Home Blog Page 5286

Mediafly Unveils New Sales Enablement Platform Experience for the Future of Evolved Selling

New user interface along with flexible workflow features and design capabilities enable dynamic selling conversations, leading to increase in adoption and impact in the field

Mediafly, a provider of sales enablement technology, content management, and advisory services that create interactive, value-based selling experiences, presents a brand new platform interface and added functionality to meet the needs of sellers across the globe. In addition to the updated user experience, new capabilities include Mediafly Workspaces, Story Mapper and Tool Builder, which provide users the ability to customize in-app experiences on their own, without incremental coding resources, including designing custom ROI calculators. As part of the new platform experience, Mediafly is introducing a new iOS app – Mediafly Next.

While companies have the best intentions when unveiling new sales enablement solutions, many of these deployments fail. According to one study, U.S. organizations wasted $30 billion on unused software over the course of four years. Often times, this is due to technology not meeting the expectations of its users. For sellers, lack of customization and legacy solutions leave them scrambling to find relevant content and value-based evidence to provide the personalized sales interactions that modern buyers require. Admins and leaders of these teams are left to figure out how to design and organize the information that sellers need to succeed. Unfortunately, for many organizations, the process of designing an intuitive presentation app experience with interactive content that gains positive feedback and ultimately, a purchase, requires an unrealistic investment of time and budget.

Read More: 6sense Launches Account-Based External Media Campaigns Analytics

“Sales enablement technology should be flexible, easy to use and allow for customization,” said Jason Shah, CTO at Mediafly. “Our customers want to personalize their solutions so they can provide the best experience to their buyers. With the new Mediafly, users can continue to feel well equipped in their sales conversations, providing value to their buyers at a faster rate, helping to increase revenue and exceed quotas.”

To help sales teams evolve from traditional content management portals and presentation tools like PowerPoint and guide them on how to improve sales, Mediafly gives users access to a modern, sophisticated, consumer-like presentation app experience across desktop and mobile. Now admins and sales reps can easily self-author and experience an interface with animations, customizable layouts and navigation, and interactive content without added support from Mediafly or IT.

Mediafly’s release includes three new capabilities: Mediafly Workspaces, Story Mapper and Tool Builder. With Workspaces, admins have the power to create a mobile presentation interface with the navigation and content they want the sales teams to leverage, and sellers can find the content they need with ease for their unique sales presentation. Through Story Mapper, sellers can instantly pivot to relevant content in their presentation to better address buyers needs and questions. This allows them to create buyer-focused conversations through an interactive and value-add interaction.

Read More: Blue Fountain Media, A Pactera Company, Announces Partnership with BigCommerce

Value-add experiences are increasingly important as B2B buyers become more budget restrained and risk-averse. In fact, six in 10 buyers want to discuss pricing on the first call. Mediafly’s Tool Builder gives sellers the flexibility to customize interactive tools such as ROI and TCO calculators in an easy-to-use environment, saving the user time and energy. Sellers can provide buyers with meaningful value messaging, compelling insights and credible financial justification that is unique to that specific buyer in every sales conversation.

“Since we started using Mediafly, our customers have rated their experience higher, citing things like the ability of reps to give them the best information in the moment,” said Tom Stubbs, Sales Capability Communications Manager at PepsiCo. “Mediafly gives us the ability to design a modern sales experience customers value.”

Mediafly’s latest sales enablement technology updates are just a few of the ways Mediafly helps sellers and marketers create, deliver, and analyze engaging sales presentations. Mediafly’s continued focus on enhancing how brands engage prospective buyers was recently recognized by G2. The sales enablement platform was named a Leader in G2’s Spring 2019 Grid Report for Sales Enablement. The grid, which is based on customer satisfaction and market presence, highlights that 96 percent of Mediafly users rated the platform 4 or 5 stars and 90 percent of users would recommend Mediafly’s platform. Additionally, Mediafly was recognized as a SAP Finalist for SAP App Center Partner of the Year. The award recognizes SAP partners with world-class solutions, contributing a significant amount to SAP revenue, a solid track record of customer success and a solid business plan for continued partner success.

