Mindmatrix

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Mindmatrix for Sales Enablement.

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“Ease of Use” is Now Considered a Critical Success Factor for Marketing Automation

With more and more companies enhancing their sales and marketing methods with software solutions, new marketing automation providers are cropping up daily.  Choices for consumers of this technology have never been more plentiful, leading to an increasingly complex buying decision for consumers.  How will customers evaluate their vendor options? Market research and advisory firm, Gleanster, set out to define just what exactly businesses should demand from their marketing automation providers.   After conducting a study which involved 1,396 B2B marketers, Gleanster found that “Ease of Use” is, for the first time ever, now among the top three most important factors in determining the success of a company deploying a marketing automation platform. Marketing automation software platforms are intended to make marketing and sales professionals’ jobs easier with a set of robust features and capabilities.  However, if these platforms are difficult to learn, their value is never fully realized.  The other two critical success factors identified in the study:  Re-usable campaign templates and cooperation with sales.   Vice President of Client Services at MindMatrix, Duane Wells, says these are the kind of findings that motivated the 14 year-old veteran marketing automation company to provide enhanced support and training services through what they are branding their “Virtual Marketing Assistant Service”(VMA Service).  “We can talk to customers all day long about how our platform will solve their problems with specialized tools, but if they can’t figure out how to use the tools - or teach others at their organization to use tools - they will never be able to harness the true power of marketing automation” says Wells.  “Marketing takes resources and talent, which can often be difficult to find and even more expensive to maintain in-house.  The strategy behind the VMA program is to provide immediate value by giving businesses one-on-one support for optimizing a marketing campaign’s effectiveness through monthly analysis and discussion with our marketing automation specialists.”   Learn more about the MindMatrix Virtual Marketing Assistant Services at www.MindMatrix.net

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MindMatrix Introduces Marketing Automation Tools to Continuum’s Channel Partners

Continuum, a leading provider of managed services solutions, has selected MindMatrix’s cutting-edge marketing and sales enablement software as the technology engine behind the Continuum’s newly launched partner inbound marketing program. “Marketing Advantage” is the technology industry’s first fully integrated, turnkey marketing program designed exclusively for IT services companies. Powered by MindMatrix, the program helps Continuum’s partners generate leads, automate marketing and close more deals without having to contribute extra time and resources.

“Finding the time to develop and sustain a quality marketing program is difficult for many of our managed services provider (MSP) partners because they’re focused on supporting customers,” said Continuum Vice President of Channel Marketing and Community Development Mark Zahar. “Marketing Advantage goes beyond traditional approaches by combining a highly systematic process with professionally created content that keeps the MSP’s brand awareness high among targeted prospects. We chose MindMatrix as the automation tool behind the program because it makes sales collateral creation easy on our partners while giving them deeper insight into prospect analytics.”

Continuum partner Empower Information Systems has seen impressive results since leveraging the Marketing Advantage program powered by MindMatrix. Using the email-marketing platform with pre-loaded templates that Empower customized with its logo and corporate colors, the company was able to secure a $60,000 deal in less than three months.

“We’ve never maintained a dedicated marketing staff, but as our company matured, we began to realize that you can only shake so many hands and play so many rounds of golf in a day,” said Principal and Chief Security Officer at Empower Information Systems Jason Holbrook. “We needed a plan to engage customers and knew we couldn’t count on ourselves to get it executed. That’s why we chose Marketing Advantage.”

MindMatrix’s channel solutions product seeks to satisfy the needs of channel partners and channel managers with specialized tools for sales and marketing professionals. "The channel solutions module allows a company to maintain its brand integrity and keep track of its channel partners' activities and outcomes, while also allowing their partners to generate leads, access their own sales and marketing materials and enable their sales teams with special sales functions that you just don't see in other marketing automation software platforms", said Harbinder Khera, MindMatrix CEO.

With all this positive feedback about its new channel offerings, MindMatrix is looking forward to working with other businesses that have channel needs, both locally and nationwide and it has ramped-up its sales team to deal with the high demand these new offerings are sure to generate.

