Owler rolled out a new Insights feature which highlights data changes such as significant increases in press coverage, blogging volume, and CEO approval. CEO approval ratings are based upon community feedback. Additional insights are in development.
Account Based Intelligence vendor LeadGnome completed the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification process with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The new process ensures that privacy is protected when personal data is transferred from the EU to the US. The Privacy Shield process was implemented last summer after the previous Safe Harbour regime was invalidated by the European Court of Justice.
LeadGnome’s email reply service mines emails for intelligence such as left the company, out of office, change of position, change of name/email, and unsubscribe requests. “LeadGnome is unique in its ability to mine the unstructured body of reply emails for account based intelligence. It was, therefore, important to acquire EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification to assure our customers of our commitment to the privacy of their data,” said Matt Benati, CEO of LeadGnome.
Because the firm collects emails, titles, and business phones, they did not have to go through the more stringent approval level for firms that store credit, payment, or personal data. This helped expedite the approval process with the Department of Commerce. As LeadGnome was already Safe Harbour compliant, the approval process was focused on conforming to changes between the Safe Harbour and Privacy Shield. LeadGnome worked with the Better Business Bureau as a compliance partner and completed the process in about two months. Benati believes the process will speed up as the certification backlog clears, but noted that his firm benefited from having Safe Harbour certification.
The LeadGnome platform is integrated with major CRMs and MAPs including Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo and Oracle Cloud.
“LeadGnome is committed to data privacy and business transparency. We had already employed many of the required best practices, so the certification process was completed significantly ahead of schedule,” said Benati.
Other vendors that are Privacy Shield compliant include Dun & Bradstreet, Avention, Zoominfo, Infogroup, Salesforce, Microsoft, Oracle, SalesLoft, ReachForce, and Outreach. The US International Trade Administration publishes a list of Privacy Shield compliant firms.
LeadGnome, which extracts account based intelligence from reply emails, announced availability of a HubSpot connectors for the Marketing, Sales, and CRM platforms. “We consider this a strategic partnership with HubSpot, helping users increase productivity within their sales and marketing departments. The fact that LeadGnome integrates across all three HubSpot platforms changes the game, providing a new level of account intelligence from the moment an email campaign is executed. This integration delivers new opportunities and increases sales velocity by identifying trigger events, decision makers and influencers,” said LeadGnome CEO Matt Benati.
LeadGnome also provides sales alerts based upon important account changes uncovered by LeadGnome. For example, “new contacts can be emailed an introductory message and sales trigger events can be leveraged to ensure opportunities are captured and closed.”
LeadGnome calls its service “an untapped source of lead gold.” By mining reply emails, Lead Gnome is able to add new account-specific leads, schedule follow-up messages to target contacts based upon out of office information, mine additional company and contact details from signature blocks, derive corporate email address formats, and link out of office emails to specific marketing campaigns.
The service also helps redirect sales activity after a lead has left the organization:
A bounced email happens when somebody leaves the company and what’s really popular right now are “left the company” reply emails; hey, Matt’s no longer with the company but don’t worry, Sally is here to help out. And so what you know is that there has been a significant event within that organization. Matt who you have engaged with or maybe Matt is even your customer has left, you find that out immediately and now you have an opportunity to go find out where Matt went and start talking to him again because as salespeople we all know if you’ve got a great relationship with Matt in his current location, he’s probably going to a parallel or better job that has buying power again so you better go and knock on his door.
And we also give you Sally who has taken over for Matt. Sally is now your go to person at that existing account you have. And then we fill in the size of who did Sally… Jobs get replaced and where did the person that Matt replaced go to? So that adds up to four. And we no longer have to wait for a hard bounce right? We are giving you all the time and advantage you absolutely will beat the competition if you have that information.
Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing doesn’t see LeadGnome as a “silver bullet” but as an incremental process improvement based upon captured intelligence. “In sales and marketing part of the game is adjustments, it’s finding those incremental opportunities to get better, it’s finding marginal improvement at various phases of the sales process that when stitched together creates a fairly compelling competitive advantage. And those little increases in productivity, those little increases in response rate and conversion rate across an entire marketing effort, across an entire sales organization can lead to massive change and massive impact on result,” said Heinz. “we are looking for thunderbolts when we really need to be listening for whispers. We are looking for these big definitive answers on how precisely to sell to everybody and I am not seeing that. I continue to believe that there is no silver bullet like that and yet I feel like our customers are whispering to us all the time and they are giving us these subtle clues that are not always directed to us but they are definitely… It’s an opportunity that they were passing by on too significant a basis.”