Read More: HG Insights Fuels Precision Marketing and Sales Programs at Scale with Marketo Engage

96% of People Have Seen Ads That Reference Their Location, Indicating the Prevalence of Location-Specific Advertising

Location tracking is becoming more integrated into users’ online behavior. Nearly 8 in 10 people (79%) have used geotags on social media and 38% of people have accidentally shared their location via an app

Nearly all people (96%) have seen advertisements that reference their location, showcasing the widespread use of location tracking technology. This data comes from a new survey on location-based advertising by The Manifest, a business news and how-to website.

Only 15% of people rarely or never see ads that reference their location.

Businesses recognize the benefits of location-specific advertisements.

“By knowing their location, I can get to know what kind of facilities they might have, what kind of connections they might have, and what kind of access to systems they might have,” said Sudeep Srivasta, CEO of AppInventiv, a mobile app development company in India. “Based on that, I can show them some offers, some coupons, some products.”

Read More: ZOOM Announces Elevēo WFM

Location tracking data does create more targeted advertising, though, and 80% of people are more likely to make a purchase when offered a personalized ad experience.

Still, when faced with the morality of ad personalization, only 17% say they find targeted advertising ethical.

Consumers may be willing to compromise on ethics for the benefits targeted advertising offers, though.

More Than One-Third of People Have Accidentally Shared Their Location

More than one-third of people (38%) have accidentally shared their location with someone and only realized it later. Of this group, almost half of people (46%) stopped sharing their location, but kept the app on their phone while 40% continued to share their location through the app.

Most people are not concerned with accidentally sharing their location because the benefits of the app outweigh the potential dangers of sharing their location with a stranger.

“I did realize once that I had continued to share my location with a friend long after we were done hanging out,” said Liz Jeneault, vice president of marketing at Faveable.com, a product reviews site. “While this was a close friend…I made sure to turn off location sharing once I discovered it.”

Read More: Tipalti Partners with Everflow to Provide Performance Marketing Tracking, Analytics, and Global Publisher Payouts in One Platform

More Than Three-Quarters of People Use Geo-Tags on Social Media

Geo-tags are widely used, allowing people to mark their location on social media and share what they are doing with their friends.

More than three-quarters of people (79%) have used a geo-tag on a social media post to alert others to where they are or where a photo was taken.

This location information not only updates your followers, but also the social platform to where you are, which can increase targeted ad experiences. It can also pose security risks, though, since all your followers on social media know where you are and if you are away from home.

The Manifest’s 2019 Location-Tracking Apps Survey included 727 people who use location-tracking apps from across the U.S.

Read More: AssureSign Ranks Top 20 in Comparably Workplace Ratings

Zylotech Appoints Chief Revenue Officer to Support Next Phase of Growth

Zylotech announced the expansion of its management team, appointing Patrick O’Brien as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). In an increasingly evolving landscape, the role of the CRO has become increasingly important in establishing operating procedures that keep organizations oriented towards success. In this new role, Patrick O’Brien will be responsible for leading Zylotech’s sales and business efforts to support the company’s next phase of growth and its expanding go-to-market plans.

While being a key member of the executive management team, O’Brien will lead the core business strategy across the company’s various business silos enabling the management team to gain valuable new insights. O’Brien brings more than two decades of leadership experience working across functional business areas to develop and launch successful revenue generating programs that accelerate growth. With a focus on cultivating deeper B2B customer and partner relationships, he has successfully led the implementation of new revenue programs for multiple advertising and marketing technology companies throughout his career. His appointment follows Zylotech’s recent move to its newly expanded headquarters in Cambridge fueled by ongoing demand for its customer intelligence solutions. 

Read More: Asperii Announces the Opening of Its London Office

“We are excited that Patrick has joined our leadership team to lead our growth, revenue planning and execution strategies as we continue to drive a new paradigm,” said Abhi Yadav, Co-founder and CEO of Zylotech. “As more organizations tap into the power of our self-learning customer intelligence platform, we are in position to expand our market reach. With Patrick’s proven track record for developing successful revenue programs, his deep experience is strategically important in advancing our go-to-market strategy.”

