Email deliverability vendor Validity announced the global availability of Everest, a new platform for email optimization, analytics, and delivery. The platform combines the capabilities of 250ok, Return Path, and BriteVerify, businesses that they acquired over the past two years.
“Validity built Everest to give marketers everything they need to ensure email success,” promised the firm. “Everest is a complete email analytics platform powered by Validity’s exclusive data feeds, the largest data network in the industry, and widespread integration and support within the email ecosystem. It offers marketers a complete set of tools to prepare, test, optimize, and measure their email campaigns. With fully configurable dashboards, a highly intuitive user interface, and seamless integration with many of the leading email service providers, Everest makes it fast and easy to optimize campaigns.
Other features include performance tracking reports, customizable alerts, list hygiene, and campaign benchmarking versus competitors and global senders. Unique features include email certification for avoiding spam filters, View Time Optimization (VTO) for Verizon Media mailboxes, and enterprise-grade managed services.
Everest pre-send optimization features include form validation, bulk upload verification, and design and content tools. Emails are checked against over seventy device-mail clients. Email links and images are tested, and A/B testing is supported.
Competitive intelligence features include message samples, subject lines, sending volume, message patterns, and performance metrics. Everest also flags competitor list hygiene issues, authentication gaps, and blocklist history. “Beyond that, you’ll be able to compare brands side-by-side to identify low-hanging fruit and quick wins around sending volumes, accessibility, mobile compatibility, image animation, localization, and sending best practices.”
Verizon VTO delivers emails at the top of the inbox when the addressee is in her email client, quadrupling open rates and doubling click through rates for Yahoo, AOL, Verizon.net, and ATT.net mailboxes.
Everest “is, by a wide margin, the most comprehensive, insightful, value-add email platform ever offered in our industry,” said Validity CEO Mark Briggs. “Any business that relies on digital marketing should consider Everest as the key to delivering email success.”
Sales Enablement vendor Seismic supports over one hundred technology vendor integrations. Seismic claims to have the “sales enablement industry’s largest partner ecosystem,” with multiple CRM, MAP, and sales engagement partnerships.
“Seismic is purpose-built to work with any application to enhance customer experiences, increase platform engagement, and add value throughout a company’s sales and marketing technology stack,” stated the firm.
Seismic published the following list of significant integrations by category:
Customer Intelligence: Gong, Introhive
CRM: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM, Oracle, Pegasystems
Seismic has also partnered with over twenty global consulting partners that “are helping customers drive more value from their sales enablement investment, as well as offering local language and in-country support.”
Seismic offers an enterprise-grade content management system which recommends the next-best action for content. The platform employs analytics to recommend which content is most likely to resonate with a prospect based on buying stage, vertical, etc.
Seismic recently partnered with Industry intelligence vendor Vertical IQ.
LinkedIn is rolling out its third-quarter Sales Navigator release. The enhancements focus on “features that help you put your buyers first through intelligent action, simplified day-to-day activities, and consistent insight into keeping relationships warm.” The release theme is “listening to the buyer.”
LinkedIn is dipping its toes into intent data with Buyer Interest Alerts that signal when employees or corporate leaders from a saved account have visited the company’s LinkedIn Page or company website. Buyer Interest Alerts are available in conjunction with LinkedIn Marketing Solutions and delivered through the Sales Navigator Enterprise edition.
Marketers install a snippet of code to their website that drive the notifications. They can then track conversion rates, retarget visitors, and analyze visitor demographics. The code also powers Buyer Interest Alerts within Sales Navigator.
“With Buyer Interest Alerts, you have buying intent insights that help you to decide when to engage, allowing you to provide a timelier and more customized buyer experience,” blogged Lindsey Edwards, the Senior Director of Product Management at LinkedIn Sales Solutions. “As we strengthen our buyer intent models with the rich buyer insight that the LinkedIn network contains, we’ll continue to enhance our Interest Alerts to include more signals that will allow you to target the right buyer at the right time.”
Buyer Interest Alerts are anonymous. LinkedIn notifies the user if there is a visitor from the company but does not disclose details beyond account name, seniority level (i.e. Leadership or Employee), and geography. Users can then search for Linkedin Members that match these criteria. Anonymity ensures GDPR compliance.
While many vendors are now offering visitor intelligence, Sales Navigator is the only service that combines LinkedIn company profile views with visitor intelligence.
Account-Level Buyer Interest is not yet supported but is on the product roadmap.
LinkedIn, which has often suffered from spam alerts that overwhelm users, is employing predictive AI to surface the critical notifications for “building and maintaining the relationship with your buyer.” Users may filter alerts by Lead, Account, shared activity, and alert type with the “most urgent and timely” alerts displayed at the top of the list.
Sales Navigator is also improving its synchronization with Salesforce and MS Dynamics. Users can now bring their book of business into Sales Navigator through the automated syncing of Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities. The syncing improves the delivery of people and company alerts and insights within Navigator. CRM synchronization is available as a feature of the Team and Enterprise Editions.
To improve relationships, LinkedIn is now reporting on LinkedIn outreach activity across all Sales Navigator editions. Lead Lists (followed members) now track LinkedIn engagement with additional columns for actions by the Sales Navigator user and subsequent responses:
InMail and Messages sent, responses received, and attachments clicked
Connection requests sent from Sales Navigator and LinkedIn and accepted requests
Smart Links sent and opened
Lead and Account List sizes were increased from 250 to 1,000, expanding the scope of contacts and companies tracked. Users may also take bulk actions on up to 25 Lead or Account records at a time, making it easier to remove them from lists or move them from one list to another.
