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Learn more about the best B2B sales and marketing stack maximizers in this part of the 2017 Trends and Tech Guide from Ambition today!
The 2017 Trends and Tech Guide for B2B Sales and Marketing is a brand-new eBook by Prezi, Ambition, and LeadGenius. The premise: 9 high-level overviews of the most pivotal trends impacting B2B sales, marketing, support and operations. An accompanying guide profiles 112 software tools that solve the most pivotal needs for B2B business teams in 2017 and beyond.
Each chapter inside the 38 page eBook focuses on a particular trend, lists the needs associated with that trend, and ends with software profiles of 10-15 tools most likely to help. To give you a primer, here's a look at the software tools designated best-in-class for personalizing communication as scale.
The Best Tools for Consolidating Tech Stacks in 2017
#1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The world's most comprehensive prospect list.
Credit must be given to LinkedIn -- in today’s crowded world of business software solutions, they’ve cornered a critical market like no other. Sales Navigator gives you the keys to the largest prospect database in the world with targeting, list building, and integrations that are nothing short of spectacular. Combine Sales Navigator with a high-powered CRM and sales intelligence tool, and you’ll have a never-ending supply of targeted prospects.
Cost: $$.
Best for: B2B sales and marketing personnel who are never finished prospecting.
#2. Docurated. Give your sales team the content they need, when they need it.
Your sales team needs easy access to relevant, compelling content like case studies, infographics, and videos. But most importantly, they need that content to directly align with each prospect they’re working with, regardless of where they fall on the sales cycle, which buyer persona they identify with, and what previous interactions they may have had. Docurated ensures that the right assets are readily available by allowing you to transform disparate content systems into a single, powerful knowledge base, where key content can be instantly surfaced at the appropriate time.
Cost: $$-$$$.
Best for: Companies with lots of great content, but no streamlined processes in place to help sales reps leverage it.
#3. InfusionSoft. Integrated sales and marketing automation for aligned teams.
In terms of sheer versatility, InfusionSoft is on a level of its own. This double-sided sales and marketing automation platform caters perfectly to SMBs looking to streamline operations as tightly as possible.
Cost: $$-$$$.
Best for: SMBs looking for all-in-one CRM and marketing automation.
#4. Zoho. All-in-one business operations with enviable integration features.
Zoho brings it all to the table: CRM, helpdesk, accounting tools, email, analytics -- you’d be hard-pressed to find a more complete suite of business operations features anywhere else. That’s why Zoho is the perfect solution for modern businesses that can leverage its deep integrations with Google G-Suite or Microsoft Office 365.
Cost: $-$$$.
Best for: Companies looking for a total connector across all of their chosen business software solutions.
#5. Prezi. Start the dialogue -- close the deal.
Just about everyone gets tasked with presenting information at some point, whether to a small team or to a board of busy executives. In any case, nobody wins if that presentation is boring, typical, and easy to ignore (or forget). That’s why Prezi created conversational presenting, a highly visual, flexible, story-based approach to sharing information that engages rather than overwhelms. By opening up a dialogue with your audience and using strategic visual storytelling, Prezi allows you to develop presentations that are infinitely more persuasive, memorable, and successful.
Cost: $.
Best for: Presenters who want to have meaningful, memorable conversations with their audience and easily show how different ideas intersect.
#6. Sendgrid. Engineering-minded, transactional email marketing and automation.
Sendgrid approaches email automation with an engineer’s perspective, providing unique advantages for tech-savvy operations specialists and marketing leaders. Sendgrid’s key benefits are its powerful segmentation and API integrations, flexible workflow, and reporting clarity, all best-in-breed among today’s email marketing tools.
Cost: $-$$$.
Best for: Email marketing teams built on strong engineering and developer principles.
#7. Autopilot. Manage customer journeys from start to sale.