LeadGnome pricing is based upon the number of reply emails received each month. The service begins at $19 and is subject to volume discounts. A twenty percent discount applies to firms on annual billing plans. The firm also offers a thirty-day free trial.
Technology Sales Intelligence vendor RainKing began the new year by rolling out a set of enhancements to their native Salesforce.com connector. RainKing focused on incorporating their Inside Scoops (Technology Sales Triggers) into the AppExchange service. New functionality includes searching for recent Scoops within SFDC and building a list of contacts at a company. RainKing also incorporated saved searches and Groups into RainKing for Salesforce.
“The more you can work in one platform while leveraging your other sales tools, the more you can focus on your number one priority: selling,” said RainKing Director of Product Management Mark Sapiano. “RainKing’s daily Inside Scoops are invaluable to anyone who wants to beat their competition to the negotiating table.”
When the user finds an actionable Scoop, she clicks on the “Find the Best Contacts” button and receives a list of account contacts ordered by relevance to the Scoop. RainKing’s ranking function is able to determine the most likely contacts to be working on a project based upon responsibilities and the nature of the Scoop. Sales reps can also apply filters to the contacts (e.g. match strength, management level, job title, keyword) in order to hone the list and select contacts for upload as Salesforce Leads or Contacts. The system also generates an SFDC task and populates it with the Scoop information for reference.
Furthermore, RainKing added an Inside Scoops custom object which displays imported Scoops and associated Leads or Contacts.
Inside Scoops (projects and opportunities) are gathered via direct interviews and updated during subsequent calls. Thus, if a project has selected some of the vendors or hit roadblocks, the additional intelligence is gathered and the Scoop is labeled as updated. Over 1,500 Inside Scoops are gathered per day, tagged to over 70 Scoop Topics and nine Scoop Types. Scoop Topics include Contracts, Technology Updates, Marketing, Pain Point, Project, Spending Trend, Management Changes, and Staffing.
RainKing also ported over their Saved Searches and Group functionality so that users do not need to rekey search filters and parameters. These shared parameters are displayed in the RainKing Search Home Page within Salesforce. According to Sapiano, “You can even run saved searches and groups straight from Salesforce and import the results directly into Salesforce – all without having to login to RainKing first.”
Finally, RainKing streamlined the record import process “making it more intuitive and flexible.” Workflow improvements include custom tags and an additional duplicate detection step.
Social Selling vendor Trapit released a set of five enhancements to assist with relationship management. The monitoring service tracks over 100,000 curated web sources. Content categories include blogs, professional journals, social media, and news services. For Twitter, the service supports Retweets, Replies, and Favorites. Trapit also supports “robust filtering” by media-type, source quality, tags, and geographic location. The new enhancements span social listening link tracking, social queueing, message recommendations, and the flagging of content for internal use.
Trapit’s social listening enhancements help reps gather customer and prospect insights from the web and Twitter without the assistance of an administrator.
Link tracking allows sales and marketing to determine which content is driving revenue via social sharing. “Link tracking bridges the gap between social selling activity on Trapit and revenue by applying the same metrics to social sales that have long been a key feature of email marketing and online advertising,” said the firm. “Tracking codes, which customers can ‘set and forget’ directly within Trapit, can now be automatically added to all inbound links, providing integration with all of the major marketing automation platforms.”
Social queue scheduling allows reps to schedule social messages throughout the day even when they are out of the office. An unlimited number of messages can be queued. Trapit supports social sharing via email, SMS, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks.
Recommended messaging allows reps to modify messages to comply with the styles (e.g. hashtags) and character limits of various social platforms. Marketing can provide a set of curated messages for various networks which are then posted by sales reps.
Trapit is also a platform for marketers and sales management to distribute internal content flagged as read only. Thus, “Trapit can be used to deliver updates about market developments, competitive intelligence, HR and internal communications, and other information where salespeople will see it.”
“The completeness of Trapit’s platform sets it apart from the standalone tools that salespeople have relied upon in recent years,” said CEO Hank Nothhaft Jr. “As sales teams move from analogue to digital tactics, they need a solution that is not only comprehensive, but also highly efficient and easy to use. We’ve stayed laser focused on empowering salespeople to uncover opportunities and engage buyers across a variety of digital channels, and we’ve coded best practices into the software itself. As a result, sales teams that leverage Trapit consistently outperform their competitors.”
Lead intelligence vendor Lead411 includes the TrackStar contact tracking service as part of their offering. TrackStar helps identify executive changes and promotions, allowing sales reps to keep in touch with their champions and reach out to new hires.
