Month: May 2023

Owler Adds Contact Data to Its Max Service

Crowd-based Company Research vendor Owler added contacts to its Owler Max Sales Intelligence service.  Owler was launched in 2011 by Jim Fowler after he sold contacts database Jigsaw (renamed Data.com but now decommissioned) to Salesforce.  Both databases employed a “wisdom of the crowd” approach to collecting data, but Owler offered only the CEO name and executive change news alerts. Broader contact details for its 15 million company profiles were not available until now.

Owler grew into a respected database for competitive tracking, funding data, and news alerts but avoided contact data.  As it increasingly positioned itself as a sales tool, it needed to address its lack of contacts.

Contact Data, which is only being added to its top-end Max edition, includes direct phone numbers, email addresses, and LinkedIn profiles for 150 million North American professionals.  Along with firmographics, users can filter contacts by Job Title, Seniority, Department, Hiring Date, and Location.

Contact data is available via Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Teams, and Google Chrome.

‘We are very excited to introduce Contact Data into our Owler Max tool.  This is a powerful way to get in touch with potential customers and partners,” stated CEO Tim Harsch.  “Our goal has always been to make it easier for companies to grow and succeed, and this new addition to our platform will help our users do just that.”

Contacts may be filtered by Name, Title, Seniority, Department, Hiring Date, and Current Location.

Gong Insights

Gong rep adoption of new messaging.

Revenue Intelligence vendor Gong released Gong Insights, Powered by Snowflake.  The new solution delivers conversational insights captured from the Gong Conversational Sales platform to business intelligence tools.  Insights capture activities, calls, and emails.

“Business leaders are under pressure to make the right strategic decisions that will help their companies thrive, especially in this challenging climate.  But they often rely on manual data like CRM or field or customer surveys, which are subjective and go stale quickly,” said Gong CRO Ryan Longfield.  “By teaming with Snowflake to bring this rich data and understanding from Gong directly into the broader set of insights, we are making it easier for leaders to improve their [go-to-market] strategy, productivity, and execution, all based on data that’s rooted in customer interactions.”

Gong rep productivity.

Historically, it has been challenging to determine which initiatives drive deals forward and increase the likelihood of winning a contract.  As a result, sales reps have had few incentives to enter detailed activity and results information into CRMs.  Furthermore, activity and engagement data have been stove-piped in different platforms or not captured digitally.  Thus, only 54% of GTM leaders report having clear, real-time visibility into deal progression (April 2022 Harvard Business Review study sponsored by Gong).

Gong has automated the delivery of its sales insights to Snowflake, making it “easier for senior business leaders to have a view into revenue intelligence insights along with other key business metrics as they evaluate strategic decisions.”  Joint customers can set up a no-code Gong Insights instance with data flowing automatically to their existing BI tool for dashboard and report development.  Pre-built reports are also provided.

“Having access to the right data is critical to ensuring strategic decisions can be made that lead to growth,” said Snowflake CRO Chris Degnan.  “By building on Snowflake, Gong is able to securely and seamlessly integrate its data into the rest of a company’s dataset, giving executives a clearer picture of the information they need to run their business.”

Use cases include churn risk factor analysis, most at-risk accounts, and identifying under and over-resourced accounts.

Gong Insights, Powered by Snowflake is generally available. 

Gong Insights is also available as a CRM Enrichment process that syncs Gong data with the Salesforce Data Cloud or HubSpot. Finally, Gong Insights is displayed as an Initiatives Board within the Revenue Intelligence platform.  The Dashboard “gives teams visibility into team adoption, as well as the ability to understand how initiatives resonate with their target market and correlate to business impact.”

Younger B2B Buyers

Nearly two-thirds of business buyers (64%) were born after 1980 and are taking a different approach to purchasing than their older colleagues.  While direct purchasing from vendors remains the primary route, self-directed research and purchasing channels (e.g., external marketplaces, app stores, vendor websites, and existing products / product-led growth) are becoming increasingly popular.

“As self-service transactions rise in popularity, providers must understand the behaviors of their target buyers to create seamless experiences that are easy to find, easy to use, and align to their preferences,” argued Forrester Analysts Amy Hayes and Barbara Winters.

The pair noted that information gathering is similar across all generations, with a near-even split between personal and self-guided buyers.  However, younger buyers place a greater emphasis on independent information resources such as technology information websites, forums/message boards, and industry websites.

TechTarget CIO is one of over 150 enterprise technology and HealthTech research sites.

This youth movement was echoed on TechTarget’s earnings call last week.  TechTarget publishes over 150 opted-in enterprise software and HealthTech websites and generates intent data from research activities (They also own the BrightTALK webinar and digital content platform).

This shift towards increased research resulted in a 50% increase in organic search-based visits to TechTarget’s technology research sites over the past year.

