The Four “Must Knows” Before you Purchase Software Install Intelligence

 Lead Generation, List Acquisition, List Intelligence, List Management  No Responses »
Apr 292013
 

Competitive Intelligence:  What you must know to be successful (Part 2 of 2)

Below are four steps you should take when selecting a competitive intelligence provider to ensure that you source the best possible information for your sales and marketing program. Taking the time to complete these steps at the outset could save you from a disaster later on.  In today’s world the margin of error is thin, and getting it right the first time can give your organization a competitive advantage. To assist in the evaluation process, please download the following template.

1.      Understand the provider’s research process

Cut through the sales spin to understand how the information is being collected, validated and, most importantly, refreshed.  If the provider’s information is self-reported, try to establish the means by which this is accomplished.  Is it being collected via web forms or through outbound call efforts?   If outbound calling, is the call center located within the United States or is it offshore?  A call center in the Philippines operates differently than one in India.  Keep in mind that it’s unlikely you will receive 100% truthful answers to all of your questions, but organize the provided information and ask follow-up questions to help validate.

2.      Establish a short list of providers

After determining the research process for each potential provider, weed out the weak ones.  This will allow you to evaluate the remaining vendors.  You will want to learn if the software install is a standalone solution or if it’s part of broader business intelligence offering.  Review supporting collateral, videos and client references.  Don’t be afraid to ask the company to provide 10-15 customers who can talk to you directly about the install information that they acquired.  Perhaps call two or three to determine their experience and see if they will share valuable best practices.  Lastly, tap social networks, such as LinkedIn, to glean additional insight on the company.  Organizations with good standing include SiriusDecisions, MOCCA, IDC CMO Advisory, Forrester, Eloqua and the DemandGenReport.

3.      Evaluate providers based on alignment to your install requirements

Determine each provider’s expertise.  Do they focus on select installs, specific industries, or company sizes?  A lot of entrants in this space focus on the more popular installs or ones that tend to be easily identifiable.  Determine if the provider is the one performing the primary research or if they are simply “buying” the information from others.  Similar to the list business, there is a lot of reselling going on behind the scenes which further compounds the ability to quantify accuracy.

 4.      Consider the full loaded cost and not just the cost of the install

Take a step back and determine the full cost of acquiring the competitive intelligence.  First, you need to work with the provider to reformat the data so it can be imported within your CRM or marketing automation platform.  In many cases, this involves standardizing the install names.  This is a logistical task with real expense incurred when the data is applied against a marketing or sales initiative. How much internal and external expense will be incurred when the install intelligence is aligned to a displacement or complimentary program?  More importantly, how much time and resources will sales invest working this intelligence?   If you are a marketer, the last thing you want to do is tarnish the relationship you are building with sales by delivering them bad data.

Summary

Software install intelligence is a double-edged sword and incorrect install information is often worse than no information at all.  If campaign messaging and call scripts are crafted to align to the install intelligence and it is determined to be incorrect, the resulting campaigns will likely underperform.  This problem is further compounded when the provider includes contact names that are either outdated or simply not optimal based on the objectives of your campaign.

When driving demand creation, remember to be discerning. Invest the time to learn the ins and outs of competitive intelligence and ensure that you arm your sales and marketing group with the optimal data.  If you are interested in learning more about this topic or how you can leverage business intelligence attributes to secure a competitive advantage, feel free to contact me directly at bhession@oceanosinc.com

 Posted by at 12:44 pm  Tagged with:

List Optimizer™ – Contact Valuator

 Data Acquisition, Lead Generation, List Intelligence, List Management, Marketing  No Responses »
Feb 132013
 

Oceanos is excited to share a new solution called the List Optimizer™ Contact Valuator.   This solution will allow you to improve your contact prioritization, content alignment and overall sales and marketing efficiencies.

To explain how Contact Valuator works in simple terms, it helps you score contact records based on their alignment to an audience definition.   This is accomplished by first enhancing the contacts with social media, firmagraphics and other intelligence attributes.   Rather than evaluating a contact based solely on their job title and company, the appended intelligence provides insight into the person’s roles and responsibilities.  To establish a valuation the model compares each contact’s “ProspectDNA™”.

To illustrate, let’s say a client is targeting technology security professionals within large organizations.  Between client provided data and those contacts procured by Oceanos, the prospect pool contains 35,000 contacts.

One of these prospects is Mr. John Sample, who based on his contact record is an IT Director at UPS.  As we know, a large organization like UPS will have several IT Directors, many of which will have no influence on technology security. Within an IT security campaign, most marketers would suppress John Sample, simply based on his broad job title.  However, using Contact Valuator, John’s “ProspectDNA™” reveals a very different story.

Let’s look at just his LinkedIn profile.   We see the job title on his profile references IT security.  Also, the Summary and Specialties section reveals a wealth of insight…that he is responsible for Global IT Security, holds multiple ISACA security certifications, and specializes in Information Security, Risk Management, Business Continuity, IT Architecture and Regulatory Compliance.

We can also learn more about UPS including their firmagraphics, financials and technology infrastructure.   Other intelligence attributes that might play a role in the valuation process include trigger events.  It’s clear that John Sample would not only be included in the campaign, but would map to a top decile.

 

Just think how differently you would nurture and message this prospect based on a better understanding of his “ProspectDNA™”.  You might route John Sample directly to an experienced inside sale rep, or perhaps he’s the ideal candidate for a direct mail communication with a personal follow-up phone call.   When you know the lead is top grade, it removes risk and opens creativity.

