-
May 13, 2009
- By
Jessica Tsai, Assistant Editor, CRM magazine
InsideView's Vision Of Social Sales
In a move that industry analysts say bridges the disconnect between social media and sales intelligence, San Francisco–based sales automation provider InsideView this week made available its new SalesView Buzz tab. Claiming to offer more than mere social media monitoring, the SalesView Buzz tab uses natural-language processing and what the company calls "entity triangulation" to produce a "smart record" of an individual and her company.
With this capability, the members of the sales team have access to more knowledge about the leads provided by their marketing counterparts -- effectively turning the once-divided relationship into what Rand Schulman, chief marketing officer of InsideView, calls "smarketing." The goal, he says, is ultimately to help "people run a business more like a science than [like] an art project."
The SalesView Buzz tab collects information from data sources divided into two categories:
- Subscription-based data sources — including the following:
- Hoovers;
- Thompson-Reuters;
- Jigsaw; and
- ZoomInfo.
- "Nonsubscribe" data sources — this includes networks such as:
- Facebook;
- Twitter;
- MySpace; and
- LinkedIn.
According to Schulman, a significant amount of data on the social Web is simply wrong. For instance, a Google search for an individual can bring up multiple results that connect her to different companies. "We're a technology company, not a data company," Schulman says. "We pick and choose the best pieces of data that will allow us to create that record." The SalesView Buzz tab aggregates relevant social feeds, deep Internet feeds, and subscribed media feeds into one place to determine who the prospect is connected with, news about her company, and events that may prompt a conversation with the salesperson.
Existing social media monitoring and analytics providers, such as Radian6 and Lithium Technologies, typically glean insight from online conversations to improve marketing effectiveness or inspire new products and services. What the SalesView Buzz tab does, according to Aberdeen Group Research Associate Alex Jefferies, is "not only gauge consumer-generated sentiment, but also use that information...to provide a well-rounded, contextualized view of the customer or prospect...without having to spend valuable time searching for it online."
Although the Internet has allowed companies to learn more about their customers, Jefferies says that the proliferation of information online has actually shifted the power to the prospect. Customers are conducting research, reading reviews, and conversing in their social networks to learn more about companies and products of interest. To combat the new disparity, Jefferies says, the Buzz tab "allows the sales representative to regain some of that power by providing him or her with up-to-the-second information concerning key accounts or prospects."
As social media's role in business matures, privacy and security continue to be among the biggest concerns. "It could be really easy for a sales representative to pluck a ‘sales opportunity' off of Twitter and reach out blindly," Jefferies says. While InsideView boasts "productivity" and "velocity" with the Buzz tab, the technology is only one piece of the puzzle. Success, Jefferies adds, ultimately depends on organizational processes and procedures that will define how information garnered through social media can be applied.
SalesView is available as a standalone product -- Pro ($99 per month for a single-seat license) or Team (enterprise edition, also starting at $99 per month, per seat) -- but CRM users can download the CRM mashup tool SalesView Free at no additional cost when used in conjunction with InsideView partners and customers: Landslide Technologies, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM On Demand, Salesforce.com, and SugarCRM.
"There is no doubt that the CRM landscape is being altered by social media," Jefferies says. The only way your company can effectively manage customer relationships is to be wherever the customers are, and allow them to find you through whatever channel they prefer. Jefferies anticipates that social networks, though they may seem like a chaotic mess of information right now, will prove to be extremely beneficial for sales representatives -- especially, he adds, once they can tap into the connections of their colleagues and their colleagues' friends.
News relevant to the customer relationship management industry is posted several times a day on destinationCRM.com, in addition to the news section Insight that appears every month in the pages of CRM magazine. You may leave a public comment regarding this article by clicking on "Comments" at the top; to contact the editors, please email editor@destinationCRM.com.
Related Articles
SAS Now Monitors the Social Web
16 Apr 2010
SAS Global Forum 2010: The business analytics giant aims to help medium and large enterprises understand customer sentiment and respond.
Sales Intelligence Is More than Smart Selling
25 Apr 2010
With basic CRM no longer a differentiator, the automated "pushing" of sales intelligence may determine who sinks or swims, according to a recent report from Aberdeen Group.
Radian6 Releases an Engagement Console for Social Media
18 Mar 2010
The social media monitoring vendor says the new product "brings the social phone to every desktop in the company."
Socializing with NetSuite and InsideView
10 Nov 2009
NetSuite's first "premier partner" is a vendor that specializes in making social media work for the enterprise.
Alterian Socializes with Techrigy
15 Jul 2009
The marketing automation provider brings social media monitoring onto its platform.
Twitter: Social Media for the Sophisticated User?
21 Jul 2009
"As people become more savvy with social media," says the managing partner of Anderson Analytics, "they pick up Twitter."
Radian6 Listens to the Demand and Integrates with Salesforce.com
09 Jul 2009
The listening platform provider brings social media analysis to the CRM world.
Small Businesses Show Social Networks Some Love
04 Jul 2009
AMI-Partners research indicates that small businesses aren't as slow to get social as some have contended. What's driving adoption? The blurring of the lines between professional and personal uses of social networking.
The 5 Phases of Social Experience
01 Jun 2009
The social Web is about to evolve — again. Are you ready to evolve, too?
Marketo Brings Social Into Sales Insight
19 Jun 2009
Incorporating data from Jigsaw, Demandbase, and LinkedIn, Marketo aims to empower sales with its native Force.com application.
Autonomy Interwoven Unveils Social Media Analytics Tool
13 Jun 2009
Merging social media monitoring with content management, the solution aims to help marketers find meaning and take action.
How Online Social Networking Explains Offline Social Behavior
20 May 2009
International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media '09: Using the digital to explain the analog.
Web Analytics Meets Social Media
16 Apr 2009
Webtrends and Radian6 are the latest vendors to partner up for companies hoping to monitor and respond to online conversations.
New Social Media Not Helping Sales
08 Apr 2009
A recent study affirms that what's cool isn't necessarily what's selling -- or what's helping your company sell more.
The 4 Fail Whales of Social Media Marketing
02 Apr 2009
Web 2.0 Expo '09: Social media thought leaders Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang, and Peter Kim discuss the barriers to social media marketing, and how to encounter them without going "over capacity."
B2B Marketers Still Hesitant to Get Social
23 Oct 2008
Forrester report shows that B2B marketing, unlike its B2C counterpart, may be lax in diving into Web 2.0 business efforts.
Social Media Wants You
10 Oct 2008
Eloqua Experience '08: Charlene Li, the co-author of "Groundswell" and former Forrester Research analyst, offers simple advice for taking on social media: Just do it.
Social Media: The Five-Year Forecast
27 Apr 2009
Social media has only just taken off, says Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang -- and his "Future of the Social Web" report says social networks and marketers will have to change their strategies. "Bad things will happen," he says.
Buyer's Guide Companies Mentioned