“Our business was built on the belief that our customers need a more comprehensive view of their prospect and his business in order to increase conversion rates, improve targeting, and enhance their existing sales technology platforms,” said Lead411 CEO Tom Blue. “TrackStar is a vital piece of the equation, shortening sales cycles for marketing and sales teams by enabling them to target champions with whom they’ve previously worked and providing them with the right information about their accounts, at the right time, to build the right relationships.”
TrackStar is available as a premium offering to its Small Biz 300 (SB300) package. After adding the $25 premium, SB300 is priced at $150 per user per month. SB300 features include 300 exported contacts, viewable emails, IT Intelligence, sales trigger alerts, CRM and MAP export, a Chrome extension, and Gmail integration. There is a six-month minimum commitment with monthly invoicing. An annual seat costs $1,500.
An enterprise edition supports unlimited downloading or CRM/MAP uploading for their 17 million contacts. Data list enrichments are also supported for company and executive lists. Pricing is not available for this edition.
Prospecting supports over fifteen variables. Most are standard company and exec selects such as SIC, NAICS, location, and size ranges; but users will also find ZIP radius, last email verification date, technology, and open job keyword searches (job and tech searches are limited to the SB300 and Enterprise editions). Job Title searches are supported, but the firm does not appear to have developed a job function and level taxonomy to assist with list building. Users may save lists or setup lists with a weekly new contact list email.
Prospecting also supports news searching against sales triggers.
Email trigger alerts are available which provide details mined from the news article. For example, funding triggers show the industry, state, amount, and planned spend. The new hires trigger shows the company, exec name and title, and hiring location.
Technology data spans over 2,000 technologies and is mined from websites and job boards.
The Chrome extension displays company profiles from within the browser. Users may upload profiles to SFDC. The extension even identifies whether a contact is in SFDC as part of the standard display. A Chrome extension icon automatically toggles the user to a new browser tab and opens the contact record within SFDC, a feature which I have yet to see in other sales intelligence vendors.
Within the Chrome extension and Gmail, users can view sizing data, social media links, technology intelligence, jobs, and recent news.
Lead411 discusses their product as
Catalysts + Context = Intelligent Conversations that drive sales.
Catalysts are sales triggers spanning eight categories including technology, ownership change, financials, personnel changes, and regulatory.
“It’s when these events happen that executives are most motivated to buy products and services that prove out the value of the decision,” said Blue.
Blue continued that context is “about knowing as much as you can about your prospect so you can talk to them intelligently and also know what their pain points are. So it demonstrates a real knowledge about the company and it also sets up a strong connection and relationship.”
Lead411 claims to have over 2,000 enterprise customers including ADP, Wells Fargo, Sprint, EY, and Staples.
I posted a blog yesterday on the Sparklane website discussing sales triggers as a tool for identifying new opportunities. Triggers provide a mechanism for warming up cold calls with of-the-moment talking points. Current triggers signal to prospects that you have conducted some research on the company and aren’t calling blindly into the firm. They also help account reps stay abreast of what is happening at their key customers and prospects. Sales Triggers are a key component of social selling and Account Based Marketing strategies.
Sparklane is a French Sales Intelligence solution which provides elements of predictive lead scoring around target companies. They are readying to enter the UK market with an English language service in the coming weeks. Their goal is to revisit the Battle of Hastings (1066) and “conquer the UK” (OK, I’m overstating their marketing claim, but there is nothing wrong with bold objectives).
Sparklane has had significant success in the French market with fifty percent annual growth since launching seven years ago. Last year they posted five million euros in revenue with a goal of eight million euros this year ($9 million). Clients include Samsung, Oracle, Jaguar, Capgemini, and SAS.
We have entered into a new era. The era of smart data. Basic data has less and less value. Sparklane is the first player on this market to propose a true predictive lead scoring solution. Sparklane’s main benefit is to improve quickly the sales performance of its clients.
- Sparklane CEO Frédéric PICHARD
Just last week, I blogged about Contify, an Indian social selling vendor, which is focusing on news + social awareness. I have also recently written about Artesian Solutions which opened a Boston office and is rolling out a North American social selling offering. Their Artesian Ready app is the most advanced sales intelligence mobile offering I’ve seen on the market.
It is wonderful to see the market continue to heat up with new competitors and approaches. Competition catalyzes product development and helps goose innovation. It focuses the mind of competitors and helps keep complacency at bay. I look forward to seeing what ideas the French have around social selling when they launch their UK service in a few weeks.
