Tag: Lead Prioritization

Next Quarter Adds Bombora Intent

Next Quarter, an AI-based Account Planning solution, partnered with Bombora to deliver third-party intent data to its Fortune 500 Clients.  Next Quarter licensed Bombora’s Company Surge data to power its White Space offering.  Next Quarter recommends the next best product to sell, “along with a guided path to uncover new growth opportunities.”

Bombora’s intent file helps identify in-market customers, including upsell and cross-sell opportunities, inside of Salesforce.  Churn risk is also assessed.

Engagement (activity) data is gathered from Salesforce, so Next Quarter offers recommendations based on Bombora intent and account conversations.

Features include Account Chatter, Whitespace Analysis, Relationship Maps, Competitor Assessment, Target Setting, Scenario Planning & Gap Mitigation.

Next Quarter emphasizes white space opportunities at current accounts for B2B and B2G sales.  Target industries include technology, pharma, management consulting, manufacturing, and Aerospace & Defense.

“Sales reps can uncover potential white space opportunities and develop tailored solutions to meet their needs by building strong relationships with current customers and understanding their business goals,” blogged the firm.  “Next Quarter gathers data from your historical sales trends for similar customers.  Using AI algorithms, we provide a score (NQ Score) by combining historical sales data with intent data that identifies the top recommended products or services to sell.”

Users can perform scenario analyses that identify and present next best product recommendations based on similar customer groupings.

“Next Quarter is committed to helping customers increase revenue,” said Next Quarter CEO Rahul Shah.  “By combining our account planning solution with Bombora’s Intent data, we can offer a unique competitive edge to help drive account growth through AI-based recommendations leveraging intent.  Next Quarter’s Account Growth module is an AI-based account planning solution that identifies new opportunities, finds decision-makers and influencers, and suggests guided next steps for sales teams to grow existing accounts.”

Next Quarter, formerly ForecastEra, received $7.3 million in seed and equity funding in 2021.  It supports over 5,000 users and expects to quintuple its base over the next year.

Named accounts include Boeing, BASF, Bloomberg BNA, Dell, and NTT Data.

Pricing starts at $100 per user per month.  Volume discounts kick in at 100 users.

Engagement Data Is Becoming Integral to SalesTech

Chorus Momentum identifies deal risks.

One of the most important SalesTech trends, besides the emergence of ChatGPT, is the rapid incorporation of engagement datasets alongside intent datasets for prioritization and messaging.

A few years ago, we saw the emergence of intent data sets such as first-party web visitor tracking, second-party product review site research, and third-party B2B media research.  Initially, this content was integrated into MAPs, ABX platforms, and CDPs, but it was not well integrated into SalesTech.  We are now seeing intent data being integrated into SalesTech platforms in a simplified fashion (e.g., High Intent Topics in CRM profiles and Slack alerts) that is digestible for sales reps. 

However, intent data only indicates whether a company is in-market, not whether the buying committee is considering your offering or seriously engaged with your sales team.  This intelligence comes from a new category of engagement data captured from digital interactions between the revenue team (sales, marketing, and customer success) and the buying committee.  Engagement intelligence consists of both traditional digital interactions (e.g., clickthroughs, downloads) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) analytics derived from sales and buying team activities.

NLP helps RevTech platforms determine who is interacting with your firm.  It also analyzes buyer sentiment, buyer concerns, deal health, and risk flags.  The primary sources of engagement data are emails, recorded phone calls, and recorded meetings.  However, any digital interaction between buyers and sellers can be captured such as activity in digital sales rooms, webinar attendance, chat messaging, and scheduled meetings.  I anticipate that customer support platforms will also be tapped for engagement data to help gauge churn risk and friction during product trials.

Engagement data indicates whether a deal is on track and what issues could result in lost deals or pushed out pipeline.  For example, engagement data assesses whether:

  • Discussions are single or multi-threaded
  • Key decisionmakers are involved (e.g., has a security review been performed or has legal been included?)
  • Competitors have been mentioned
  • Pricing concerns were raised
  • Follow on meetings have been scheduled
  • Meetings had a positive flow or were dominated by the sales rep

In short, engagement data provides sales reps and managers deal health and risk analytics that improve forecasting and ensure that deal risks are quickly mitigated.  And as interactions are digital, managers can discuss these issues during one-on-ones or offer quick tips on next steps.  They can even review the discussion associated with the risk and identify skills and knowledge gaps for coaching.

