I had an intriguing demonstration yesterday from social CRM vendor Nimble. Since “social CRM” could mean just about anything, it’s important to explain what Nimble actually does: it combines traditional contact management with automated access to social media information about those contacts.That might not sound like much, but in practice it’s pretty darn slick.Here’s how it works. Say you’re selling a product related to, oh, circuit boards. You can do a Twitter search for messages on that keyword, scan the Twitter profiles and Klout scores...
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
I had an earful last week from Genoo president Kim Albee, who told me that I’ve misclassified her target customers as “micro businesses” (under $5 million revenue) for the past two years. She tells me nearly all of her clients are larger than that. I’ve revised my big list of demand generation vendors to reflect this.The main cause of my misunderstanding was Genoo’s starting price of $199 per month, which is below any small or mid-size business system. But the lowest price for Genoo with CRM integration is $599 per month, and I consider CRM...
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Research firm Gleanster released its free “Gleansight” report on marketing automation late last month. I was principal author for much of the document and drafted the survey questions, although I didn’t write the individual vendor profiles or administer the survey. (I’ll also share in the revenues, which come when vendors pay for the names of people who download the report.) Although I’m obviously biased, I do think it’s an excellent product and...
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Here’s more proof that the apocalypse is near: I’ve discovered the “remove background” feature in Powerpoint. This makes it even easier for me to doctor photographs for my presentations. The fabric of reality cannot long survive so much stress.The immediate subject of my attentions is next Tuesday’s Webinar “Marketing Automation: One Step at a Time”, sponsored by Act-On Software. The dominant image of this Webinar, and the eponymous white paper...
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
The list of independent marketing automation systems shrank by one yesterday when Leadformix was purchased by sales enablement vendor CallidusCloud for $9 million. The price is surprisingly low for an established marketing automation vendor. In my VEST report from last July, LeadFormix reported 210 clients, concentrated among mid-size firms, and 82 employees. This would translate to around $7 million revenue, for a price of just over 1x revenue, compared with 4 to 5x revenue in other recent acquisitions. I suspect the actual LeadFormix...
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