles.  Company intelligence includes firmographics, Aberdeen technographics (premium dataset), M&A heat scores, and public company financials and ratios.

“It’s been proven that the use of high-quality data will drive better marketing results. We built Mmojo with the sole purpose of providing simple and affordable access to this valuable data commodity,” commented Weghorst. “This approach, executed using our partner relationships and most importantly our state of the art technology, has enabled us to change the game.”

Data matching is performed against company, domain, phone, IP address, email, and additional variables as selected by the Mmojo AI match logic.  Matching is done automatically so users do not need to create a field mapping table between Mmojo and their source file; however, users can remap fields if Mmojo selected the wrong field or there are multiple similar columns (e.g. shipping and billing addresses). The match results list includes the match score and Mmojo ExC company identifier.  Users can click on a match score to see additional details about the match.  They can also quickly modify the match threshold and see how many records meet the adjusted threshold level.

Once a list is matched, the user can click on the List Analytics tab and view segmentation (state, revenue, employees, top industries) along with match analytics.  The “Sky Profile,” a trademarked feature, represents the “absolute centroid” of the list by revenue, employees, and industry.  The Sky Profile should be viewed as a typical record.

A List Details tab shows the field fill rates of the original file and the matched Mmojo field.

My review continues with Part II on prospecting.

2017 North American Market Size

 

 

North American Sales Intelligence Market Sizing Model (Excel)

The 2017 Market Size of North American Sales Intelligence Vendors. Includes vendor product features, market share, and notes. GZ Consulting Copyright 2018.

$750.00

For the past few years, I have been sizing the North American Sales Intelligence Market.  This is the largest of the markets as Europe and AsiaPac are more fragmented (the UK is the only other mature market).

In 2017, I estimated the market at $950 million with LinkedIn Sales Navigator as the top vendor.  While new firms continue to enter, the top four vendors earn two of every three dollars in the industry.  The top four  concentration increased 7% last year, mostly due to the acquisitions of Avention and RainKing.

LI SN Market Share
The LinkedIn Market Share Section of the 2017 North American Sales Intelligence Market Sizing

The industry grew 17% over the past year with the majority of this growth being captured by LinkedIn Sales Navigator, DiscoverOrg, and Zoominfo.  TechTarget, which was off my radar in 2016, has also seen rapid growth in 2017 and 2018.

DiscoverOrg acquired RainKing at the end of August 2017 so two-thirds of its revenue was recognized as RainKing and one-third as part of DiscoverOrg.  Combined, the two firms earned around $118 million least year with DiscoverOrg ending the year with a $130 million plus ARR.  DiscoverOrg raked in two of every three dollars within the technology sales intelligence sub-segment.

LinkedIn holds a nearly 30% market share.  It has grown rapidly while remaining under the radar of its peers as it is often used as a complementary service to other sales and marketing intelligence services.

Data.com’s 2017 revenue was stable but Dun & Bradstreet forecasted a 30% drop in 2018 (D&B is a revenue share partner on the service).  I anticipate that much of this revenue will shift to other vendors in 2018 and 2019.  Dun & Bradstreet is in a strong position to take much of this share, but other vendors are pushing hard to acquire Data.com clients.

Zoominfo was ahead of the other sales intelligence vendors in recognizing the value of adding marketing functionality alongside their sales tools.  This has put them in a strong position for data services.  They also built the deepest set of global contacts with emails and direct dials and were early to build out connectors (CRM, MAP, Sales Engagement, and Chrome).

I am making my market model available for license (See PayPal button at top) as an Excel spreadsheet.  It includes revenue numbers by company along with market share, key features, and notes.

Infogroup Establishes Copyright for “Database Compiled from Facts”; Database101 & Vin Gupta Liable for $53.6M

Infogroup LogoIt has been 4½ years since Infogroup sued its former CEO Vinod Gupta and Database101 for infringing Infogroup’s database copyright and trademarks, unfair competition, false advertising and breach of various contracts.  After leaving Infogroup, Gupta founded a set of competing companies with similar features and content as Infogroup.  These include Infofree, DatabaseUSA, and AtoZDatabases.  Database101 was held liable by a jury for $43.6 million and Gupta for $10 million.

According to Infogroup, the court held that “(i) Infogroup’s extensive processes of compiling its databases (data selection, refinement, verification, updating and user-friendly arrangement) were so sophisticated and value-enhancing, that the databases qualified for copyright protection and (ii) Gupta and DB101 had unlawfully passed Infogroup’s proprietary database off as their own.”

“The jury agreed that Infogroup’s industry leading techniques of database management qualified Infogroup’s database for protection under federal copyright law,” said Greg Scaglione of Koley Jessen, who litigated the case. “These verdicts are a testament to the extraordinary quality of Infogroup’s databases, and the company’s tenacity in protecting its databases, copyrights, trademarks and the market place from competitors’ misconduct.”

In 2008, Gupta was fired from Infogroup for leading a lavish lifestyle paid for by the then-public company.  Soon after, Gupta founded Database101 and hired thirty employees away from Infogroup.  Infogroup charged that Database101 stole the Infogroup database along with trade secrets.  They also held that Database101 infringed on Infogroup copyrights and marks, mimicked Infogroup products, and implied that the two companies were affiliated in their marketing.

Scaglione told Law360 that “Infogroup has successfully protected our database copyright and have established legal precedent that a database compiled from facts is protectable under federal copyright if the compiler uses selection, arrangement or coordination of the facts during the compilation process.”