Sales Navigator is well-positioned to assist sales reps during the pandemic as its messaging tools are not location or time-specific. Sales professionals can reach out with InMails and Connection Requests, and prospective buyers can respond asynchronously. SDRs and AEs don’t need to obtain (or guess at emails) or place direct dials that go unanswered at empty offices. Furthermore, Smart Links, launched earlier this year, provides a tool for sharing documents and multi-media with view tracking.
“In what continues to be a unique and challenging moment in history, buyers and sellers, alike, are adjusting to a new normal. Just like you, they’re juggling the pressures of succeeding in their day-jobs, while also managing their personal lives — homeschooling, daycare, elder care, multiple people working from home, and/or reduced income. The hurdles might look different from buyer to buyer, but one thing is consistent — they need to feel confident that you understand their challenges and goals. In the end, you aren’t necessarily selling a product or service, you’re selling a trusted relationship, and the person at the center of that relationship is the buyer.”
Lindsey Edwards, Senior Director of Product Management at LinkedIn Sales Solutions
By the end of the year, the Deals functionality will be integrated directly into the Sales Navigator workflow. This enhancement will improve relationship status and pipeline visibility.
Revenue Operations vendor Clari announced Account Engagement, a set of AI insights focused on account relationships and activity “to help leaders strategically identify risk and opportunity and deploy resources against the accounts that matter most.”
Account Engagement takes real-time CRM, email, calendar, and partner engagement data to display a full view of touchpoints across each account. “Revenue leaders can understand how reps are engaging with accounts, what accounts are at risk, and what the whitespace potential is,” helping managers allocate resources, reduce churn, and expand new account penetration.
With Account Engagement, revenue leaders can analyze how their remote sales teams are performing via Account Heatmaps, Engagement KPIs, Territory Coverage, and Account Whitespace.
Engagement KPIs let managers assess meeting, email, and other engagement metrics across accounts. Account Managers and Customer Success Management touches are also tracked, helping ensure that all accounts are receiving proper attention. Managers can quickly filter the accounts to review only non-engaged accounts or drill down on any account to reveal next steps, notes, account priority, and opportunity size.
Being able to view accounts in aggregate and then drill into the details of individual accounts supports engagement-informed account review and strategy sessions.
Managers can also step back and view activity across a team with individual rep summaries over an extended time period. Managers can click on any rep’s name to view their engagement data graphed over the period. This view is particularly valuable for recently onboarded reps or reps that are on performance plans.
“The revenue process does not end with sales and marketing. Account managers and customer success teams also need to track customer and activity engagement data and insights. Without this knowledge, you can’t effectively manage your account relationships.
Visibility into account engagement ensures your team is focusing on key customer relationships to proactively mitigate churn risk. With this information, you can guarantee your account managers and customer success team are engaging with the right stakeholders and avoiding last-minute fire drills before renewals.”
Stephane Glass, Director of Product Marketing at Clari.
Territory Coverage analytics help track rep engagement across their accounts.
The Account Whitespace report identifies accounts that are lacking attention.
“Our mission is to give teams more control over their revenue from the point of initial engagement to closed business and expansion, especially at times when teams are switching to remote selling,” said Andy Byrne CEO of Clari. “With this launch we’re providing complete visibility into customer engagement to drive higher effectiveness of GTM strategies across all stages of the revenue process.”
Account Engagement gathers engagement data from Dialpad, Drift, Highspot, Marketo, Outreach, and RingCentral. “The ability to quickly track the success of GTM strategies is critical for any revenue organization and especially in the current market environment,” said Craig Rosenberg, chief analyst and co-founder of TOPO Research. “Visibility into engagement of target accounts and where teams are spending their time provides insights into how strategy changes are performing. Revenue teams need this insight not in 6 or 12 months but in real-time, so they can see what’s working and make the necessary adjustments to stay on track to achieve their goals.”
Industry Profiler Vertical IQ released a credit underwriting solution to assist lenders’ credit decisioning. Vertical IQ has long served financial institutions with a set of plain-English industry overviews for relationship managers. The new service expands its Industry Risks tab and renames it “Credit Underwriting and Risks.” A new industry brief is also available.
The new Credit Underwriting and Risks content includes a proprietary Industry Risk Rating based on account financial risk, exit rates, industry performance during downturns, barriers to entry, and the industry outlook. Other new content includes key industry and economic performance metrics, a Financial Comparison Toolkit that performs custom benchmarking against key financial metrics, and industry-specific credit decisioning considerations. The Financial Comparison metrics are downloadable for sharing with clients and prospects.
“In today’s volatile market, loan credit underwriters are understandably cautious about their lending decisions. The Credit Underwriting and Risks Chapter and Industry Brief are quick ways for bankers and credit professionals to get up to speed on the lending environment for a client’s or prospect’s particular industry.”
Vertical IQ CEO Bobby Martin
The new industry brief contains an industry summary, industry risk rating, key performance metrics, financial ratios, important credit underwriting-related considerations, common industry-related risks, and the Financial Comparison Toolkit.
The new Credit Underwriting content is delivered through the desktop application with an API upgrade before the end of the month. The original content will be extended to additional apps and partners in the coming months.
“Great decisions are made by taking something that is complicated and simplifying it to its primary moving parts. When a banker can do that, he or she offers a more clear understanding and a more fluid and productive conversation. Vertical IQ has simplified the process of analyzing industry risks for the commercial banking world. It is long overdue.”
David Nicholson, Founder of Credit Training, Inc.
Industry-specific financing topics that were already available in the service include discussions of working capital, capital financing, business valuation, and financial benchmarks.
The new content is available within the core service at no additional charge. However, by extending the value for credit underwriting at banking and commercial finance, Vertical IQ will be improving its seat penetration within those segments.