“High quality, independent content has always been the foundation of our business.  As the demographics of technology buyers skew younger, they want to self-service their purchase diligence and minimize contact with vendor sales reps until very late in the purchase process.  Most vendors’ go-to-market processes are sales-rep-centric, which we believe is causing a disconnect with what buyers want.  As a result, our expectation is that vendors will be forced to transform their go-to-market processes to be aligned with how and when buyers engage.  Smart vendors are doing this today by creating more buyer-oriented content to provide regular touchpoints with prospects outside of sales rep engagement.”

TechTarget CEO Michael Cotoia

“Over 50% of technology buyers wanted a rep-less experience, which means they really rely on content to make all decisions about 6, 7, [and] 8-figure acquisitions that they want.  They can’t be fooled by thin, broad-based, irrelevant content that’s not recent,” argued Cotoia.  “So being able to help our customers tie in those insights to help empower their content strategy will be an effective place for us…as a publisher and as a community with proprietary first-party data insights.”

“This is a wake-up call for providers to contemplate how their demand, customer engagement, and reputation programs for earned media coverage align to how and where buyers look for information.”

Younger purchasers are also more likely to be dissatisfied with the buying experience.  “Buyer-facing roles must understand the holistic experience from the buyer’s perspective,” advised Forrester.

Leadinfo Acquires Leadcamp

team.blue subsidiary Leadinfo acquired Intent-based Sales Engagement Platform Leadcamp.  Leadcamp expands the Leadinfo value proposition from web visitor tracking to broader lead engagement.  Leadcamp, based in Ghent, Belgium, captures email, web, meeting, and content engagement and employs AI to identify “high-intent active prospects.”

“We always want to offer our customers new products to make them more effective in their chosen markets,” said team.blue Group CEO Claudio Corbetta.  “This acquisition is a great example of investing in a fast-growing business to advance our expertise and product range in the lead generation space.”

The Leadcamp Heat Score measures multi-channel engagement providing both a composite score and engagement by channels.  Additionally, AI-powered notifications let reps be “proactive and timely” in their follow-ups, “avoiding missed opportunities” and increasing the odds of closing each deal.

Heat Scores also act as customizable triggers for reminders and alerts, streamlining the buying journey.  Triggers include form submissions, multiple website visits within a prescribed period, Heat Score thresholds, and calls made.  Leadcamp claims that trigger automation speeds up the buying process three-fold.

Email functionality includes sales email tracking, link monitoring, engagement analysis, and a content library.  Sales teams also have access to sequences (cadences), templates, and volume throttling.

“We are excited about the acquisition of Leadcamp and the addition of their expertise in targeted marketing campaigns and automation tools to our platform,” commented Leadinfo Founder Han Kleppe.  “This acquisition will enable us to better support our customers in finding new customers and to put their lead generation on autopilot.”

The Leadcamp acquisition is the second European firm folded into Leadinfo since it was acquired by team.blue last July.  In October, it acquired German visitor tracking firm Webprospector.de.

Leadinfo claims to be the market leader in Benelux and the most prominent international provider in the D-A-CH region.  It consolidated its position in the Netherlands over the past eighteen months with the acquisitions of Leadexpress (December 2021) and LeadElephant (January 2022). 

Leadinfo supports over 3,000 customers in Benelux, D-A-CH, Great Britain, and Scandinavia.  Customers include Lavazza, Quis Machinery, Channable, and Creditsafe.

Leadinfo was named a 2022 Fast 50 technology growth leader by Deloitte, placing 8th in the Dutch market.

Outreach – Corporate Visions Partnership

Corporate Visions Sales Transformation Strategies.

Sales Execution Platform Outreach and Revenue Consultancy Corporate Visions announced a partnership to “help companies transform enterprise organizations’ sales for the modern era.”  Corporate Visions, which recently acquired win/loss analytics vendor Primary Intelligence, offers science-backed revenue growth services for sales, marketing, and customer success. 

Along with hosting conferences and training, Corporate Visions helps firms “articulate value and promote growth” in three ways:

  1. Make Value Situational by distinguishing your commercial programs between customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
  2. Make Value Specific by creating and delivering customer conversations that communicate concrete value, change behavior, and motivate buying decisions.
  3. Make Value Systematic by equipping your commercial engine to deliver consistent and persistent touches across the entire Customer Deciding Journey.

“I have been a fan of Corporate Visions and their work since the beginning of Outreach.  Their commitment to research-backed solutions for sales challenges and solid track record of implementing solutions across GTM teams that lead to results is unmatched.  Their work has resulted in increased revenue and profitability for many of the world’s biggest companies,” said Outreach CEO Manny Medina.  “That’s why Outreach is partnering with Corporate Visions to empower Chief Revenue Officers to unlock sales productivity so they can efficiently create pipeline and predictably close more deals.”

The partnership aims to increase deal velocity, improve sales quota attainment, and generate higher win rates.  Corporate Visions will offer a quartet of Outreach-based services around tech implementation strategy, sales messaging optimization, skills coaching, and sales forecast process & measurement.

“By leveraging Corporate Visions’ best practices as organizations implement Outreach’s platform, enterprise sales leaders, from the CRO down, will ensure that every action their team is taking consistently builds enough pipeline coverage for the next quarter without sacrificing today’s deal velocity or pipeline conversion rates,” wrote the firms.