Read More: Webinars Emerge As Top Learning Format For B2B Professionals

Most recently, O’Brien guided the development and launch of a new audience targeting solution in his role as Executive Vice President for Dun & Bradstreet. Prior to that he was Vice President, Business Development at Bizo (acquired by LinkedIn), where he established a partner and reseller network to solidify the company’s leadership in the B2B digital marketing and advertising sector. Previous to those positions, he was on the leadership teams of more than half a dozen successful internet, advertising and marketing startups.

 “Zylotech is at the forefront of the customer-tech movement enabling organizations to use AI technologies to automate data, decision practices and achieve timely insights,” said Patrick O’Brien, Chief Revenue Officer of Zylotech. “I’m thrilled to join Zylotech at this key growth stage and work alongside its talented leadership team to define and execute on the company’s vision for expanding its operations and offerings.”

Read More: Zilliant Showcases End-To-End Pricing and Sales Growth Capabilities at MindShare 2019

ZOOM Announces Elevēo WFM

ZOOM International, the leader in driving customer experience through the emotion of the customer, takes a major step in the Workforce Engagement Management market with the release of the Elevēo platform including the new Elevēo WFM. This announcement represents the culmination of two major milestone initiatives for ZOOM International, the release of a new Workforce Management product as well as their first native cloud platform “as a Service offering”.

Unlike other companies that continue to expand via mergers and acquisitions, Elevēo was created by ZOOM to ensure an optimized workflow and ease of use. Our industry is fragmented, and we wanted to help customers expand from spreadsheets and multiple vendors to one.

Forecasting and Scheduling Simplified

Anyone who works in a contact center will agree that administratively, managing a workforce is difficult, time consuming, and counter intuitive by nature. Even when the “herding cats” element of agents self-scheduling is removed, trying to align a staff (who may or may not be supportive of the effort) with best guess for coverage needs, the “math & science” portion of scheduling can be daunting. Top this off with the fact that in most scenarios, the scheduling effort is often an “extra duty” of supervisors in the contact center rather than their primary responsibility. The result is daunting at best and a truly difficult set of tasks to accomplish at worst.

ZOOM products have a reputation for being easy to grasp and master by their customers. In continuing the tradition of solving complex contact center problems with intuitive solutions, ZOOM has taken a deliberate and focused approach with Elevēo WFM. “The consistent and overwhelming feedback from both our customers and the commercial market is that the WFM landscape continues to build more and more features geared at the enterprise market”. The bells and whistles along with the algorithms are designed to meet the needs of enterprise customers instead of the vast majority of contact centers”, quips ZOOM CTO Bill Devlin.

Read More: 8×8 Introduces Service Management for Contact Centers to Help Organizations Provide Best-In-Class Customer Experiences

Elevēo WFM is about delivering a powerful, intuitive solution less focused on features than on the creation of an ideal user experience with positive results. Elevēo WFM aims to reduce the stress and complexity commercial and mid-market customer face when using or evaluating traditional WFM solutions.

Native Cloud Powered

The Elevēo WFM product is only half of the story. ZOOM’s new product is powered by a new platform, designed with native cloud architecture, processes and software from the ground up. ZOOM has had a strong history of delivering reliable, scalable, secure solutions for both premise and hosted deployment models with 2000+ deployments in over 90 countries. Until now, ZOOM did not offer any products “as a Service”. Elevēo is about to change that.

Under the hood Elevēo is powered by cloud native software including Kubernetes, Docker, Prometheus, Grafana, Kafka, Helm, Packer, and many more. Devlin comments, “we have a vision to create a single code base deployable anywhere — whether your needs drive you to a premise, cloud, hybrid or as a Service model, ZOOM will be there every step of the way.” He continues: “Our customers’ infrastructure needs are very diverse. Elevēo addresses those needs head on. We will not shackle customers to bare metal, VMWare, Hyper-V, Azure, AWS, or any other set of infrastructure. What we will do is offer customers the same business benefits of a deploy anywhere native cloud solution with high scalability, reliability, elasticity, security and flexibility.”

