Even as the customer experience (CX) model has taken hold among many B2B companies on the sales-facing side, many of the same lag on their candidate experience when it comes to providing a smooth and equitable CX for job recruits. Many applicants only get the dreaded radio silence after going through a series of screening […]
Author: Derek Handova
How B2B Companies Outsource Managed Security Services
As security staff gets increasingly overwhelmed preparing for compliance audits and managing security incidents, B2B companies have started to ask about outsourcing managed security services. A recent report from analyst firm IDC found that Canadian organizations will become more reliant on third-party SaaS and managed security services by 2019. And Canadian chief information security officers (CISOs) will […]
B2B Solution of the Week: Trends and Successes in Martech Stack Building
With the recent and rumored announcements by B2B marketing and data analytics providers for cloud solutions that will build on top of Salesforce, Oracle and other SaaS platforms, the multi-relationship model of martech stack-building exists in high relief. And while vendors may be pushing a multi-relationship model, marketers may want to think carefully before pursuing […]
B2B Solution of the Week: How to Outsource B2B customer account management
B2B company-customer relationships have changed. The cloud coupled with more informed, empowered customers has pushed B2B companies toward subscription business models. Because “sell it and forget it” modes of business are long-gone, account management is more important than ever However, most B2B companies are challenged to do it effectively given upfront investment and steep learning […]
B2B Solution of the Week: How to hack B2B growth with mobile apps
No question, mobility has changed the B2B sales game. New technologies automate, streamline and create new efficiencies simply unattainable in the past. However, many B2B companies still take sales orders with pen and paper. If only they would use mobile apps as part of their business development strategy they could drastically improve the results of […]
B2B Solution of the Week: Salesforce Ecosystem
While Salesforce continues to chart growth in uncharted territory as the standard-bearer of the cloud computing revolution, it also brings along the participants in its CRM ecosystem. So many other companies build their own solutions in one way or another on the Salesforce platform. This week seemed a watershed with a number of significant announcements. […]
How I Learned to Stop Calling IT and Run My Own MarTech Stack
Except for PR people, marketing staffers get the least respect of any part of the B2B ecosystem. They’ve been at the mercy of IT, product development or engineering in many tech startups, and some larger organizations, to implement and operate their martech stacks. But now the velocity of B2B has increased, and marketing has to […]
Salesforce to Enter Communications and Media Spaces with Framework
While many in B2B enterprises have become very familiar with Salesforce CRM over the last 17 years, some other industries remain virtually untouched by the king of cloud computing. There is now a plan to push that boundary into new frontiers, like the already announced forays into healthcare, financials, government and now communications and media. […]
Best in Class Marketing: How to become a Business Value Creator
B2B marketers face an increasingly skeptical audience in the C-level suite. Long considered a cost center and burdened by the perception it cannot measure its impact on business results, marketers need a way to prove their actions align to business results. Despite this general impression, some marketers remain very successful at demonstrating their connection to […]
10 Myths Martech Vendors Tell and the Real Story
Marketing technology (martech) users in B2B often have to ask themselves if they fully understand the solutions the martech vendors sell them. Seemingly, these tech goodies perform every conceivable operation under the sun. Turns out many martech tools remain more myth than fact. At the recent MarTech 2016 conference, this topic served as the centerpiece […]
B2B Solution of the Week: Rethinking use cases for marketing automation
Since the marketing automation category of B2B applications came of age in the early 2000s, emphasis has remained on its demand generation function for many companies. However, use cases have emerged that take the solution into new spheres, according to research by Act-On Software, a provider of marketing automation to fast-growing businesses and corporate divisions. […]
Apttus Brings ‘Quote-to-Cash’ Functionality to Microsoft Dynamics CRM
The world of CRM just got more interesting. Apttus, one of the leading if not the leading “quote-to-cash” application on Salesforce, today has announced the Apttus Intelligent Cloud that will bring its functionality to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the second most popular customer relationship management platform. B2B users of Microsoft Dynamics will now be able to […]
The B2B App Party: CRM, in the field apps & order management
It happens ten minutes into every after-party at every convention center where attendees and vendors gather. First one small group starts and then, suddenly, everyone’s doing it. It’s the great app comparison conversation and it’s a feature of B2B community culture. To compile our list of the current most popular B2B applications, B2B News Network based […]
The B2B App Party: Presentations, artificial legal intelligence & electronic signatures
Consider this list a cocktail conversation kick-starter for the after-party at the convention center. To compile our list of the current most popular B2B applications, in no particular order, B2B News Network based its judgment on industry participant input and software analyst expertise across six categories. We’ll report our results over the next two days. […]
B2B Solution of the Week: Strategic mass media advertising
B2B companies generally don’t use mass media advertising, but forward-thinking firms do it for various purposes. Leading pure-play B2B firms use mass media in very specific ways, and they do know it works and how. If they didn’t know it works they would not advertise at all. Some companies such as RingCentral, a cloud-based phone […]
B2B Solution of the Week: How enterprises can monetize data
Running a B2B company has its challenges. Competition remains intense, profit margins are too thin and the top line has plateaued. How can B2B find secondary revenue sources? The answer could lie in part within business intelligence (BI) data monetization. “Data monetization is an increasingly popular trend among B2B enterprises,” says Ramon Chen, chief marketing […]
FlipMyFunnel Roadshow: Make accounts love that you’re targeting them
Learning to target accounts and make the target love it was how B2B News Network closed coverage of the FlipMyFunnel Roadshow. The session in San Francisco, Feb. 25, was presented by Eric Spett, CEO of Terminus, account-based marketing provider and organizer of the conference, and Tyler Lessard, CMO of Vidyard, a personalized video marketing vendor. […]
FlipMyFunnel Roadshow: Creating a demand generation engine with account-based marketing
As part of the FlipMyFunnel Roadshow in San Francisco, Feb. 25, one of the first sessions put the focus on creating a demand generation engine with account-based marketing (ABM). Together, Ken Wincko, senior vice president, marketing, PRNewswire, and Adam Needles, chief strategy officer, ANNUITAS, a B2B demand strategy firm, discussed how the online news service […]
FlipMyFunnel Roadshow: Living without leads
The FlipMyFunnel Roadshow brought together B2B marketing and sales leaders to discuss changes in demand generation on Thursday, Feb. 25, in San Francisco. The concept of living without sales leads opened the event. In a morning slot, Monica Koedel, senior marketing manager, Cisco, and Megan Heuer, Vice President, SiriusDecisions, a B2B research and advisory firm, […]
B2B Solution of the Week: Inside the future of predictive analytics
If you visit 6sense, a predictive analytics provider for sales and marketing, in San Francisco, you might expect that a converted Victorian house or a gleaming office tower will house the B2B startup. However, 6sense and its founder and CEO Amanda Kahlow aspire to humbler external trappings, choosing a converted warehouse/loft off an alley across […]