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A MARKETING AUTOMATION SOLUTION THAT NOW OFFERS A TRULY CUSTOMIZED BRANDING EXPERIENCE

MindMatrix, has rolled out a gray label option, enabling its customers to personalize theirmarketing automation software to match their own unique branding standards. Leading Pittsburgh-based marketing automation and sales enablement solutions provider,MindMatrix, has rolled out a gray label option, enabling its customers to personalize theirmarketing automation software to match their own unique branding standards. According to Duane Wells, VP, Client Services, the gray label portal upgrade was prompted by the desire to offer MindMatrix’s clients a truly personalized customer experience. Mr. Wells stated, “MindMatrix has always recognized the importance of seamless integration between the marketing and sales arms of a business and it is in line with this philosophy that this feature has been incorporated. Plus, MindMatrix’s automated marketing tool is the only marketing automation software on the market which offers strong sales enablement capabilities, which means it will be used extensively by our client’s sales teams. And, we think it is extremely important that the sales users feel comfortable with the portal.” This custom portal’s theme can even be configured to resemble that of the company’s website. The ability of the software to resemble a familiar interface ensures that salespersons can be comfortable even as they are working on a new platform. The portal design was inspired by the new Windows OS, which makes it optimized for tablet viewing; an ideal solution for sales users on the go. The gray label portal is just one more way the Pittsburgh-based marketing automation and sales enablement provider, MindMatrix  ensures its clients are able to make the most of its offerings by enhancing the sales enablement side of its platform. Surmount Energy and Sotheby's are two MindMatrix customers that have implemented the gray label feature so far. To find out more about the gray label option, call us at 412-381-0230 to speak with aMindMatrix representative.

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Do you have the right tools to achieve your marketing goals?

A recent study by Accenture revealed that 4 out of 10 chief marketing officers believe that they are unprepared to meet their marketing goals. They stated not having the right tools as one of their chief challenges in not being able to achieve their marketing goals. Perhaps it’s time to revisit your marketing tools and find out if it will help you attain your marketing goals. While you are at that, here are a few things you should consider: Ease-of-use Often, companies invest in marketing tools to find out they never really use them. Reasons range from the tools being too complicated to too time consuming. Find out if the intended users are actually using your marketing tool. If not, ask questions as to why it is not being used…sometimes, a simple training session may be all you need to get them started! Up-to-date Are you still using a primitive e-mail marketing tool? Or is your marketing tool in tune with the latest marketing trends? Today, marketing tools have to be multi-dimensional. It is not just about doing e-mail blasts. Look for a marketing tool that has an all round approach to marketing and offers a variety of media options including print, social media, PPCs, web marketing etc. Prospect insight This is one of the key areas that your marketing tool should be good at. Check if your marketing tool offers you great prospect insight. An effective marketing tool is able to combine prospect behavior across various touch points to give you a complete picture of your leads. Sales alignment If you thought your marketing tool was none of sales’ business…think again. With Marketing 2.0, the boundaries between marketing and sales are really blurring. What marketers really need today is a tool that will bring them and the sales people on the same page. MindMatrix’s next generation marketing automation platform does all of the above and more! Please visit www.mindmatrix.net to know more.

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MINDMATRIX OFFERS CHANNEL MARKETING AUTOMATION TO SUPPORT CHANNEL MARKETERS

Pittsburgh based marketing automation software company; MindMatrix announced the release of its marketing automation solution for the channel marketing industry. MindMatrix recognizes the need of a cohesive marketing automation tool for channel marketers and presents it to them through their marketing automation offering. According to Danielle Fisher, Head—Channel Sales Development, at MindMatrix, “As a part of product development, we at MindMatrix, got in touch with hundreds of channel marketers and veterans of channel marketing. That helped us understand the key issues bothering thechannel marketing industry and now, MindMatrix resolves each of these challenges effectively with its marketing automation tool that is attuned to every need of a channel marketer.” Brand management, marketing ROI measurement and lead management are some of the core areas where MindMatrix’s marketing automation solution focuses. MindMatrix’s offering comes with automated lead nurturing tools that enable channel partners and independent reps to stay in touch with their prospects and engage in one-to-one personalized marketing on-demand, without depending on external marketing teams. It also provides them with superior lead generation and lead tracking abilities that cut across multiple marketing channels including print, web and social media. MindMatrix’s latest channel marketing offering gives channel marketers the ability to engage in smarter & more effective marketing by providing them with the tools they need to have more result-producing conversations during the sales process—all on a single unified platform.

