Minimizing The Inheritance Tax

When marketing leaders switch roles to a new organization, the Inheritance Tax can lead to unforeseen and often underestimated expenses. To lessen this burden, marketing leaders can take several steps. First, they need to prioritize understanding the originally intended marketing strategy and business goals associated with the inherited martech platforms.

By uncovering the “who” and “how” of the platform’s usage, marketing leaders can effectively navigate the challenges of a new instance. Seeking insights from key stakeholders and utilizing available learning resources, such as customer portals and consultancies, can expedite the onboarding process and minimize the Inheritance Tax.

Uncovering The Context

With more than 11,000 martech tools in 49 categories, it’s important to know the role and responsibility of each tool you’re investing — or currently invested — in. Keep in mind investment isn’t only in terms of software; business process is a critical factor in determining absolute ROI.

Leaders need to gain a holistic understanding of the current business goals associated with each platform and assess for technical updates. Are there new features that have been rolled out in the last year? Are you utilizing the full feature set of the platform relative to the capital expenditure/operation expenditure costs being spent on software licensing? If not, you’ll want to schedule a demo to review your software or consider having an external stack audit.

Identifying Key Stakeholders

Knowing the key stakeholders is crucial when inheriting systems that run your marketing and sales engine, as it enables effective collaboration and ensures alignment with team objectives. Additionally, it’s critical to have a pulse on team usage and adoption, particularly when organizational shifts happen that lead to user base churn. With that in mind:

1. Know your active users versus license holders/seats.

This helps you inform who is a part of the discussion group versus decision-making group on technical upgrades, enhancements and integrations.

2. Determine your super users and know your user productivity calculation.

The productivity calculation is total output/total input, which can help you determine your risk of churn in people and inform your process decisions.

Understanding Capabilities

Extracting performance analytics and information from a new (or new-to-you) platform is important. Equally important is understanding the systems’ capability, function and features. 

Lean into support for product info to ensure you are leveraging your tools and enhanced features. For example:

• Ask for a 20-minute sales demo on the platform and have your team of experts listen for required customizations/configurations to achieve what you need from the tool or identify blind spots to functionality that exists that you may not be leveraging; or
• Consider getting a tech roadmap audit or playbook to quickly identify opportunities, redundancies and challenges within your tech stack.

Understanding Cost Optimization

Knowing where to save and where to spend is critical. To create long-term value, executive leaders must identify spending areas that drive differentiation and support critical capabilities. Organizations can make informed decisions about resource allocation by analyzing the lifetime value of costs and recognizing that not all revenue is equal. This approach ensures that spending aligns with strategic objectives, enabling sustainable growth and profitability.

Streamlining Legacy Martech Tools

Legacy martech tools can become burdensome when they are underleveraged or overly customized, leading to longer ramp-up periods and frustrations during onboarding. Marketing leaders can mitigate these costs by adopting a proactive approach. Regular martech audits, conducted by outside partners or consultancies with unbiased views on the history of the systems, can assess the overall stack fitness and readiness to support business objectives.

These assessments help to identify opportunities for optimization and can limit the switching costs associated with new leadership and improve operational efficiency. Through careful cost containment and investment, organizations can position themselves for sustainable growth and profitability in the dynamic business landscape.

Arturo Mendiola is the Chief Growth Officer at Shift Paradigm, a digital marketing agency.

The post So, You’ve Inherited A Martech Stack: Now What? appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

The view-through and verification technology is designed to connect account engagement with digital assets to provide a 360-degree view of an account before, during and after a deal closes. The platform and technology enabling these connections to the website, CRM systems and spreadsheets was introduced in September and includes an “account identity network,” which integrates data sources from across the industry to identify accounts and bots.   

“The most common question I hear is why hasn’t this been done before,” said Chris Golec, Founder and CEO of Channel99, in a statement. “The answer is that it has been done in B2C. However, the underlying technology needed to satisfy B2B’s needs is quite different, and there has not been a third party that can execute this need until today.”