Nektar’s Insights Hub details buyer-seller interactions, leading indicators, buying committee engagement, MEDDIC adherence, etc.

The interesting thing about intent and engagement data is they are highly complementary with each other.  Operations teams should be looking at integrating intent data alongside engagement data.  Intent data is valuable for identifying who and when to reach out to ideal customers.  However, once a relationship is established, the focus shifts to engagement data for monitoring deal health.  After a deal is signed, both engagement and intent data are in play.  Intent data identifies cross-sell opportunities and churn risk through second and third-party intent topic monitoring while Engagement and Product Usage data evaluate adoption rates and potential implementation issues.

Engagement data and deal health analytics can be found in Revenue Intelligence services (e.g., Clari, Revenue Grid), Sales Engagement (e.g., Salesloft, Outreach, Groove), Conversational Sales (e.g., Gong, Chorus), Revenue Operations (Nektar), and Sales Enablement (e.g., Seismic, Bigtincan) platforms.

Revenue Grid Deal Guidance

RevSure Pipeline Readiness

Demand Generation Effectiveness displays the most effective channels by various metrics

RevSure, which describes itself as a Pipeline Readiness solution, announced enhancements that “provide marketing teams with increased insights into data and around lead-to-revenue projections.”  The new capabilities help marketers increase their spend efficiency and focus expenditures on campaigns and actions with the highest ROI.

RevSure helps go-to-market teams “share a single source of truth” concerning the health of their pipeline.  It also automates reporting tasks and offers recommendations for converting leads into qualified sales opportunities.

“With a united full-funnel view, you can effortlessly pull all of this data into one place, so you can easily analyze the impact of each campaign and lead source at a glance.  Did your latest low-cost webinar lead to a high amount of pipeline and bookings?  You may want to consider scaling your efforts or investing in more webinars.  On the other hand, did that conference you attended 8 months ago and spent tens of thousands of dollars on not lead to the pipeline and bookings you were hoping for?  Might be worth crossing that conference off your list for the next year, so you can ensure you are focusing on the campaigns and channels that are bringing you the greatest ROI,” blogged RevSure.

New features offer insights into demand generation effectiveness and efficiency, helping prioritize leads and opportunities.  AI recommendations call out which leads to prioritize and how to optimize campaigns.  Users can drill down into campaigns or filter by title, industry, segment, or channel.  The Demand Generation Effectiveness is a color-coded tree map of “what is working and where is it working,” explained RevSure Head of Marketing Kacyn Goranson to GZ Consulting.  “It will show you generated lead volume, gross cost per lead, or booking value, so you can quickly slice and dice your marketing efforts” and determine “what is actually effective” across the funnel.

RevSure also provides stage conversion analytics, cohort analysis for campaign efficacy, and marketing campaign / KPI analytics.

Cohort analysis with Lead Insights

Lead prioritization is based on firmographics (e.g., location, size, industry), persona, engagement data from MAPs, intent, channel, campaign data, and lead source.  Data is sourced from Apollo and customer-licensed intent datasets.

To improve demand generation effectiveness, RevSure now ingests Salesforce campaigns and lead sources, along with Google AdWords and LinkedIn Campaigns.  These additional data sources are available for campaign budget analysis.  Users can “easily calculate and determine” conversion velocity, pipeline, and booking value.

“Today’s marketers have a gap in their data toolsets and are currently lacking AI-based models, and many CMOs are tasked with adopting and driving what will be effective, and winning, data strategies,” argued RevSure CEO Deepinder Singh Dhingra.  “Using RevSure helps provide marketing teams with intelligence and insights into their sales pipeline, and data that empowers them to strategically defend marketing budgets and pivot campaigns based on sales performance – both of which can be critical to sales success in the current economic climate.”

RevSure provides sales and marketing teams lists of their top 25, 50, and 100 most promising leads and opportunities.  It also displays “step-by-step recommendations” concerning when and how to follow up with them, “turning qualified leads into legitimate sales opportunities.”