Read More: TiVo Integrates Demographic Attributes, Ad Airings, and Mobile Devices into TV Viewership Data Product, Helping Connect the Media and Advertising Industries to Viewers

The Road to Elevēo

For its debut, Elevēo will be available as a service-based cloud product targeted for commercial WFM customers. In the months that follow, Elevēo’s footprint will evolve to incorporate more features from the ZOOM suite culminating in its availability for deployment on premise, hybrid, or in the cloud. ZOOM’s culture of innovation is fueling some bold visions from CTO Devlin, “we aim to have workflow driven automation across our WEM platform which leverages machine learning, artificial intelligence, speech and text analytics and NLP. We are using these technologies to create single click workflows for quality management and custom forecasting algorithms for commercial customers using artificial intelligence and machine learning, and we are just getting started.”

Elevēo WFM is slated for launch by the end of July 2019.

Read More: Brightlink Releases CPaaS Platform 2.0

Tipalti Partners with Everflow to Provide Performance Marketing Tracking, Analytics, and Global Publisher Payouts in One Platform

Partnership Enables Seamless Global Publisher Relationship Management and Improved Risk Management

Tipalti, the leading payables automation solution, announced a new partnership with Everflow, a cloud-based Partner Marketing Platform that provides partner management, deterministic Anti-Fraud tools, and automated optimization for marketers. The partnership provides Everflow customers with complete performance tracking, analytics, and global payouts in a single dashboard for a seamless user experience.

Through the integrated solutions, Everflow customers are now able to automate all global publisher and affiliate payments, strengthening those partner relationships. The joint solution combines Everflow’s performance marketing tracking, analytics, and automation with Tipalti’s unique publisher payouts processing to 190 countries, 6 payment methods, and in 120 local currencies. The combined solution also helps reduce risk for ad tech clients by keeping them in compliance with global payment regulations and tax codes.

Read More: Swiftpage Launches All-In-One Act! Growth Suite Sales & Marketing Platform for SMBs

Everflow has embedded the Tipalti publisher onboarding portal directly into its platform, where publishers provide their payment and tax details, which are instantly validated to reduce payment errors. This saves time for Everflow customers by eliminating manual data entry. Payment instructions are automatically sent to Tipalti based on Everflow performance data per each partner/affiliate and Tipalti provides proactive payment status communications to publishers.

“The Everflow-Tipalti integration has been integral in streamlining our processes, from driving performance to payment,” says Jen Lee, Head of Affiliate, Ro, a telehealth company. “We’re able to focus on what matters, driving high quality industry compliant performance with our partners. Managing our Affiliate department has become easier knowing that the payments will be processed seamlessly while also maintaining compliance.”

Read More: ListenFirst’s State of Social TV Report Provides Key Insights To Boost Strategy Performance

“Publisher relationships are critical to the success of performance marketing networks and programs,” said Chen Amit, CEO and co-founder of Tipalti. “Our partnership with Everflow makes publisher payouts more seamless, reduces fraud risk, and offers a rich, global payment experience.”

“Our integration with Tipalti provides a key value for our customers, the ability to painlessly pay their partners automatically from inside the platform,” said Sam Darawish, CEO, Everflow. “More importantly for our customers is the ability to globally process payments with full compliance for local taxes and regulations. We live in a global world, and our customers need an effective way to work with their partners across international markets.”

Read More: Comscore Expands Partnership with Lockwood Broadcast Group to Exclusive Measurement Deal

AssureSign Ranks Top 20 in Comparably Workplace Ratings

AssureSign employees provide feedback on the company, culture and leadership, receiving recognition from workplace culture and compensation organization

A leading company in electronic signature innovation, AssureSign, has announced its rankings with Comparably Workplace.

Comparably, a workplace culture and compensation monitoring site, provides transparent feedback and rewards workplaces. Employees have access to salary data and rate their companies, CEOs and work experiences through the lens of specific demographics, including gender, ethnicity, age, tenure, industry, location and education.