Social Selling vendor Contify rolled out a Salesforce.com connector for their account based social intelligence service. Contify intelligence is displayed within Lead and Opportunity record I-frames. The display is split into two tabs: News & Mentions and Social Updates. Both tabs may be filtered by topic.
The Social Updates feed combines account intelligence from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The company “only shows social media updates which have relevant sales triggers associated with it.” Thus users are not “bombarded with a stream of updates that aren’t relevant to you.
News triggers are set to thirty days, but may be adjusted by users.
The Indian vendor provides fourteen sales triggers mined from the web and social platforms. Triggers are delivered as alerts and within the subscription service. Users may share triggers via Chatter, email, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Users may also save triggers as bookmarks for later review. A separate triggers list is included within the record. Contify also offers Custom Triggers which may be created from within SFDC. Custom Triggers consist of a set of search and stop keywords. Contify begins delivering customer trigger results within fifteen minutes.
Trigger categories are similar to those found in other products. This is not to fault Contify as there are a set of common events which have been deemed to be most valuable by B2B sales reps. These include Funding Activity, M&A, Management Changes, Partnerships, and New Offerings.
Triggers may also be setup as tasks which are saved as open activities. Trigger information is stored within the Comments field of the task.
If users are unable to find the correct company, they can submit the URL to Contify’s editors who will create a company profile within 24 hours.
The service is priced at $49.95 per user per month billed annually.
The firm has over 10,000 users.
UK Social Selling vendor Artesian Solutions announced a set of enhancements to its social selling platform. Amongst the improvements are an improved CRM connector, “fully customisable” triggers, market sector alerts, employee display filters, and an update to their Ready mobile app. They are also in the midst of soft launching a US edition with a comparable set of social selling features.
The enhanced CRM connectors for Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics “drive a more dynamic connection between interaction information, business information and market insight for more intuitive and contextualised sales and marketing.” Among the features are sales trigger filtering by topic and trigger sharing by email, social media, and Chatter.
A new employees page allows users to filter employees by job function and level and set priorities by executive role and level. The firm has also expanded the depth of executive content including executive overviews and social media links.
Along with market alerts, Artesian has increased the granularity of its market views. Market alerts may be filtered by industry and country and are delivered weekly.
Artesian also rolled out version 2.3 of its Ready mobile app which provides company and executive insights synched with the mobile calendar. The service also supports collaborative note taking and a “360° comprehensive profile of customers and prospects.”
New Ready features include Twitter timelines and Twitter sharing (see image on left), social links (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, AngelList, Crunchbase, Klout), job information, and a data quality form for reporting incorrect information.
Rachel Oldroyd, Artesian Product Manager for Mobile commented that Ready “delivers the latest social profile insight straight to users’ fingertips, right up to the very second they go through the meeting room door, for the ultimate in readiness and customer engagement. Its summer launch is very timely, offering a real opportunity to brush off the dust, re-invigorate meetings with new ideas and fresh thinking, and get back into gear ahead of September.”
Ready is available for both Android and iOS devices.
Artesian is priced at $99 per user per month in the US and £89 per user per month in the UK with volume discounting available at higher seat counts. This pricing is in line with other social selling products such as InsideView and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Ready and CRM integrations are included as part of the core service offering along with onboarding, training, and social selling scores. The firm strongly believes that sales training is key to user adoption so does not charge for custom training sessions.
Social Selling Scores are similar to LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index. These scores introduce a gamification element to the service helping encourage best practices and ongoing use by sales reps. Artesian bases its scores on targeting, connecting, and sharing.
Artesian opened a Boston office at the beginning of this year and recently soft launched their US edition. The firm has not disclosed their primary US vendor but it is a credible source of company and contact information. The US version supports 4.2 million companies and 400,000 Canadian firms. Social Selling functionality is similar to the UK product with the exception of filed data not available in the US (e.g. registered company financials; directors and shareholders; mortgages and charges; and Companies House images). Key features in both services include social selling alerts and sharing, company prospecting, watchlists, and social selling scores.
RainKing announced immediate availability of their Global Enterprise technology database spanning 30 countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The database was built by multi-lingual researchers to the same 95% accuracy standard of their North American and European datasets.
Technology profiles, which include all of the BRICS, span
RainKing contact information includes org charts; emails and direct dial phones; headshots; social media links; and biographies with education, work histories, and job responsibilities. Other editorially reviewed content includes company profiles, technology platform details, and Inside Scoops (500 sales opportunities per day).
RainKing is posting the following dataset counts:
RainKing received a $67 million private equity transfusion back in October
RainKing is one of the eleven sales intelligence vendors covered in my Field Guide.