How customer voice
drives business

Acquia provides a cloud platform for building, delivering, and optimizing digital experiences. It was founded by the maker of Drupal. We interviewed Acquia’s CMO to talk about the company’s positioning, differentiation and CMS trends. Where does Acquia fit in the landscape of CMS vendors? We describe ourselves as the digital experience company. We help our customers unify content, community and commerce, meaning their traditional .com website, their commerce site, and their social community site, on our Acquia platform. And we harness the open-source product Drupal as the underlying technology behind our platform. What is digital experience management and how universal a term is it? The generally accepted category that we all compete in is Web Content Management. It’s not sexy, but when I see RFPs, or when Sitecore and Adobe see RFPs, the majority of them are still using the phrase web content management. I think vendors and some analysts like Forrester have jumped on the term digital experience because the word “web” implies one channel, when in reality it is a website, a mobile device, a screen, all these digital touchpoints. The term is trying to capture that it’s multi-channel. And it’s really a recognition that “web content management” is […]

We sat down with Atri Chatterjee, CMO at Act-On to discuss customer focus, product development strategy, and the future of marketing automation. What’s new at Act-On? Lot’s of things are new. Act-On is now 7 years old, and we’ve grown really fast. We’re 5 years in the market, building out the product and now we’re building up our team. We’ve got a new CFO, who joined us last quarter. We have a new VP of Demand Generation and a new VP of Ops—some of the leadership that will help scale this company, which is what we’re already starting to do. Where is Act-On’s focus in terms of the customer base? We have over 3,000 customers, and we’re getting bigger and bigger customers. You probably are familiar with Act-On being strong in the SMB sector. What’s really happening is that Act-On is becoming strong in the mid-market, and that is our focus. So, we still go after small companies, but typically small companies who are growing fast, not microbusinesses. Can you talk about how the mid-market is different, in terms of needs, from the small businesses that have previously been your focus? There are no small companies that we sell to […]

TrustRadius recently published a Buyer’s Guide to Accounting Software in which we noted the increasing dominance of cloud software in that sector. In the guide, we said that accounting software users have been slower to switch to cloud solutions than those in other software categories, potentially because of concerns about security and change management. Indeed, many on-premise accounting products, such as QuickBooks Desktop and Sage 50 (formerly Peachtree) are widely adopted. However, a number of cloud products have emerged, both for small businesses (such as Xero and Wave), as well as for mid-market companies (such as NetSuite and Intacct). Additionally, vendors of on-premise software have released cloud products, including QuickBooks Online and Sage One. Given that this sector has been slower to switch to the cloud, how slow is slow? Are there other reasons for this slowness, besides security concerns? How much growth can we expect among cloud vendors in the coming year? To find out, we asked TrustRadius members with expertise in the accounting sphere, whether they were primarily using a cloud or on-premise accounting product. We then asked the on-premise users if they had plans to switch to a cloud solution. Among the 350 respondents, 52% are primarily using a cloud […]

What led you to start Engagio? I’ve been fortunate enough to only work at two companies in the last 17 years. During my tenure, both companies went from small to big, and I realized that I love the small stage. I knew at some point that I was going to leave Marketo to start a new company. I wanted to stay in the marketing tech space but did not want to compete with Marketo, and spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best opportunity. A friend of mine, Maria Pergolino, the VP of Marketing at Apttus, suggested Account Based Marketing [a strategic approach to business marketing in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one], since she found that there was a lot of things she needed to do manually to support ABM. The more time I spent on the idea, the more I realized how good it was. There is a real need around ABM, and it was not something I saw existing Marketing Automation players directly addressing, especially as some are moving more towards B2C [business to consumer]. Account-based marketing is hardcore B2B [business to business]. I left […]

Earlier today we announced the release of our TrustMaps™ for Accounting software, which rank products based on user satisfaction ratings and research frequency among small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises. The TrustMaps™ help software buyers quickly locate the solutions most highly rated and commonly considered by companies of a similar size, and therefore most closely aligned to their needs. Each TrustMap™ depicts Accounting software products on two dimensions – “likelihood to recommend” ratings by users and research frequency by prospective buyers on TrustRadius, as measured by unique page views. All ratings come from authenticated users of Accounting software products who reviewed or rated the product on TrustRadius.com. The guide also includes an overview of Accounting software trends as well as key factors to consider when selecting an Accounting solution. “This is a market in transition with emerging new vendors, and a shift in delivery model. On-premise product vendors still dominate the market, but cloud vendors are starting to make real inroads across all segments”, said Vinay Bhagat, CEO of TrustRadius. “Our Accounting Software TrustMaps™ provide Accounting professionals with a pragmatic approach to identify the best-fit solutions based on market segment, user satisfaction and research frequency on TrustRadius.” Best Accounting Software for Small Businesses (<50 employees)  Based on […]

TrustRadius checked in with CMO Mike Volpe for an update on developments at HubSpot, and to get his take on the Marketing Automation landscape. What’s new at HubSpot? We went public back in October. That’s been awesome. We’ve been growing more than 50% a year, year over year. In the fall we launched our CRM as well as our Sidekick for Sales product. [Sidekick is a set of integrated email tools, which allows users to view contact profiles from their inboxes and track email opens and clicks, with email scheduling capabilities coming soon}. In May, we announced eleven integrations with all sorts of cool software solutions including Slideshare, HelloSign (contract e-signature), Infer (lead scoring), data hero (business intelligence/analytics) and a whole bunch more. The other thing we launched was our Sidekick for Business product, which is a higher-end product for individual sales reps. It has tools to help reps with email templates, communication tracking, presentations, tracking of usage of those presentations, call logging, call reporting, etc. So we’ve done a lot more on the sales line of things, too. The last time we talked, you had just launched your CRM product—could you give us an update on that? Our CRM strategy […]