Lead Prioritization provides a summary of the Top 25, 50, and 100 opportunities along with the working lead list and projected pipeline value.

RevSure already supports Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot.  The HubSpot App Marketplace partnership was launched earlier this month.

RevSure focuses on the top and middle of the funnel with recommendations and prioritization tools instead of the bottom, which looks more at forecasting.  “We are in the lead-to-opportunity journey,” explained Singh to GZ Consulting.  “We don’t go into the forecast.”

RevSure is less than a year old and officially launched at SaaStr in September 2022.  According to Singh, the firm is ahead of its customer acquisition and revenue targets.

Demand Generation Effectiveness Drilldown.

Leadspace Closes on Series D

Customer Data Platform vendor Leadspace closed on a $46 million Series D led by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP).  It has now raised $107 million since being founded in 2011.  The firm also announced Alex Yoder as its new CEO as the firm ended a dispute with their former CEO Doug Bewsher.

Leadspace features include company and professional profiles, data hygiene and enrichment, web forms, reports and analytics, TAM and ICP analysis, and account engagement.  Leadspace also performs lead prioritization and identifies similar companies.  Unlike many CDPs, Leadspace is a pure B2B platform.

The funds will be used for meeting growing demand, expanding its headcount, and resolving litigation.  The firm currently has 100 employees in the US and Israel.  The 40 employees in Israel are technology-focused, and the US contingent manages business leadership.

“A major part of our post-investment vision is to grow our team in Israel,” said CTO Amnon Mishor.

Leadspace also announced that Doug Bewsher was stepping down as CEO and being replaced by Alex Yoder.  According to VentureBeat, there was a falling out between Bewsher, JVP, and the Leadspace board about the company’s direction.  Bewsher was looking to sell the firm, while the Board and JVP wanted to continue growing it, resulting in a lawsuit between two JVP partners and Bewsher.

“I’m glad to say that the lawsuit is behind us.  The former CEO agreed to leave.  A situation arose in which the CEO and some of the investors, particularly Arrowroot Capital were interested in selling the company, while JVP, other board members, and I saw potential in our figures to build up a large company.  We had made a technological leap and didn’t want to sell. There was a conflict among the board members and negotiations between the various investors over whether to sell or not, with the lawsuit being part of that.  Eventually, everyone reached an understanding,” said Mishor.

Despite the leadership issues and a failed 2018 merger with Radius, Leadspace has grown its market presence.  It doubled its customer base over the past two years and grew revenue 151% between 2016 and 2019, placing the firm at 2,681 on the 2020 Inc. 5000 list.

Yoder is bullish on Leadspace, forecasting 70% growth this year, double that of the market.  Growth is being driven by the need to find and engage contacts at companies as the pandemic precludes face-to-face meetings.

Yoder has led several B2B and SaaS companies over the past two decades, including WebTrends, Ebiquity, and Trueffect.  According to the press release, Yoder has “built strong teams and implemented transformational strategies, running businesses that spanned $20 million to $150 million in revenue.”

JVP Executive Chairman Erel Margalit was named the Board Chairman.

“We typically invest in early-stage companies, but we only double down in category leaders and companies that can reach $100 million in ARR,” said Margalit.

“We believe that Alex Yoder can take the business to the next level as Leadspace becomes the single source of truth for B2B data,” said Margalit. “Leadspace – through its revolutionary AI platform – is changing the way enterprises manage their internal and external customer data.  In the coming years, enterprise CDP will be established as a new category, using AI to obtain the true identity, title, and roles of companies and individuals, creating true added value for clients.”

Competitors include D&B Lattice, 6Sense, Zylotech, and ABM Platforms.  Yoder contends that Leadspace’s strength in in analyzing unstructured social and behavioral data.

“Creating a source of truth for B2B is a very complex problem.  Companies are complex — sales cycles and engagement can be sporadic, involve multiple stakeholders, and can last months or even years,” said Mishor. “There are multiple data and intelligence point solutions that address small parts of the fundamental data issue.  No other solution is taking the holistic approach of being the connective layer between raw data and engagement channels for B2B like Leadspace.”

Leadspace clients include Microsoft, Salesforce, American Express, Intel, HPE, and Zoom.