B2B marketers need to stop relying on gated PDFs to white papers and ebooks if they’re serious about lead generation, experts told The Content Experience event in Toronto this week. The two-day conference, which is produced by Uberflip, offered a deep dive into many approaches to creating assets to drive awareness and purchases, but there […]
Author: Shane Schick
Really Simple Systems’ CEO explains the full rewrite of its flagship CRM
Most B2B technology companies are trying to make their products smarter with artificial intelligence. Really Simple Systems just wants them to be easier. The company this week released Version 5 of its cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. Aimed at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Version 5’s latest features include drag and drop customisation, a […]
L-Spark looks for next-gen SaaS startups with more than ‘vanity metrics’
The next generation of software-as-a-service startups need to go beyond “vanity metrics” and demonstrate plans for sustainable growth if they want to gain the trust of B2B customers, according to the managing director of an accelerator whose application process closes Friday. L-Spark, which has launched 29 startups since 2015 and is about to select 10 […]
DemandBase Uses AI to Identify Early-Stage Intent to Purchase
DemandBase says marketers will soon be able to assess which B2B professionals are ready to make a purchase in a way that’s similar to studying keywords to know which topics will be popular in search engines. The San Francisco-based firm this week launched Real-Time Intent, an application that will work with its account-based marketing software […]
B2B startups share their secrets for acquiring enterprise customers
For half a year, Michael Litt woke up to the same thing every morning: a series of wild goose chases to find his next enterprise customer. The founder of Vidyard, the Waterloo Ont.-based provider of video marketing tools, would have spent the previous day pouring through a list of 85,000 companies which had been identified […]
The big question for B2B startups: Build a data science and AI team, or buy one?
Content marketing platform company Uberflip was recently on the verge of making an acquisition in the artificial intelligence space, before concluding it needed to develop its own capabilities, its CEO told the TechWeek Toronto audience on Thursday. Speaking in a session on “data intelligence,” Uberflip co-founder Yoav Schwartz did not disclose the name of the […]
Node applies AI to make warm introductions to sales and marketing prospects
A woman who was one of Google’s youngest hires at the age of 19 has launched an AI startup focused on one of the oldest problems in B2B sales and marketing: connecting with the right people and companies. Node, based in San Francisco, officially came out of stealth mode on Tuesday with more than US$16 […]
Meet the Bullies Who Dominate B2B Purchases, According to Research
Seventy per cent of B2B buyers have to contend with a “bully” on their purchasing committee who pushes their company to choose their preferred vendor, according to a research study from DiscoverOrg. In ‘Why Didn’t They Buy? A Deep Dive Into Buyer Preferences And The Implications For Salespeople,’ a survey of more than 230 business […]
CMO Council Exec Says Survey Shows ‘Arrogance’ of B2B Marketers Must End
More than half of consumers across the U.S., Europe and Canada say company websites and e-mail remain their go-to channels — a sign one CMO Council exec says the “arrogance” of B2B marketers must come to an end. In The Customer In Context: Understanding The Real Expectations of Today’s Connected Consumer, the CMO Council and SAP […]
Forrester VP: Enterprises won’t win with AI, unless . . .
Companies need to start looking beyond packaged software from vendors and redesign their own applications to incorporate machine learning algorithms if they want to make artificial intelligence a viable business tool, a Forrester analyst warned the Enterprise World conference this week. Speaking in a breakout session at the annual OpenText customer and partner event, Forrester […]
SAP Promises to Accelerate Innovation with Leonardo Service Packages
SAP is following up the launch of a digital innovation system it calls Leonardo with a set of services to help enterprises more quickly, and easily gain the benefits of the Internet of Things, blockchain and big data. The three SAP Leonardo Innovation Services launched at the company’s “Leonardo Live” event in Frankfurt includes an […]
OpenText Charts AI Course with Magellan Launch
OpenText is building on its history in enterprise information management with the launch Tuesday of an artificial intelligence platform called Magellan that will compete with the likes of IBM’s Watson. Magellan, which was announced at the company’s Enterprise World conference in Toronto, will combine OpenText Analytics, a text mining and auto classification tool it acquired […]