Seismic announced a partnership with Vertical IQ to deliver industry-specific insights within its Sales Enablement Platform. Vertical IQ industry overviews will be delivered through Seismic’s dynamic content automation tool, LiveDocs, allowing bankers to quickly assemble client-facing content tailored to the client. Vertical IQ covers over 325 industries with coverage of industry risks, quarterly insights, key financial benchmarks, and industry growth data. Coverage of niche industries and regional economic data are also available from within Seismic but are not part of the LiveDocs integration.
Insights can be presented in-person, in print, or via digital devices and are packaged into Seismic templates.
The integration “helps bankers develop hyper-personalized communications with clients and prospects,” stated Vertical IQ CMO David Buffaloe. “Our industry content is available directly through their platform, allowing bankers to develop customized presentation slides based on the prospects specific industry.”
Vertical IQ content is available to customers outside of the banking space, but the initial implementation was developed with Fulton Bank. “We started with the joint focus on banking/financial services organizations; however, anyone that uses Seismic and sells to multiple industries would see value,” said Buffaloe.
Buffaloe called the integration a “big win for users” as bank leaders are looking to reduce the number of logins for conducting account research and support.
A Gartner survey found that bankers that deliver insights to their customers generate 94% higher fees.
Relationship Managers (RMs) at banks and credit unions support a broad set of customers and industries, making it difficult to develop deep expertise in individual industries. Deploying on-demand, industry-specific intelligence helps RMs quickly come up to speed on an industry, ask intelligent questions of owners and financial professionals, and assemble custom presentations for winning business. Industry-specific content also assists customers in their decision making and supports more valuable meetings between RMs and customers.
“Conversations between a banker and client should go both ways. Vertical IQ and Seismic’s solution ensures conversations are backed by real-time, tailored insights so bankers can engage in better discussions and act as a trusted advisor. This helps them bring unique value and expertise to the table to win, grow and retain more business.”
Vertical IQ CEO Bobby Martin
A recent JD Power survey of small businesses found that most were dissatisfied with their bankers’ ability to meet their needs and expectations. Only 37% of small business customers felt that banks appreciated their business, and only 32% felt that banks understood their business.
According to Bob Neuhaus, VP of Financial Services at JD Power, “Banks need to focus on better integrating high-touch resources with innovative digital tools to meet the demands of small business.”
“Business customers have come to expect hyper-personalized interactions that meet the standards that are now common-place in their personal lives,” said Bill Finnegan, Managing Director, Financial Services Marketing at Seismic. “We’re thrilled about our partnership with Vertical IQ because of the competitive advantage it will offer our banking customers. The ability to generate rich industry insights on-the-fly in a marketing-approved format will help bankers elevate client conversations from just product, to industry-specific trends, advice, and guidance. It allows bankers to be a consultative partner that demonstrates their bank truly understands their business.”
Vertical IQ has launched several integrations over the past year to deliver its industry research within sales and banking workflows. Recent partnerships include Salesforce, RelPro, and Seismic. Vertical IQ profiles are written in plain English for non-experts in financial services industries. Strategic sales reps also leverage Vertical IQ.
The Vertical IQ integration is being sold by Seismic as an add-on to their current sales enablement solution.