The post Channel99 Launches View-Through Analytics Technology appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

OfferFit’s reinforcement learning AI seeks to accelerate experimentation for lifecycle marketers, as it continuously learns and adapts in response to customer actions.

“We’ll use this funding to continue to scale, of course,” said OfferFit’s Co-founder and CEO, George Khachatryan, in a statement. “But we’ll also invest heavily in our product. We’re making OfferFit quicker and easier to deploy and giving marketers more tools to leverage the insights they gain from automating experimentation.”

The post OfferFit Secures $25M In Series B Funding appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

The Certified Partner Program will cater specifically to B2B agencies and companies who are focused on addressing the needs of marketers, particularly those who want to provide solutions that promote deeper engagement and more actionable insights. Banzai partners will receive sales commissions and active support from a dedicated team of Banzai experts who will assist Partners in marketing and selling the Banzai platform.

“We are seeing unprecedented demand for our marketing technology services across a variety of businesses,” said Ashley Levesque, VP of Communications at Banzai, in a statement. “This dedicated partner program was a natural next step for Banzai as we’re strategically partnering with leading B2B marketing agencies who leverage our platform to support their customers in proving the value of webinars and virtual events as a channel.”

The post Banzai Launches Certified Partner Program appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Saxena succeeds interim CEO and CFO Peter Krivkovich and will oversee overall company performance for AdRoll, a marketing and advertising platform for E-commerce brands, and NextRoll’s other business unit, RollWorks, an account-based marketing platform. Prior to joining NextRoll, Saxena served as Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at Brex. She will continue to serve temporarily as President of AdRoll.

“I’ve enjoyed watching Roli grow in her current position with AdRoll over the last few years and I couldn’t think of a leader more suited for NextRoll,” said Krivkovich, in a statement. “Roli’s experience and compassion made her the obvious choice to take over the reins and I feel confident stepping away from this role knowing that she will be there to drive incredible growth, just like she has done with AdRoll.”

The post NextRoll Promotes Roli Saxena To CEO appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

McGygan will oversee all of Televerde’s global operations. He joins the company with more than 30 years of experience in technology development and leadership. More recently, he served as SVP and General Manager of Oracle CX Service, where he led the development of the next generation of customer service tools. Before Oracle, McGugan held various leadership roles at Avaya, Sears, Saffron, Symbol and Cisco.

“It is a privilege to be part of a company that puts the customer first, delivering high-quality services and innovative solutions to clients that also have societal impact,” said McGugan, in a statement. “As CEO, I will do everything in my power to enable our leaders and people to accelerate the delivery of great experiences for our customers and to fulfill our mission to provide 10,000 life-changing opportunities to disempowered communities over the next decade.”

The post Televerde Names New CEO appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Drift

Ernst brings more than three decades of experience at the intersection of marketing technology and consumer data. He was most recently the CEO of Tubular and has experience taking Macromill through a successful IPO, which had an enterprise value of over $1 billion.

“I am humbled and honored to be Drift’s new CEO,” said Ernst. “I have been a customer and advisor of the company for years, so having the opportunity to take the helm at such a critical point in the company’s history is incredibly exciting. The opportunity ahead of us has never been bigger. I look forward to partnering closely with David, the rest of the board and the entire Drift team to lead the company into its next phase of growth as we further our momentum in the marketplace and execute on our mission to transform the way businesses buy from businesses by harnessing the power of conversations and human connection.”

The post Drift Appoints Scott Ernst As Chief Executive Officer appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Over the last 10 years, technology has accounted for the largest proportion of marketing budgets (26.2%) and demands have never been higher for marketing to prove ROI. To achieve this, tech must be part of any marketer’s ROI strategy. But as you consider martech investments, how do you tell the money wasters from the money makers?

Separating The Solid From The Shiny: The Martech Selection Process

As of the latest count in 2021, there are more than 8,000 martech solutions on the market — a 5,000% increase in options from 2011 — and there are more tech-enabled possibilities for marketers than ever before. But it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and develop “shiny object syndrome.” This is the tendency to chase the newest trends, opportunities and ideas without first evaluating their benefit. 