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MindMatrix Upgrades its Marketing Automation Software to include Exciting New Features

Harbinder Khera, CEO of, MindMatrix, announced that the company has enhanced its marketing automation software with a view to improve user experience. While MindMatrix has bundled over 7 enhancements in this release, the key ones include the upgraded media editor, A/B testing for all web collateral, Gmail Plug-in, reverse DNS tracking and integration of the marketing automation software with the popular CRM system, SageACT2013. According to Harbinder, this was one of the major releases since the launch of the marketing automation platform and most of the enhancements were based on the requests that came in from customers already using MindMatrix’s platform. “Of course, there were some enhancements like the Reverse DNS based tracking system which was the brainchild of the development team here at MindMatrix", he says. "And…that is one of the highlights of this release. Our software can now tell you which industry or company the prospect belongs to…even if they don’t fill a form on your website or landing page” Apart from the Reverse DNS technology, the marketing automation software now boasts of a new media editor that has a more easy and user-friendly feel to it. Also, now all web collateral generated using Mindmatrix’s marketing automation platform can now undergo A/B testing to test the various possible landing/web designs to arrive at the ones that produce optimum results. Another key feature enhancement allows users with Gmail accounts to send template-based emails that are stored in the platform, through their Gmail account, using the Chrome plug-in for Gmail. “The response we have received from our customers has been great”, says Harbinder, who has another release slated soon. “To be truly classified as the next-generation marketing automation provider, we know we need to be constantly innovating and providing our customers with something extra, which is what we will aim for with every news release."

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Resolving the 3 major challenges of Channel Marketing with marketing automation

The 3 key challenges that businesses with channel partners usually face involve enabling the channel partners to market their brand without distortion, the inability to measure the effectiveness of the marketing investment made on or by their channel marketers and the inability to get their messages out on time and to a wide audience. Here's how marketing automation can help in these challenging areas:   Brand management Good marketing automation software programs come with brand management capabilities that will allow businesses to enable their channel marketing partners to engage in marketing their products and services, without worrying about branding inconsistencies. A marketing automation software that's strong on the brand management side will allow you to limit the access and permissions of your channel partners, thus allowing them to edit only those portions of your marketing message that you'd want them to. That means, not having to micro-manage every e-mail marketing campaign or check every landing page, because you know the scope for misrepresentation of your brand or its message is considerably reduced. Spreading the word Having a strong channel partner network is great, but that alone is not enough to get your brand the attention it deserves. What you also need is a way for your channel partners to get your marketing message out to their prospects through all possible media channels. And, this is where a marketing automation software with multichannel collateral creation capabilities can be of great use. However, make sure you choose a marketing automation program that adopts a template-driven approach to marketing and sales collateral creation. The benefit: you get to sketch out the key elements such as template design, layout and core content, while your channel partners can use them to create localized versions of your marketing campaign that relates best to their target market. While you are at it, remember that a marketing automation software that offers social sharing features would be an added bonus. Measuring the marketing investment With multiple channel partners, putting concrete figures on your marketing returns can become challenging. You end up grappling with questions like—how to quantify the marketing efforts of your channel partners or How to justify your marketing investment in them. Well, with a marketing automation software in tow, you wouldn't have to worry about these questions. Your marketing automation software should be able to help you put a number onto your marketing figures. Get answers to questions like how many e-mails your channel partners sent out, how many prospects opened them, which marketing media elicits maximum response and so on. To know more about how you can make your channel partners more effective, please contact us today...

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Is your Marketing Deliverable being Trashed by Sales?

A research by Sirius Decisions concludes that 90% of the marketing deliverables remain unused by sales. So what can you do to ensure your marketing materials are actually used? Here are 4 sure-fire ways to make that happen… Power to sales Who creates the collateral? Your marketing team…who uses them? Your sales team…so, doesn’t it make sense to give sales some power over the deliverables? Why not allow them to tweak the deliverables as they want…it’s better to change a few words here and there instead of having the entire brochure trashed, right? Bottom-line: Give your salespeople a way to effectively make changes to your marketing output—a way that’s easy, fun and quick! Get the sales team to speak up! We know your salespersons are not cut out to generate very creative flyers or landing pages and that even the most creative salespersons don’t have the time…but they still know what the prospects really want because they talk to them and meet them day-in…and day out. So call for a meeting and put your marketing and sales on the same page with respect to what they expect. And see the results for yourself! Consistency despite multiple channels Each salesperson finds a way that works best for them. Also, every prospect is different. That means if Joe responds best to print flyers, Jane might be more receptive to e-mails, or Bob would be actively engaging with your sales team on Facebook. So, it makes sense for you to arm your salespersons with deliverables that cut-across multiple prospect touch-points. Personalization anyone? There’s nothing a salesperson loves more than being able to build a personal connection with their prospects. So, why not help them do it. What if you could help them establish their personal brand through your deliverables…or provide them a flyer personalized for that important prospect? Deliverables that help them close deals faster wouldn’t end up in the trash can! MindMatrix’s Marketing Automation Software can help you do all of the above…and more. Please visit www.mindmatrix.net today to know more.