Read More: Brand Networks Acquires Clickable; Unveils Azalea Commerce to Accelerate “Shopper Centric” Walled Gardens

Based on employee feedback and data from companies located in the metro area, a survey was conducted and questions were asked in regards to the CEO, workplace, diversity, teams, culture, executive team, etc., and AssureSign received the following ratings:

Read More: TextUs Introduces The “Text Us” Call to Action – The Evolution of the “Contact Us” That Lets Customers Text Message Businesses

AssureSign currently ranks in the top 30 percent of companies similar in size within the U.S. and ranks in the top 15 percent of companies in Atlanta.

AssureSign simplifies the world’s most powerful action—the signature. Available as an on-premise, customizable solution for the enterprise, and as an on-demand, SaaS solution for small business, AssureSign enables any business to create and execute a secure and seamless signature experience. By offering the electronic signature industry’s most flexible API, AssureSign has also built an extensive partner program with a proven revenue stream. Founded in 2000, AssureSign has executed over 400 million electronic signatures for many of the world’s most well-known brands.

Read More: New Data: Facebook and Google Trounce Amazon for D2C Brand Ad Spend

Blue Fountain Media, A Pactera Company, Announces Partnership with BigCommerce

Partnership will help Blue Fountain Media offer its global client roster unique abilities to scale their businesses and sell more online

Blue Fountain Media, a Pactera Company, announced a partnership with BigCommerce to offer clients custom-designed-and-developed commerce experiences online, powered by BigCommerce, the leading commerce platform for fast-growing and mid-market brands.  By adding BigCommerce to its suite of technology partners, Blue Fountain Media continues its commitment of providing best-in-class services to clients by pairing the solutions it offers as a full-service digital marketing agency with those of the industry’s leading technology providers.

“BigCommerce provides us with a robust platform on which to create enhanced digital commerce experiences for our clients that will exponentially drive sales and business growth,” said Brian Byer, Vice President and General Manager of Blue Fountain Media, a Pactera Company. “This new partnership aligns with Blue Fountain Media’s focus on pairing with leading platform-partners to build custom solutions for businesses looking for impactful growth online.”

Read More: ZeroBounce Offers Marketers Solution to Validate Catch-All Email Addresses

Through its partnership with BigCommerce, Blue Fountain Media will bring a new level of integration, service and support to its commerce-focused clients. Companies of all sizes work with BigCommerce to launch, promote, manage and scale successful online businesses through its platform.

“At BigCommerce, our core focus is providing our merchants access to all the tools and services they need to scale and maintain a successful business – and that includes introducing them to industry-leading agencies like Blue Fountain Media,” said Daniel Fertig, Director of Agency Partnerships at BigCommerce. “I’m excited to welcome such a well-respected and talented agency into our partner program, and look forward to working with them to bring additional value to BigCommerce merchants seeking a differentiated and optimized website experience.”

Read More: TiVo Integrates Demographic Attributes, Ad Airings, and Mobile Devices into TV Viewership Data Product, Helping Connect the Media and Advertising Industries to Viewers

The partnership solidifies Blue Fountain Media’s unmatchable digital prowess, and is the latest platform to partner with the agency. BigCommerce joins other leading technology providers, such as Acquia, Sitecore and WP Engine, in partnering with Blue Fountain Media to solve the complex challenges faced by brands and businesses looking to create data-driven, custom experiences for audiences online.

Read More: Brightlink Releases CPaaS Platform 2.0

5 Lessons Email Marketers Can Learn from Captain Marvel

dyspatch logoCarol Danvers endures a lot of heartache in the film Captain Marvel. In the process of becoming a superhero, she is abducted by an alien race, has her memory altered, and is bullied by the Supreme Intelligence (who takes the form of Dr. Wendy Lawson, a.k.a. Mar-Vell).

Such is the hero’s journey, from the ordinary world to a special world and back again. Marketers might feel twinges of recognition at Danvers’ journey. They, too, need to penetrate the inner sanctum of the consumer world to gain insight and bring something of value back to their target customer. They might also learn a few things from Danvers’ experience, lessons that can be applied to their own daily machinations.