To break through the distractions of a crowded solutions landscape and stay focused on goals, marketers must take a structured approach to cut out the noise. In my more than 20 years as a marketer, I’ve found that one of the best ways to do this is through a tool called the “Purpose Alignment Model.”

Created by Niel Nickolaisen, this model has been used in IT for years. It plots the purpose or importance of each business activity to make it clear what you need to prioritize and who should be responsible for those priorities.

Putting The Model To Use

Use the Purpose Alignment Model to categorize the importance of each marketing activity you perform according to two factors: 

• Will it create market differentiation?
• Is it mission critical?

The Purpose Alignment Model can be broken down into four quadrants: “Differentiating,” “parity,” “partner” and “who cares.” Once you understand each of the quadrants and how they relate to your organization, you can begin to determine how to set up your version of the model, analyze it and then make decisions. 

Once you complete this exercise, your most vital marketing activities will help categorize your priorities, and you can then align your martech spending to the most impactful technologies. 

How To Build Your Model

Before building your model, you must understand the four quadrants:

• Differentiating: What sets you apart in the marketplace;
• Parity: The “table stakes” in your space or within a particular activity;
• Partner: Activities that are important and differentiating, but not mission-critical; and
• Who cares: The initiatives that aren’t very important to your marketing team’s mission.

When building your model, it’s important to look first at highly market-differentiating and mission-critical items. This is where you want to spend the bulk of your money. 

Differentiating: To belong in this crucial category, activities must rank as highly market-differentiating and mission-critical. These differentiating activities are the few things that you must do better than anyone else and are core to your differentiation. An example might include your ABM capabilities that help you deeply personalize your communications and touchpoints to some of your highly targeted prospects. Questions to ask:

1. Can I draw a direct line from this activity to our strategic competitive advantage?
2. Will it create and/or maintain a strategic competitive advantage?
3. Can I relate it directly back to our business strategy?

Parity: This category is for low-differentiating, highly mission-critical activities. Some examples might include your regulatory compliance functions, opt-in and consent requirements or maybe even your website if it’s purely informational. Your goal for activities in this quadrant should be to apply best practices, mirror the competition and keep things simple. Questions to ask:

1. Does this activity support our business goals and strategy?
2. Does it help us keep pace with the competition?
3. Will customers notice if it’s missing?
4. Would doing this activity differently increase our sales? If so, this may be a differentiator.

Partner: Activities that are highly market-differentiating, low-mission-critical fall into this quadrant. Your marketing technology implementations, deployments, audits and advancements, as well as the development and execution of your campaigns and content, belong here. These activities are NOT core and you must decide if you need to carry these skill sets in-house or if you prefer to find alternatives.

You may find both benefits and trade-offs when working with a partner. Make sure you have a solid off-boarding plan so that your team can continue to build upon a partner’s work. Examples include most martech point solutions (e.g., webinar providers) and external consulting agencies. Questions to ask:

1. Is this activity differentiating?
2. Is it critical that we do these activities?
3. Are these skills I need to maintain within my team over the long term? If not, are others better equipped to offer these skills?
4. Would it be more cost-effective to find a partner that can complement our team?

Who Cares: Low-market-differentiating activities that are also low-mission-critical belong here. This quadrant might include features within a technology that don’t align with your differentiators or mission-critical needs.

Anything that isn’t making an impact on your sales resides here. You should be actively trying to exit or sunset these activities. An additional option would be to negotiate a move of these functions to other areas within the company. What is a non-core, non-priority activity for you may be a core activity to another department. Questions to ask:

1. Does this activity generate market share?
2. Who does it serve, and would they notice if it disappeared?
3. To achieve our strategy, do we really need to focus on this?