Autopilot is a standout among modern marketing tools, offering some of the market’s most unique functionality and use cases. It gives you complete control over how prospects are directed down the marketing and sales funnel, using personalization, automation, and integrations with other apps. The ability to map complex paths with unique outreach methods, like SMS, as well as auto-updates to Salesforce fields and other data sources, makes Autopilot a compelling tool for the cutting-edge marketer.
Cost: $$-$$$.
Best for: SMB marketing teams looking for an effective alternative to marketing automation.
#8. Zapier. A powerhouse of data integration to dramatically increase efficiency.
Zapier helps you swiftly direct your data across separate apps to make things as streamlined as possible for your business operations. Quickly maneuver inbound prospects from a standalone website to a corresponding Google Sheet, route emails from your Gmail inbox to Slack, and auto-verify and enrich prospect and account data for each new Marketo inbound lead via Clearbit. By selecting the apps you’re currently using and connecting with Zapier, this workflow efficiency machine can reduce your busywork by leaps and bounds.
Cost: $-$$.
Best for: Business operators who want an extinction event for team busywork.
#9. Segment. Integrate every single sales, marketing, and support channel you have.
With over 180 integrations available, Segment is perhaps the most versatile bridge builder among existing sales, marketing, and support processes and technologies. The synchronization capabilities of Segment are otherworldly, enabling business leaders to bulldoze IT-based inefficiencies and establish seamless connections between any number of different platforms -- including helpdesk, payments, referrals, live chat, attribution, and SQL. No matter your current technology stack, there’s a 99 percent chance you have an immediate use for Segment.
Cost: $-$$$.
Best for: Ops-minded business teams looking to leverage more value from existing software.
#10. Calendly. Like an administrative assistant in your pocket.
Most people don’t have personal assistants, and when meetings are the majority of your day, resorting to email and phone calls to find times that work for everyone is beyond stressful. Calendly takes away the pressure of managing multiple calendars and schedules. Simply set your availability preferences in the platform, share a link with people who want to meet with you, and leave the time selection and booking to them. Whatever they choose is added to your calendar, and removed from your remaining availability slots. Easy.
Cost: $.
Best for: Companies whose employees have meeting after meeting after meeting -- and who can’t afford to miss a single one.
#11. Octiv. Use sales assets to close deals -- and drive productivity.
Most B2B companies invest tons of time, money, and energy in creating compelling sales collateral. The smartest ones ensure they’re also easy to access, edit, and assess. Octiv empowers your team to do just that with seamless customization, storage, routing, and integration capabilities for all of your collateral.
Cost: $$.
Best for: High growth, mid-market, and enterprise teams that are content-driven and that interface B2B prospects digitally.
#13. RingDNA. New-school benefits for old-school sales teams.
For sales teams that still hit the phone with abandon, RingDNA is an auto-dialer that comes equipped with powerful automation, intelligence, and analytics to spur more efficient workflow, more effective conversations, and cross-channel insights between sales and marketing. A product that Jordan Belfort and his “telephone terrorists” would have killed to have in the Stratton Oakmont sales bullpen.
Cost: $-$$.
Best for: Call centers and phone-centric inside sales teams of all shapes and sizes.
Get the 2017 Trends & Tech Guide for B2B Sales + Marketing
The 2017 Trends and Tech Guide for B2B Sales and Marketing is free to download. Just enter your email and get instant access to the 38 page guide, chock full of original analysis and full profiles of 112 unique software solutions to help you meet your business needs this year.
Ambition: Maximize Your Sales Management Stack
Ambition is a sales management platform that syncs Salesforce and other data systems on one simple interface.
Ambition brings astounding clarity, context, and visibility to sales performance. Broadcast metrics, benchmarks, progress, and predictive analytics to personal dashboards and dynamic TVs.
Ambition helps sales leaders manage people and operations more efficiently. Build powerfully compelling sales force reports, analytics, and contests via a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Ambition is endorsed by Harvard Business Review and AA-ISP (the Global Inside Sales Organization). Hear more from our growing client base.
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Contact us to learn how Ambition can impact your sales organization today.