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Completing the Demand Generation Puzzle

A demand generation campaign is often treated like an unsolved puzzle by marketers. We demystify the demand gen puzzle in this blog post by telling you the 5 key ingredients that will help you serve the perfect Demand Generation campaign… Staying connected to prospects and customers Repeat after us… “Demand generation campaigns are not a one-time thing”. Stay in touch with your prospects consistently and don’t forget them after that first e-mail blast. Follow-up mails, phone-calls, monthly newsletters etc, are great ideas. Adopting multiple marketing avenues Your prospects are everywhere—on the web, on Facebook, out there in the real world! So, why should your demand generation strategies be limited to e-mail campaigns? Rope in use of Print media, social media, PPCs and even trade shows to announce your presence. Personalizing your marketing People respond better to messages directed to them rather than random advertising. Why not add a personal touch to your demand generation campaigns by doing simple things like addressing the reader by their name, or providing relevant offers… Updated marketing database Your demand generation campaigns will be more effective if you target the right prospects—that means ensuring your prospect database has the latest information about the contacts. Why waste money on a print flyer or brochure to someone who no longer lives at that address? Tracking buyer behavior Going back to point#1…demand generation is not a one-time effort and it involves constant follow-ups. But, to have effective follow-ups, you need to know prospect history. Having answers to questions like how the prospect responded to your marketing message…did they open the last e-mail…how much time they spent on your website, etc. can help you do effective follow ups.

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The Marketing Automation Software Quiz. Take this quiz to find out how effective your marketing automation is…

Has your sales cycle shortened? A good marketing automation software will help your business enjoy a shorter sales cycle thanks to better lead focus and quality lead generation Are your conversion rates heading up? Smart marketing automation software will help your conversion rates head north by automatically nurturing your cold/not-so-warm leads until they are sales ready. That means, your sales team gets well nurtured leads that are ready to make a purchase—that means better conversion rates. Have you established a personal relationship with your contacts? Best marketing automation software programs help you establish a personal relationship with your contacts. They help you engage in personalized marketing and sales strategies with ease. How good is your marketing support? Great marketing automation software programs are those which put an end to the sales-marketing disconnect by aligning sales and marketing functions seamlessly. Some signs of seamless sales marketing alignment include—good marketing support for sales across all prospect touch-points, having the sales collateral ready on time, getting quality leads and even having complete prospect data that allows the marketing team to pitch the right products/services—cross-selling and up-selling based on past purchases and post-sales behavior. Having your sales is on the road is no impediment to client communications A next-generation marketing automation software will provide you with the tools you need to communicate with prospects and customers, even your sales team is on the move. It can be an iPhone app or an android application that helps your sales team stay in touch with their prospects, or a simple desktop alert that helps you understand key prospect reactions and behavior. If the answer to all these questions is “YES”, then your marketing automation software is doing its job…

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Five Quick Fixes to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

In an age when most of business happens online, not showing up on Google can really hurt you. While there’s no real short cut to showing up consistently on web searches, there are a few quick fixes to get your site up on search engine results… HTML tags Important HTML tags include the title tag, meta description and meta keywords. Make sure each page of your website has appropriate HTML tags. The title tag of each page should be unique and relevant to that particular page. Alternative text images Ensure that most of the images on your website have alternative text tags. Alt tags are basically descriptions for images. By adding relevant alternative tags to images, you are allowing search engines to recognize them. File hierarchy How good is your HTML file hierarchy?  Check if your website’s pages are logically situated and avoid too many unnecessary folders. For example—NFL=>Teams=>PittsburghSteelers is a better folder structure than NFL=>Teams=>NFCEast=>PittsburghSteelers, because here NFCEast is redundant and only serves to push the Steelers page deeper down the order. Sitemap A sitemap acts as a navigational guide for your visitors as well as search engines. Does your website have one? If not, then it’s time to put up a site map on your website. Content quality Glance over your content quickly to determine its quality. Is your content written for search engines or actual visitors? Is it stuffed with keywords? Does it truly add value to your audience, or is simply there to fill up the page? Answer these questions and make quick fixes to your content accordingly.

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Are you Omnipresent?

A recent infographic at marketingprofs.com, talks of omnichannel loyalty—meaning an enterprise level initiative to track customer loyalty across multiple marketing and sales channels. Today’s customer has multiple ways to stay in touch with the business. Whether it’s through her smartphones, laptops, calling up customer care divisions or by directly visiting the brick and mortar locations of the business. The challenge faced by businesses is to aggregate all of these touch points to get a clear picture of customer experience across each of these. Thus, cross-channel customer intelligence is what businesses should be aiming for. However, how many businesses are actually able to attain this or better still utilize it to the fullest? Turns out, not many…As per the infographic, only 10% of such real-time useful customer data is actually leveraged for further interaction. That means, 90% of the times, customer data is untapped or unused. This is where good marketing automation software platforms can come into the picture. A good marketing automation software aligns sales and marketing aspects of the business and unifies customer data across multiple channels, effectively. This data is then leveraged to offer relevant, personalized marketing and sales communications to the customer that truly adds value to them.

