Customer relationship management provider Affinity is using artificial intelligence technology to sift through employees’ e-mail and calendar data in hopes of easing the search for “warm” introductions to prospects and customers. San Francisco-based Affinity described Alliances, which was released on Monday, as a tool that will create a “relationship graph” to help those in sales […]
B2B buyers spend the equivalent of a full-time work week researching products and services worth more than $100,000, but 86 per cent feel overwhelmed when they’re presented with more than 10 pieces of content, according to a research study from Showpad. The Belgium-headquartered firm on Tuesday released The New B2B Buyer Experience, which drew upon […]
The success of account-based marketing depends on collaboration and alignment between marketing and sales. Both teams must agree on goals, metrics and methods before they can implement an impactful account-based marketing strategy. Collaboration is imperative to success but difficult to accomplish considering the already labor-intensive and process-detailed workplans for each department. The good news is […]
LinkedIn says the addition of a Deals feature to its Sales Navigator tool will pull pipeline data directly from customer relationship management systems and make it easier to find additional contacts before a potential purchase decision goes awry. The Deals feature was one of several additions to Sales Navigator LinkedIn announced in a blog post […]
B2B firms may talk a lot about account-based marketing and developing a more one-to-one relationship with customers, but a recent survey from appointment-setting software firm TimeTrade suggests many of them are ignoring direct outreach from potential buyers. In ‘What Buyers Want: The State Of The B2B Buying Experience,’ TimeTrade surveyed approximately 300 business professionals during […]
Sales enablement software firm Showpad has released what it describes as an AR e-commerce tool that will let B2B buyers get a closer look and feel at what they’re purchasing and how it might work in their organization. Using Apple’s ARKit, the AR e-commerce tool allows sales people to develop models that are projected through […]
There’s no shortage of excellent B2B sales tips out there. Here are a few I believe in: Listen more than you talk. Empathize – put yourself in their shoes (this one is very near and dear to me — it’s what I named my business). Stop pushing. Start helping. Sell benefits …. not features – […]
More than half of B2B organizations said integration with legacy technologies is hampering their adoption of e-commerce tools and 37 per cent say they lack the ability to support various sales channels, according to a research study from Magento Commerce. While 85 per cent of organizations said they were interested in offering customers ways to […]
A startup called Crowdy.ai has created a widget it describes as a “social proof engine” that it hopes will change the way B2B companies sell online by providing visual evidence of prospects during into customers. Deal-Maker is a web site integration that provides real-time updates on how web site visitors are taking action on a […]
There’s a funny disconnect I experience every semester: One hundred percent of my Marketing students want to be employed when they graduate (duh). But when I ask them what type of job they hope to land, almost none of them say sales. Why is this a disconnect? Because the very large majority of them will […]
Every year, technology vendors allocate billions of dollars to help their channel partners promote their businesses and offerings. Every year, nearly half of these funds go unspent. At a time when channel effectiveness is tilting heavily, reaching a 95/5 ratio in some industries (as n 5% of partners are generating 95% of sales) […]
SAP on Tuesday used its annual Sapphire Now user conference to announce a customer experience software suite dubbed C/4HANA that will include a what it called a “fourth generation” customer relationship management tool, along with the acquisition of a field service software firm called Coresystems. C/4HANA will include SAP’s Sales, Marketing, Commerce and Service Clouds, […]
Throughout the supply chain – from manufacturer to distributor to retailer to end consumer – the connections between each party are increasingly remote. At a time when ingredients, manufacturers and end consumers may each be in a different continent, maintaining control and visibility throughout the entire network — or e-commerce transparency is more important now […]
Showpad may have started as a way to arm sales people at conferences and events, but its latest tools are designed to extend their reach with branded microsites for specific customers and prospects. With a North American head office in Chicago, Showpad is based on the idea of salespeople using something other than a slide […]
Only 36 per cent of B2B software buyers say vendors live up to the promises they make about their products and services, according to a research study where the vast majority of firms claimed to be open about any limitations their offerings may have. The 2018 B2B Buying Disconnect report is based on a survey […]
For Henri Richard, starting his job at NetApp during the enterprise storage technology firm’s annual sales kickoff was something of a double-edged sword. “It was my first exposure to the company, and on the one hand, it gave me a really good feel for the organization at large,” he told B2B News Network in a […]
Fision may soon build upon its track record of putting marketing and sales teams on the same page by obtaining a provisional patent for using blockchain to exchange critical business information. Based in Minneapolis, Fision Corp. offers a cloud-based sales enablement tool that manages digital assets like marketing materials as they are distributed to sales […]
Millennial-aged sales and marketing professionals have an even lower opinion of each other’s roles in the enterprise than the current generation, according to research conducted by CRM and marketing intelligence software maker InsideView. In its report, “The State of Sales & Marketing Alignment in 2018: How Leading B2B Companies Drive Growth by Aligning Go-to-Market Teams.” San […]
Prospecting is tough. There are a handful of components of cold email outreach, and each one is absolutely necessary to be successful. It’s hard enough to write an eye-catching message. And sending that email at a time when the prospect will read it, and respond to it is even harder. Not to mention the significant […]
Competitive salespeople don’t waste people’s time, least of all their own. They identify the relevant executive for each sales opportunity, and they take time to understand the dynamics of their customer’s organization to uncover where influence, power, and control over a particular project reside. “It doesn’t have to be the CEO of a corporation,” said […]