Putting It Together To Become A Ruthless Decision-Maker

Once you clarify your business’s differentiators, identify gaps in parity, decide what you can outsource to a partner and remove the activities without value, you’re a ruthless martech decision-maker!

Not only can the Purpose Alignment model help you select and optimize your martech investments in a focused, decisive manner, it can also enable you to share key decisions with other executive teams, such as finance and IT — an all-around win on added value. 

Eric Hollebone oversees the optimization of day-to-day operations and the smooth delivery of all client work at DemandLab. As COO, he works closely with the CEO and executive leadership team to plan and manage the company’s operational policies and develop and help implement a plan to attain the agency’s short and long-term financial and operational goals. Eric also plays a vital role in building on DemandLab’s culture of collaboration and success.

The post Prioritize Martech Decisions With Ease: The Purpose Alignment Model appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

MRP Prelytix

Custeau has more than 20 years of marketing technology and global product leadership experience. As MRP’s Senior VP of Product, he helped expand the company’s use of AI and machine learning data to generate higher responses, pipeline and revenue. He also served as VP of Product Management for Oracle Eloqua and in multiple senior consulting, R&D and product management roles at Aptean, Infor and more.

“Pierre’s product leadership has been vital in establishing MRP as the only enterprise-class ABM platform and the first choice for ABM success for large global organizations with sophisticated marketing and sales teams,” said Matthews in a statement. “As CTO, his vision and expertise ensure that our clients’ success remains at the center as we prepare to once again raise the bar on enterprise ABM with the next version of MRP Prelytix.”

The post MRP Prelytix Promotes Pierre Custeau To CTO appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Unfortunately, a HubSpot report indicated that the adaptation didn’t go according to plan. Forty percent of sales leader stated that they underperformed on revenue goals in 2020 and struggled to keep their teams up to speed. While the quick adaptation to remote selling with no blueprint was likely the cause, the greater need for sales leaders to enable their teams to sell successfully in a remote environment was highlighted throughout the research.

“You have marketing, product marketing, HR, sales and sales enablement all trying to do the right thing on behalf of the customer or prospect, but sometimes we’re misaligned and stepping all over each other,” said Roderick Jefferson, Author and VP of Field Enablement of Netskope. “Sales enablement is about getting it ‘right’ — the right conversations, methods, time, level and people. It’s imperative that we realign our company’s messaging, positioning and our selling motions.”

To mitigate sales teams’ issues and help them sell to their full potential, leaders need to focus on aligning internal teams, supplying their sellers with the latest technology and preparing them for the next phase of the pandemic (and post-pandemic) sales journey.

Throughout this report, we’ll dive into the latest trends and technologies fueling sales enablement and examine the best methods of increasing internal alignment. With additional insights on how companies can prepare their strategies for the post-pandemic world, topics of discussion include:

• Identifying and closing communication gaps between sales and marketing teams;
• The impact automation and video conferencing have on teams; and
• How organizations can prepare for selling as the world begins to enter the post-pandemic “next normal.”

Aligning Sales & Marketing To Develop Stronger Communication With Buyers

Addressing the disconnect between marketing and sales is the first step to enabling sales teams’ continued success. Luckily, there are a variety of solutions companies can use to work toward a more closely calibrated internal work culture. During her presentation at the B2B Marketing Exchange in February, titled: “Leveraging Your Existing Marketing Programs & Content To Enable Your Sales Team,” B2B Marketing Consultant Pam Didner attributed the disconnect between marketing and sales teams to:

• A lack of understanding on the marketing side about the needs of sales reps;
• Miscommunication in identifying the marketing elements that are also applicable to sales and putting them into practice; and
• Leaders not taking the steps to address the previous two needs.

It falls on the shoulders of sales leaders to help marketers understand what the teams’ priorities are and to have honest conversations about how marketing can help, according to Didner.

“Marketing teams have to understand what matters to the sales team and think like a salesperson,” she said. “Marketers tend to focus on the top of the funnel, while sales is about the bottom; marketers focus on the buyer’s journey and end users, while sales stays in a mindset of sales stages. The way marketers understand their clients is to create a buyer persona. If you’re putting that amount of effort to understand your customers, you need to put that amount of effort to understand your salespeople.”