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SMARKETING CAN HELP YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR MARKETING DOLLAR

My last post was all about how Smarketing can help you close deals faster. Today we’ll see how smarketing can help you stretch your marketing dollar.

Well, for starters, it gives you a complete 360 degree view of your prospect, so your marketing team knows exactly what’s going on in the prospect’s mind. You are aware of their every behavior, every attribute and will be able to predict their next step in the sales cycle. Not just that, when you are aware of your prospect’s digital footprint to this extent, it becomes very easy for you to personalize your marketing approach towards them. And…personalized, well-targeted marketing campaigns always fare better than random ones. In short, smarketing empowers you with a thorough understanding of your prospects which makes your marketing more effective—you spend less time and money pursuing your leads…and that leaves you with more resources and energy to pursue more leads. Doesn't that stretch your marketing dollar, now?

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WHAT MODERN DAY B2B MARKETING HAS IN COMMON WITH A ROM COM? THE GUY WITH SMARKETING GETS THE GIRL…

I’m sure you’ve watched one of those love triangles or rom coms in which the unlikely guy ends up getting the girl. I bet you never thought it could apply to B2B marketing. But, here’s how it works… Our unlikely hero is just always around. Silently observing, supporting and just being there for the girl whenever she needs him…and voila! when it’s time to pick one of the guys, suddenly it all starts to make sense to her. How he knew everything about her and fulfilled her every wish even before she knew what she wanted! This is exactly what smarketing allows your business to do and here’s how it helps you get the lead…. Smarketing means total alignment of sales and marketing. When your organization engages in smarketing, it means every gap between sales and marketing is plugged. End result—your marketing and sales team gets a clear, unified, 360 degree view of your prospects. For example—if marketing knows that prospect Jane has downloaded the pricing sheet, then this action triggers marketing to pass the leads on to sales. Once the lead is passed on to sales, the sales team has a complete account of Jane’s activities. The sales team would know details such as whether she opened the e-mail from the sales executive, if she clicked on the link to the online product demo or if she filled up a demo request form. Armed with this information, the sales team can approach Jane in the right manner…at all the right times. Thus, smarketing allows sales to stay in touch with their prospects throughout the sales cycle—but more importantly, it allows the sales team to do so intelligently, thus enabling them to make the right moves in a timely manner and close the deal faster. Up next: Smarketing can help you make the most of your marketing dollar

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Sales+Marketing= Smarketing=Quality Leads Generation

In the last blog piece we told you what smarketing is, and how it can benefit you.  In the next couple of blog pieces, we will dissect the benefits offered by smarketing. Did you know that Smarketing can help you generate quality leads? Here’s how it works…

In most businesses, the sales teams find about 80% of the leads passed to them from marketing to be of poor quality. Talk to the sales head and she will say, “Marketing has no idea what we and the prospect are looking for. Most of their leads are not a good match for us.”  The marketing head will have a different story where the sales team is at fault for not pursuing the leads right. But, smarketing can resolve this issue by helping marketing generate QUALITY LEADS for sales.

Smarketing aligns your sales and marketing processes, putting both these important functions on the same page with respect to lead interest. That means both—the sales and marketing heads, get the same 360 degree view of the lead, thus ensuring there’s agreement between the two in terms of the lead’s willingness to buy. 

Smarketing also allows marketing to nurture leads which are not ready to meet the sales team, thus ensuring that they are passed on to the sales team only when they are ready to make a purchase.

Net result: Only ripe leads (quality leads) are passed on to the sales team, while those with potential are groomed till they become sales-ready.

Up next: How Smarketing can help you close deals faster…

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SMARKETING—OLD WINE IN A NEW BOTTLE

Have you heard of Smarketing, the ‘new’ marketing buzzword? Smarketing basically means a union of sales and marketing processes—or what we, at MindMatrix have always advocated as sales-marketing alignment…and here’s why your business needs smarketing…

 Smarketing can help you generate quality leads

Smarketing can help you close deals faster

Smarketing makes your marketing more effective

Smarketing makes you more efficient

Smarketing helps you stay truly connected with your prospects and customers

To know more about how smarketing makes these happen…stay tuned to our blog…on Tuesdays and Thursdays…