To find out more how the Oceanos Contact Valuator solution can improve your sales and marketing programs, please view our video:  http://ow.ly/hqUN5 or download our solution sheet:  http://ow.ly/hqVgY

Or feel free to contact Brian Hession, President & Founder of Oceanos at bhession@oceanosinc.com

 

 Posted by at 12:28 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

2013: Contact Discovery is in the Midst of a Sea Change

 Data Acquisition, Lead Generation, List Acquisition, List Intelligence, List Management, Marketing  No Responses »
Jan 182013
 

My biggest take away from 2012 is that data acquisition will change more in the next year than in the previous five.  Previously, the name of the game was to procure as many contacts as possible that aligned to a prospect definition and embark them on a nurture program.  Competitive advantage was created by identifying  more names than your competition.  I recall the SiriusDecisions quote, “The battle between competitors is being won and lost at the top of the funnel.”  This approach still has merit, but it’s the execution that has and will continue to change.  Let me explain.

Many marketers pin their data acquisition needs on a few well-known providers.  This is understandable since they provide access to millions of contact records and the logistics of managing more vendors taxes your internal resources. These same providers are Oceanos vendors and we strongly advocate their value in a demand creation strategy.

However, our analysis reveals that their combined reach is typically 30% of a client’s target audience.  In addition, their strong brand awareness ensures that their contacts reside in both you and your competitor’s database.  It’s clear that the company most effectively nurturing the other 70% will win the so-called battle.

As a savvy marketer, what do you do?  The optimal approach is similar to an investment portfolio: source contacts from a large network to produce a custom data asset that is stronger than the sum of its parts.  It’s the execution that presents all the challenges including data asset identification, internal logistics, cost negotiation and timing.

Because you can go only so far with third party feeds, there is a point where custom research is necessary to identify incremental contacts.  Custom discovery requires web and social media mining along with other research driven techniques.  But it’s these contacts, which cannot be acquired via third party, that provide the competitive advantage.  For this reason, finding a partner that has the know-how and technology to accomplish this in scale is invaluable.

Out with the old and in with the new and undiscovered.  Make 2013 the year of achieving your competitive advantage; where better to start than at the top of your funnel.

View our video for more information on Oceanos:  http://ow.ly/gHxVi

Brian Hession is President & Founder of Oceanos and can be reached at bhession@oceanosinc.com

 Posted by at 6:55 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Oceanos Celebrates 10th Anniversary

 Data Acquisition, Lead Generation, List Acquisition, List Intelligence, List Management, Marketing  No Responses »
Nov 072012
 

On November 8th, Oceanos will celebrate it’s 10th Anniversary – a milestone for our company!   We’ve come a long way from our original start in Marshfield 2002.  From those humble beginnings, Oceanos has thrived and grown into an industry leader in database marketing.  We’ve evolved as a research and advisory firm that designs data strategies to support all types of demand creation strategies.  Our solutions are powered by proprietary List Optimizer™ technology and smart, focused people.   We view ourselves as data consultants, akin to an investment firm, but rather than stocks we analyze data.  This includes both traditional list sources along with all types of business intelligence.

Sales and marketing organizations look to us to architect a data portfolio that aligns to their prospect definition, is scalable and will drive returns.  The expertise we provide is not just selecting data source A over B, but rather the ability to combine pieces of data, from a multitude of sources resulting in a solution that is stronger than the sum of its parts.  It’s maximizing data utility to support both contact prioritization and the ability to segment and align messaging to tightly defined audiences.  This is List Intelligence™  and our blue chip client roster is the proof that we deliver results.

Over the years, we are proud to report that Oceanos has received numerous business and industry accolades including articles in the “Boston Business Journal” as well as being named to “Inc. Magazine’s” Fastest Growing Private Company list for three consecutive years.  Our impressive client roster includes blue chip clients such as Iron Mountain, Autodesk, Bloomberg, Citrix, CA Technologies and Lenovo.   Thank you to all our clients for helping make Oceanos a success.

As Oceanos approaches its 10th anniversary, we are more confident now than ever that our intellectual capital and technology has created a very special company.  To learn more about Oceanos can provide you with a unique data strategy, view our new video: http://youtu.be/zcOiTM30_W4

If you are interested in learning how Oceanos can optimize your demand creation activities, feel free to contact Brian Hession, President and Founder at bhession@oceanosinc.com

 

 Posted by at 10:45 am  Tagged with: , , , ,

Welcome to the List Intelligence™ Blog!

 Lead Generation  No Responses »
Oct 112011
 

We are excited to announce our new blog as a venue for discussion around industry trends in lead generation and demand creation marketing. As the marketing industry matures and evolves, we are excited to move into this new phase of building a community discussion and staying at the forefront of trends. Subscribe to our blog for updates from thought leaders in the demand generation field.

We launched Oceanos ten years ago with the vision of providing marketers with ”List Intelligence™” to optimize their demand creation programs. In 2010, we took another big leap forward with the launch of List Optimizer™, our proprietary software that creates list strategies to support all types of demand creation and database building programs.

In addition, our Data Asset Management Group now partners with select clients to provide risk mitigation, diversification and cost certainty strategies to ensure data investment optimization.  We are able to build custom data sets with unmatched precision and reach.

Have any suggestions on what’d you like to see here? Leave us a comment!

 Posted by at 8:26 am  Tagged with: , ,
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