As part of my sales 2.0 case studies, I introduced Brainshark, a provider of an SaaS platform that helps organizations create, narrate, share, and track online multimedia presentations. Analysts expect that Brainshark may now be deciding whether to start an IPO process. Let’s take a look at how the business has fared so far.
According to a study published by inbound marketer HubSpot, The State of Inbound Marketing Report, organizations that use inbound marketing channels as the preferred mode of marketing find costs per lead to be 62% lower those that prefer outbound marketing tools. Inbound marketing is also benefiting from increased adoption. The report shows that in 2011, the share of inbound marketing channels for lead generation increased to 17%, from 9% in 2009. Social media sources such as Facebook, Twitter, and even blogs are helping to push up inbound marketing efforts. Businesses were willing to spend nearly 29% of their lead generation budgets on social media platforms in 2011, compared with a 24% allocation in 2009. Today, more than 65% of businesses have blogs on their websites, compared with 48% in 2009. The impact of blogs can be seen in the fact that 57% of businesses using blogs acquired customers through these blogs.
By Sramana Mitra and guest author Sudhindra Chada
About Greg Brush
Greg leads the sales and customer success teams for InsideView. He is a proven sales executive and team leader who brings more than 21 years of software sales experience. Prior to joining InsideView, Greg served as vice president of sales at Movaris, where he restored sales growth that contributed to the company’s acquisition. He was the director of sales at Hyperion Solutions (now Oracle) in both national and strategic regional roles and has served in various sales executive and management positions at Siebel Systems. Greg also held senior sales positions with Pure Software, where he was a contributor to the rapid revenue growth that led to a successful IPO in 1995 and subsequent acquisition to Rational Software (now IBM). Greg began his sales career with Oracle Corporation, where he was consistently a top revenue contributor in the Oracle Direct team. >>>
By Sramana Mitra and guest author Sudhindra Chada
Kevin F.R. Suitor, Vice President of Marketing
Kevin is responsible for identifying key partnerships and building market awareness globally for Exinda Networks. Prior to Exinda, Kevin was VP of marketing and business development for Redline Communications, where he became widely recognized for his expertise in the telecommunications industry and was Redline’s primary WiMAX Forum delegate. Prior to joining Redline in 2001, Kevin built a solid track record at the executive level in a variety of roles with organizations such as CopperCom, CTI Datacom, Tekelec, DCI Digital Communication Inc., and Wandel & Goltermann. His extensive market and technology knowledge of service providers and equipment manufacturers has helped him to write articles in several industry publications. Kevin is also a regular speaker on topics such as unified performance management, WAN optimization, application acceleration, broadband fixed wireless, 802.16, WiMAX, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and virtual private networks. >>>
By Sramana Mitra and guest author Sudhindra Chada
[This is our second interview is this new series; the first was with Dave Fitzgerald of Brainshark.]
Mr. Mark Roberge, VP of sales, is responsible for sales at HubSpot. He has grown the team from one to more than forty sales reps in less than three years. Prior to HubSpot, Mark founded or held executive positions at startups in the social media and mobile sectors. Mark started his career as a technology consultant with Accenture. >>>
This week the blog kicked off a new series, Thought Leaders In Sales 2.0, to explore the changing relationship between sales, marketing, and customers. The first company to be profiled is rich media creator Brainshark.
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By Sramana Mitra and guest author Sudhindra Chada
A New Series on Sales 2.0
This is the first interview in a new series on sales 2.0, a topic that I have addressed regularly over the past several years. With the growth of SaaS and the rise of companies such as Salesforce.com and appssavvy, it’s time to explore this topic in more depth. Readers may also be interested in a guest miniseries, Anneke Seley on Sales 2.0, for more on what sales 2.0 is.
As enterprises across the globe are adopting sales 2.0 as part of their Web 2.0/3.0 journey, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform providers such as Brainshark are a unique case study. They have not only built successful sales 2.0 processes from the ground up and reaped huge benefits in their business, they have also identified the best practices in sales 2.0 implementation. How is Brainshark managing sales 2.0? Are there any challenges in implementing it? What does contacting and interacting with prospective customers look like at Brainshark? Has the relationship between sales and marketing changed at the company with the advent of sales 2.0? In this series, we uncover great insights by taking an early adopter’s perspective. >>>