This section highlights news announcements, solution provider growth news and platform enhancements in the B2B industry.
Brainshark, Inc., a provider of online and mobile presentations, announced a set of new features for SlideShark Team Edition, a multi-user version of the company's SlideShark mobile app for viewing and sharing PowerPoints on the iPad.
The executive teams of Manticore Technology and Sales Engine International, a B2B integrated marketing and sales acceleration company, this week announced an agreement to merge the organizations. Effective May 31, 2012, Manticore and Sales Engine — partners and mutual clients since 2009 — have merged to form a new company that will operate as Sales Engine International.
The combined resources of the new organization, according to a joint press release, will focus on combating common problems faced by marketing automation users, including a lack of defined internal processes, inadequate content and insufficient dedicated staffing.
NetProspex announced yesterday it received $7 million in Series B funding, led by information technology investment firm Edison Ventures, which had already invested $8.8 million in the company over the course of two rounds.
NetProspex reported it will use the funds to increase sales, accelerate channel partner integrations and support innovative product development.
“This investment supports aggressive expansion toward category leadership in cloud-based data services,” said Gary Halliwell, NetProspex CEO. “Bad data costs marketers significant missed revenue opportunity and costs hundreds of dollars per record to fix. Chief marketing officers need to get a grip on data hygiene, which is at the heart of what we’re doing. We are thrilled to have the power of Edison’s network and operational insight as we continue to grow and address these issues.”
Salesforce announced Monday that it will acquire Buddy Media, a leading social media marketing platform, in a cash and equity deal valued at approximately $689 million. The transaction is expected to be completed during salesforce.com’s fiscal third quarter ending October 31, 2012, and is subject to customary closing conditions.
By combining Buddy Media with Salesforce Radian6, its social media listening platform, Salesforce says it will deliver a “Marketing Cloud” focused on enabling users to listen, engage, gain insight, publish, advertise and measure social marketing programs.
Google Analytics has added LogMyCalls, a call tracking and mobile marketing automation solution developed by ContactPoint, to its Phone Call Tracking App Gallery. The integration will enable marketers to leverage the Google suite of apps alongside LogMyCalls.
LogMyCalls is a call tracking application that ties call data and call recordings into Google Analytics and CRM solutions. The integrated platform allows marketers to track phone conversions and web conversions within Google Analytics. Integrated with Google Analytics new Multi-Channel Conversion Paths, LogMyCalls features, the solution enables marketers to leverage the platform to track both phone calls and web visits step-by-step through the conversion process.
The Marketing Automation Institute (MAI), a vendor-neutral marketing automation certification organization, and the Online Marketing Institute (OMI), a provider of digital marketing training education, announced a strategic partnership to offer bundled curriculum and certification, online learning and other educational offerings to better serve the fast-growing market.
The goal of the partnership is to further promote education in marketing, whether it is traditional online marketing subjects, including demand generation, social, mobile, digital and marketing automation.
SiriusDecisions unveiled an update to its proprietary Demand Waterfall, a model designed to unify sales and marketing teams and to establish closed-loop processes. The research firm shared the new model at the SiriusDecisions Summit, held last week in Scottsdale, Ariz. The new model focuses on managing leads sourced across a variety of channels, including sales, marketing and teleprospecting. Click here to learn more about the new Waterfall.
eTrigue Corporation recently announced the availability of new webcast event-management and prospect-management features for its marketing automation suite, eTrigue DemandCenter.
The new webcast event management capabilities are designed to simplify webcast workflow with drag-and-drop customization and automatic population of registration and attendance information into the marketing database. Marketers gain context to visitor activity with drill-down access for event details, visits and contact touch points.
HubSpot announced yesterday the addition of a revised email marketing system and contact database to its core product lineup.
Focused on providing marketers with tools to maximize their prospect and customer data, HubSpot’s new contacts database is designed to centralize information and integrate with CRM and existing systems. Coupled with HubSpot’s marketing software, the solution enables marketers to track contacts’ online browsing history, email history, form submissions and social media information, captured in the same profile.