Resources

Outreach

Corporate Visions

Kluster Series A

Kluster funding slide deck (Source: Insider)

UK-based Revenue Intelligence vendor Kluster closed on a £4 million ($5 million) Series A round led by the Foresight Group.  Other investors include SuperSeed and Cognism CEO James Isilay.  The round raised total funding to $6 million.

Kluster helps sales teams monitor sales data and trends.  Kluster’s AI aids sales managers in building quarterly and annual roadmaps that include hiring plans, targeted call counts, prospects to reach, and opportunities to generate.  These KPIs provide a set of plans and objectives for the upcoming period.  Kluster then monitors performance against the plan, updating the forecast, and recommending actions to reach objectives.

Kluster also supports stress testing, executive dashboards, and scenario modeling.

The funds will be deployed towards establishing an American presence and building out its go-to-market and executive teams.

“It has never been more important to plan and execute revenue strategy than it is today,” said Kluster CEO Dan Thompson.  “With the recent VC bubble, the metrics that mattered went from growth, burn, and margins to growth, growth, and growth.”

Continued Thompson, “The bubble burst, and companies have now rediscovered the importance of rigorous planning, robust strategy, and comprehensive revenue reporting.  Which is why I am delighted to partner with Foresight and deepen our relationship with SuperSeed, to bring our solution to this problem to the global market.”

The AI boom helped Kluster “get through the door,” said Thompson.  “AI is pretty buzzy, but fundraising is always tough, and it was definitely more rigorous than it would be in the past.”

Kluster has grown to 30 employees since its 2016 founding.  Half of its revenue comes from the US and Canada.  It claims to have a net revenue retention rate above 100% and strong word of mouth, with referrals generating 40% of its income.

“They (Kluster) have a strong product-market fit, and I’m relieved to see a platform that enables companies to forecast revenue more accurately,” remarked Foresight MD Jack Eadie.  “Kluster’s team is shaping the future of sales, and I am eager to see what they develop next.”

Kluster funding slide deck (Source: Insider)

TechTarget Confirmed Projects Added to Priority Engine

IT Sales & Marketing Intelligence vendor TechTarget enhanced its intent capabilities with Confirmed Projects, a set of verified projects obtained via direct interviews with a buying team member.  Confirmed Projects are planned for the next twelve months and include purchase requirements, challenges, desired outcomes, location, timeframe, and the vendor short-list.

Confirmed Projects are available through TechTarget’s Priority Engine Sales Intelligence service.  Project contact data are triple verified (email, phone, and employment) along with the contacts’ role in the purchase process.

“Confirmed Projects include specific insights on the technical and business purchase considerations in-market accounts are looking to address — intelligence that will dramatically increase seller efficiency and productivity because they now know where and how to concentrate their efforts to get in on real deals,” stated the firm.

Priority Engine’s enhanced territory filtering helps sales reps home in on their best opportunities.

“Thousands of B2B sellers use Priority Engine every day to fuel their outbound efforts by discovering new active buyers in their territories plus prospect-level intent that helps them break through,” said CPO Andrew Briney.  “The integration of Confirmed Projects into Priority Engine gives them a unique ability to attack and revive stalled mid-funnel opportunities with precise, actionable details on verified purchase plans.”

The value proposition of Priority Engine with Confirmed Projects

Drift – OpenAI API Chat Integration

Drift’s chatbot now offers suggested replies, based on company marketing materials, to sales reps.

Conversational Cloud vendor Drift announced it had integrated OpenAI’s API into its chat service.  The GPT integration suggests chat replies to sales reps, helping them answer complex customer questions.  Responses are based on a company’s website content, marketing material, conversational context, and GPT.

Reps can choose to send the response verbatim, edit it before responding, or request a refined response.

“The ability to generate suggested replies by repurposing any available content also provides real-time on-the-job training for new sales reps (which currently takes three months on average), teaching them how to respond accurately and in the right brand voice,” explained the firm.

Drift listed a trio of capabilities it will be releasing later this year:

  • Automated content creation and ongoing optimization of playbooks
  • Automated onboarding and AI topic training
  • Personalizing sales outreach and prioritizing target accounts

“The buzz around ChatGPT, and the widespread experimentation that followed, has only underscored that conversation-based AI is paving the way of the future.  But it needs to be tailored to solve meaningful business challenges,” said Matt Tippets, SVP at Drift.  “With Drift’s ability to use Conversational AI to contextualize responses that augment the efforts of human teams, we’ve created a feature that helps sales reps of all experience levels be more productive, particularly relevant now with pressure on during a more difficult economic climate.”

Drift’s approach offers a human-in-the-loop option for sales chat that ensures responses are accurate and not subject to hallucinations.

“We have years of experience and real-life use cases that are already being applied to how we manage and bring GPT capabilities to our customers,” blogged Drift Senior Director of Product Marketing Aurelia Solomon.  “And we’re excited to continue embedding GPT into our products for marketers and sellers to automate more of their workflows to save time and help them create quality pipeline, faster.”