The following are five key lessons Captain Marvel learns during the course of the film that marketers can apply to their world:

Try, Try Again.

From childhood, Danvers tries and fails at multiple things. She falls off her bike, crashes a go-kart, and downs an experimental aircraft. But every time, she gets right back up and tries again. Email marketers need to accept that mistakes happen and that any company can occasionally screw up badly enough to require the dreaded “Oops” follow-up. But when a mistake does happen, marketers should take a lesson from Carol and try again, rather than playing it safe to avoid a repeat occurrence.

When a mistake happens, be proactive and upfront about it. Address the problem directly and honestly, even if it’s unclear of how or where the mistake originated. A good example of being proactive and getting ahead of an Oops comes from Capital One Eno. The company detected two identical credit card charges from the same retailer, occurring at exactly the same time. But rather than waiting for the customer to dispute the duplicate, or wasting time blaming the retailer, the unusual card activity triggered an email asking the customer to confirm whether the second charge was an error. If your credit card company sends you an email with the subject line, “It looks like you were charged twice,” you’re going to open it immediately. That’s what we call phenomenal customer experience.

Read More: In Pursuit Of A Frictionless Sales Experience In 2019

Be a Trailblazer!

Before becoming Captain Marvel, Carol was a fighter pilot. A female fighter pilot. In 1989. She was blazing new trails long before she acquired any powers. Marketers would do well to remember that some of the highest performing email campaigns are often the result of abandoning the status quo and taking a chance on an innovative idea. For instance, Honda provides new customers with a link to a personalized web page. Also included are links to full instructions – some with video – on how to get started with specific features, which beats the heck out of searching through a 900+ page owners’ manual.

Ask For Help.

Even Captain Marvel can’t do it alone. She enlists the help of a pre-Avengers Nick Fury, old friend and fellow fighter pilot Maria Rambaugh (pronounced Rambo—get it?), Talos the Skrull, and Goose the cat/Flerkin. Similarly, to create great emails, marketers need to collaborate with great designers, copywriters, and developers. Check out how a creative art department helped make this email, from online investment management firm WealthSimple, into something beautiful enough to share with friends.

Make Good Use of the Right Tools.

Captain Marvel uses her powers, of course, but when a great tool can help, she doesn’t hesitate to put it to use. She McGyvers a 90’s era pager to communicate with aliens in space; she heists a motorcycle and later an old cargo plane to escape the bad guys and find Maria, and she uses a computer with a dial-up modem to access the Internet.

Similarly, good emails need good tools for building, testing, analyzing, planning, deploying, and more. There’s no way to know exactly what tool (or tools) Wayfair is using for this email but they’re using it extremely well. That ‘You Might Also Need’ list is personalized based on both the current purchase and on recently browsed product categories, making the customer feel both known and appreciated.

Read More: How To Create A Sales Deck That Closes Deals For You

Humor is a Distraction… But Use it Anyway.

In the training scene at the beginning of the movie, Yon-Rogg tells Vers that humor is a distraction. But Carol keeps her sense of humor anyway — and she still defeats Yon-Rogg. Just one example: When Korath tells her he found being simmed by a Skrull disturbing because, “I stared into the face of my mortal enemy, and the face staring back was my own,” Carol retorts, “Maybe if you were more attractive, then it would be less disturbing.”

When used appropriately, in ways that suit your brand personality, humor can serve you extremely well. Humor can help you engage your customers on a human level, creating a genuine connection. But be careful of when, where, and how you try to interject a laugh — as any veteran email marketer will tell you, when poorly timed or badly executed, a joke can just as easily alienate. A great example is this email from All Birds, hitting just the right note with a play-on-words and a dancing sheep that are both fun while remaining perfectly on-brand.

These are just a few of the lessons marketers can glean from Captain Marvel. Being more like Carol Danvers has few downsides, so don’t be afraid to take some risks, use great tools, ask for help when you need it, and connect with your customers over a chuckle now and then. As Carol says, aim, “Higher, further, faster, baby.”

Read More: Data Is The Differentiator For Best Of Breed Sales Readiness Platforms