Feature Articles

According to a recent survey, B2B sales and marketing professionals rely heavily on virtual conversations with prospects and customers, yet few of them have the training or tools necessary to make the most of these interactions.

The survey, conducted by sales and marketing messaging company Corporate Visions, polled more than 600 salespeople and marketers about their business practices in virtual environments – including phone, email and web-based formats. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they usually conduct virtual sales calls to group audiences, and 42% of those surveyed said their audiences typically include high-level executives.

Microsoft Corp. last week hosted its Convergence Event in Houston, TX, highlighting a variety of added functionality and integrations for sales and marketing teams.

Marketing automation vendors cite a rapidly growing interest among customers in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, which, according to industry insiders, is now ranking as the number two platform behind Salesforce from an adoption perspective. Industry insiders point to unique capabilities of the Dynamics CRM platform, such as closed loop marketing, lead importing, campaign response capture and dashboards, as drivers for the growth.