The economic downturn caused many BtoB organizations to downsize, creating an even greater challenge to “do more with less.” By leveraging marketing automation technology, Paymetric, Inc., a provider of integrated and secure electronic payment acceptance solutions, doubled its running campaigns by tightly integrating marketing automation and CRM tools.

With less than five salespeople, Paymetric was challenged to re-energize its marketing efforts to extend campaign development and better analyze prospect behavior. Migrating from an automation system that was not cost efficient for its business model, Paymetric tapped Pardot in October 2009 to implement its automation features, including email marketing, nurturing, scoring and social media tools.

One month after filing an IPO that raised closed to $80 million, Responsys announced first quarter revenues were up 56% to $30.1 million, from $19.4 million in the same period last year.

The provider of email and cross-channel marketing solutions saw significant gains from its professional services division, with revenue for the first quarter of 2011 reaching $9.2 million, up 102% from $4.5 million in the first quarter of 2010.

Subscription revenue for the first quarter of 2011 was $21.0 million, up 41% from $14.9 million in the first quarter of 2010.

DemandGen Report Editor Andrew Gaffney caught up with Tom Pisello, Founder of Alinean and Author of the ROI Guy Blog at the SiriusDecisions Summit May 4-6, 2011 in San Francisco, which drew a crowd of more than 1,000 sales and marketing professionals. Pisello shared some of the key takeaways from the Summit, including the increased focus on sales enablement solutions and strategies.

Noting the critical need for BtoB marketing and sales team to nurture the problem of “frugalnomics,” or more empowered, skeptical buyers, Pisello shared details about Alinean’s interactive tools designed to move buyers through the buying cycle. To speak to the new breed of BtoB buyers, Alinean offers interactive white papers, diagnostic assessment tools and ROI benefit calculators to help organizations deliver relevant, engagement offers throughout the buying cycle.

DemandGen Report Editor Andrew Gaffney caught up with Tom Pisello, Founder of Alinean and Author of the ROI Guy Blog at the SiriusDecisions Summit May 4-6, 2011 in San Francisco, which drew a crowd of more than 1,000 sales and marketing professionals. Pisello shared some of the key takeaways from the Summit, including the increased focus on sales enablement solutions and strategies.

Noting the critical need for BtoB marketing and sales team to nurture the problem of “frugalnomics,” or more empowered, skeptical buyers, Pisello shared details about Alinean’s interactive tools designed to move buyers through the buying cycle. To speak to the new breed of BtoB buyers, Alinean offers interactive white papers, diagnostic assessment tools and ROI benefit calculators to help organizations deliver relevant, engagement offers throughout the buying cycle.

Channelinsight, a provider of cloud-based channel management solutions, announced a channel sales management suite in the cloud. The Channelinsight application suite is designed to enable organizations to effectively increase channel sales, optimize channel inventory, maximize return on incentive programs and meet compliance requirements. Channelinsight customers include: Fairchild Semiconductor, nVidia, Brocade, Enterasys Networks and Data Robotics.

Channel sales bring a set of challenges that those in direct sales don’t face.  Across a range of critical metrics, an average of 2% to 4% gain in gross margin from reduced leakage is associated with price erosion and overpayment of channel price incentives, according to research from The Yankee Group. To provide necessary visibility into channel sales and inventory data, Channelinsight tracks every partner and every end-customer in each transaction.

The new technologies and processes being implemented by leading BtoB companies means marketing and sales are more reliant than ever on content. However, in one of the closing keynote sessions at the recent SiriusDecisions Summit, Jay Gaines, Service Director for Demand Creation Strategies at SiriusDecisions, pointed out that most BtoB companies are lacking accountability, strategy and measurement when it comes to content.

“If content is king, then people treat that king pretty badly,” Gaines said during a session titled, Content: The Heart of Effective Demand Creation. Illustrating his point, Gaines conducted a poll of the audience that found 76% of attendees cited content as critical to their demand creation efforts. However, responding to a follow-up question, 41% of attendees said lack of budget and resources or the lack of a content strategy provided significant hurdles to their efforts.

The new technologies and processes being implemented by leading BtoB companies means marketing and sales are more reliant than ever on content. However, in one of the closing keynote sessions at the recent SiriusDecisions Summit, Jay Gaines, Service Director for Demand Creation Strategies at SiriusDecisions, pointed out that most BtoB companies are lacking accountability, strategy and measurement when it comes to content.

“If content is king, then people treat that king pretty badly,” Gaines said during a session titled, Content: The Heart of Effective Demand Creation. Illustrating his point, Gaines conducted a poll of the audience that found 76% of attendees cited content as critical to their demand creation efforts. However, responding to a follow-up question, 41% of attendees said lack of budget and resources or the lack of a content strategy provided significant hurdles to their efforts.