Disclosure: I was the Manager of Strategy and Competition at Infogroup from 2010 through 2012.  Prior to that, I was a Product Marketing Manager at OneSource Information Services, an Infogroup subsidiary.

Drift Acquires Siftrock; Launches Product & Partnerships at HYPERGROWTH

Drift Botflow
Drift Botflow

At their HYPERGROWTH user conference this week, Drift announced the acquisition of email reply management firm Siftrock which tracks email replies, routes them to sales reps, and syncs data with marketing automation platforms.  Siftrock will be integrated into Drift’s Assistant for Marketing.

“Last year, we started talking about reinventing email and focusing on conversations and replies instead of opens and clicks,” said CEO David Cancel. “Siftrock has built a best-in-class product that manages email replies at scale, and this acquisition will help us deliver on that vision even faster. But most importantly, this is a move that adds real value to both of our customer bases immediately.”

Drift Assistant for Marketing includes email auto-reply detection for updating MAPs and Salesforce when execs change jobs or their emails bounce.  The service also drives email calls to action to conversational landing pages instead of a traditional landing page.

A new Conversational Advertising capability which builds conversations around advertising views was also unveiled.  Instead of sending prospects from ads to webforms, users are brought into conversations.

“With traditional advertising it’s always been about later,” said Cancel. “You drive people to a landing page, get them to fill out a form, and then someone at the company contacts you later.  But with Conversational Advertising, it’s all about right now. We can close the gap and help buyers connect with a business instantly by taking them right from an ad to a conversation to get the answers they need instantly.”

At HYPERGROWTH, Drift rolled out partnerships with Outreach, Marketo, and Demandbase.  Last month, they announced Drift Intel, a lead enrichment service powered by Clearbit.

“The key to high-performing ABM strategies is connecting marketing programs directly to sales activity,” said Demandbase CEO Chris Golec. “We are incredibly excited to be the exclusive launch partner for Drift’s new Conversational Advertising product because now B2B marketers can target specific companies with our account-based advertising, and move to a conversation with sales in a single click. The time from engagement to conversation to pipeline has never been faster.”

“Great conversations are the most powerful way to drive conversion,” said Outreach CEO Manny Medina. “To accomplish this, you must have a consistent customer journey, from calls and emails to your buyer’s experience on your website. Now sales and marketing teams can share context from every touchpoint in the customer journey to drive stronger results wherever they communicate with their buyers.”

A Drift Assistant for Sales email feature helps reps prepare for meetings with briefings on the firm’s tech stack, a summary of previous conversations, and an analysis of recent website activity.  Other features include no show and cancellation rescheduling and next step recommendations (e.g. meeting follow up notes),

“B2B businesses have gone digital, but we haven’t been able to move on from all of the paperwork,” commented Cancel. “Only a third of a sales reps time is actually spent selling, with over 60 percent of their time wasted on administrative tasks and meetings.

Drift Intel Powered by Clearbit

Drift MeetingConversational marketing vendor Drift released Drift Intel, a real-time enrichment service which maps anonymous leads to accounts using IP addresses.  The firm calls their Clearbit-powered account intelligence “x-ray vision for qualified leads.”  Clearbit firmographics drive the messaging flow, sales conversations, and lead routing; thus, prospect interactions are personalized to the account and directed to the proper sales rep or team.

Account matching is global, with a 40% to 60% IP-to-account match rate.  If the bot acquires an email address, then contact intelligence is also provided from Clearbit.

“In the old days, forms were the only way to get the info you need to qualify visitors,” states the firm. “With Drift Intel, you’ll get a full company profile in Drift the moment they land on your site.  That means you’ll know the visitor on your pricing page isn’t just a random person—it’s someone at a software company in NYC with 500 employees and $25-50m in annual revenue.”

Furthermore, because the intelligence is provided in real-time, leads can be properly routed to sales reps by account, region, size, etc.  If the account owner is not available, the AI chatbot automatically sets up an appointment for the rep.  The chatbot also personalizes the message based upon the account intelligence.

“The last decade in B2B sales and marketing was all about the business following up later.  But today, B2B sales and marketing have to be about now. The internet has changed everything and put customers in control of the buying process, not the business. As a result, people won’t put up with waiting days and weeks to get a response — they want answers now.”

  • Drift CEO David Cancel

Drift Customer Marketing Team Lead Chris Handy blogged about the cost and foolishness of investing in inbound marketing and then making prospects wait for marketing tools or sales reps.  “We asked them for information before we’d let them send us a simple question about our product. We lost what might have been our best accounts—sometimes by making them wait days or weeks for someone to follow up—even when they were ready to buy right then.  This wasn’t the way we liked to buy. We had to change the way we sold to match the way we bought.”

Drift’s goal is to “remove friction,” shorten the sales cycle, and connect businesses with their customers at peak interest.

In a quick test of the bot on the Drift website, it accurately identified my company name and location, but lacked industry and sizing data.  As I am a one-person company, the lack of richer firmographics is common.  I was quickly chatting with a sales rep and she offered three days for a product demo within the chatbot (see image on top).

Drift Intel is available as part of their Company ($1,500 / month) and Enterprise (starting at $5,000 / month) plans.  Unlimited company matches are supported.

Drift made the LinkedIn Startup 25 last week.

Tomorrow I will be discussing announcements made at last week’s HYPERGROWTH user conference.