To accomplish this, Didner recommends marketers ask salespeople:

• How they get their leads;
• The kind of content they create and the content they need;
• If they’re meeting their quotas on a regular basis;
• Their goals and aspirations;
• The common challenges they encounter; and
• How they can help.

Additionally, sales teams should take a new focus on how they sell. Instead of pushing the solution or product, Jefferson recommended reps instead focus on the experience the clients will get from working with their specific organization. Consequently, this opens the door for more collaboration between marketing and sales, which creates consistent verbiage and communication styles for clients in all stages of the sales funnel.

Given the desire for first-hand experiences, Michael Londgren, CMO of Seismic, said companies should maintain strong relationships with their existing customers by tapping into them as brand advocates.

“Put forth the voice of the customer, as prospective customers are interested in knowing what existing customers are doing,” said Londgren in an interview with Demand Gen Report. “Bringing that voice of the customer forward through videos, testimonials, online content, etc. helps shape perceptions of the company and its offering and the value that the customer can get. So really, the company’s core value proposition is associated with having customers that are truly getting value using the solution.”

Increasing Reliance On Digital Tools

Once sales and marketing teams find common ground, leaders need to ensure that their sales reps are selling to the best of their ability. The HubSpot report indicated that this includes providing reps with access to the latest technology to automate time-consuming processes, such as scheduling meetings, generating contracts and delivering content.

The majority of those surveyed pointed to CRMs and video conferencing tools as the biggest enablers for remote selling. In fact, 61% of overperforming leaders stated that they rely on their CRM to automate aspects of the sales process to free up time for sales reps.

Additionally, the report indicated that data generated from CRM systems provides valuable insights into any adjustments needed to strengthen sales’ performance — most respondents in the report stated that they are relying on CRM to generate forecasting reports, monitor rep activity and identify performance against quotes.

Another key tool in sales teams’ toolboxes is video calling, with about 48% of leaders citing video conferencing as the most important tool to their sales teams’ success. Video conferences help strip away the “used car salesman” stereotype commonly associated with salespeople by allowing prospects to come into their homes. There’s no longer the seriousness and pressure that come along with presenting in a stuffy boardroom — Jefferson explained that a barking dog or a crying baby are issues almost everyone deals with, so it opens the door for more comfortable, genuine conversations.

While video conferencing enabled a more sanitized version of face-to-face contact, the overwhelming increase in video conferences has led to what professionals are calling “Zoom fatigue.” Now that sales teams are spending a large chunk of their day in front of webcams, Jefferson recommended leaders to take steps to help salespeople decompress from the constant demand to be on camera.

Preparing For The Next Level Of Selling

With what seems to be an end in sight to the pandemic, companies need to start preparing their teams for the next phase of selling. As organizations get ready for the newest normal, Jefferson recommended viewing it in a different lens.

“I don’t think there’s a new normal, because that infers that it’s something that we’ve seen — there’s a roadmap, best practices and tips and tricks,” he continued. “We have none of those; we’re in completely foreign water now. So, we’ve got to figure out what that ‘next normal’ is going to look like.”

According to Jefferson, the next normal is going to vary slightly from company to company. However, each organization should:

• Reassess current ideal customer and buyer profiles;
• Focus energy, goals and deliverables on things that can be impacted by enablement;
• Deliver a deeper level of product/solution value;
• Offset negative press about what’s going on in the world; and
• Continue to keep open lines of communication between internal teams.

“It’s about clear, concise and consistent communication between marketing, sales and sales enablement,” said Jefferson. “Make sure you define the purpose and that all actions align with your company culture. The teams need to agree on what success metrics look like, and make sure the right structure is in place to achieve that.”

The post The Technology & Strategies Driving New Wave Sales Enablement appeared first on Demand Gen Report.