Social media is one of the newest, fastest changing and perhaps least understood marketing channels for businesses. As we noted in our Buyer’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Management Software, companies are finding new and interesting ways to leverage social media, from customer service to product development to recruiting to market research. One major retail company, for example, uses social media listening tools to understand shoplifting frequency at particular locations and take action as needed – people share anything on social media. Simply Measured, a social media analytics vendor, recently asked the research team at TrustRadius to survey and analyze the state of social media marketing in 2015. Nearly 600 social media practitioners – from consultants to executives to social media managers – took our survey, responding to questions about the goals, challenges and measurement tactics for their social media programs. The main takeaway is that companies of all sizes and social media maturity level are struggling to communicate the value of their social media programs. This is not a new finding; studies in previous years have come to a similar conclusion; perhaps the surprising piece is that this is STILL the case, despite increasingly sophisticated measurement tactics and data technologies. Measuring ROI […]

Q. What distinguishes an organization that is successful with business intelligence (BI)? A. Successful BI implementations are not just about tools, but are about people and processes. Focusing too soon on tool selection is not going to provide the best result. A BI project is not a one-shot thing, but is a journey that takes time and patience. Data is extremely valuable, but hard to manage. Companies that want to reap the value of data need to treat it as a critical asset and resource and adopt a systematic, rigorous approach to managing it. To succeed, BI projects need a strong leader who is knowledgeable about both technology and business and can straddle both worlds, translating between the two. Since the ultimate goal is to achieve significant business value, it’s usually better to have a technically-oriented business person lead the team. Q. What steps should an organization take to establish a BI program or strategy? A. The first step is to outline the expected business outcome and to make sure that there is buy-in around the ultimate goal. This is much more important than technology, which is a secondary matter at this early stage. The second step is to focus on the data. […]

Be sure to check out our new Buyer Blog for the latest B2B blog articles & discussions! TR: What distinguishes an organization that is successful with business intelligence (BI)? BD: The important thing to remember is that it’s usually not about tools, and is more likely to be about organizational maturity and the ability to get decisions made and get things done. Many organizations I encounter are somewhat internally dysfunctional and this ability to get things done is weak or even non-existent. TR: What steps should an organization take to establish a BI program or strategy? BD: I prefer to work on larger enterprise-wide programs where organizations are looking at bringing coherence to their data across departments and divisions. These large cross-functional efforts are best thought of as a process containing multiple projects. The leader of such a major process change needs the ability to understand multiple stakeholders with various different needs and different timeframes. Managing through what I called a “staged implementation roadmap” is essential. In order to do that successfully you need strong program management skills. It’s important to be politically aware and understand things like the consequences of deciding to work with one department or division before another. TR: Who drives – IT or business? […]

I recently met with Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder and CMO at Terminus at the recent Martech conference in San Francisco.  I thought Terminus would be of interest to our readers. Sangram was previously VP of Marketing at marketing automation software vendor Pardot, now owned by Salesforce. The lead investor in Terminus is David Cummings, a co-founder of Pardot. Terminus positions itself as a platform for B2B advertising automation. Their mission is to address two key B2B marketing challenges: 1) The B2B buying cycle is getting longer and more complex. Multiple people have influence so to maximize effectiveness, you need to market at an account versus an individual level. 2) You need to engage buyers on their channels of preference, e.g. mobile, Facebook, different websites. Advertising is relatively new for B2B. How does it compare to B2C? “The typical spend levels in B2C advertising are huge. In B2B, you’re not spending nearly that much. For every account you’re targeting you can control the number of impressions delivered, and the devices on which you render above fold, and to some degree clicks.” How do you target? “We’re advocating an approach call ‘Flip My Funnel’, where you start with your best fit prospective customers. Then you figure out the titles you […]

On April 8, 2015 enterprise social media management software vendor Sprinklr announced the acquisition of Get Satisfaction, a customer community software platform. Terms for the deal were not disclosed. This is Sprinklr’s fifth acquisition since January 2014. I caught up with Jeremy Epstein, VP of Marketing at Sprinklr, and Rahul Sachdev, formerly CEO of Get Satisfaction, who now serves as Sprinklr’s VP of First Party Experience, to talk about their motivations for the deal and integration plans. Get Satisfaction’s origins were as a freemium online community solution. It was rapidly adopted mostly by SMBs. The company started to focus on the enterprise market in 2012 and completed the build out of an enterprise solution by late 2013. Today Get Satisfaction hosts about 1,000 communities, 300 of which are for enterprise companies. Enterprise communities include the Pampers Diaper product line for Procter & Gamble, and the TV group of Korean electronics company LG. Get Satisfaction’s primary use case is customer care, but it also supports product research and marketing. Get Satisfaction’s enterprise edition was typically sold for $30-50k per year per community, and as high as $100k depending on add-on modules and services. Get Satisfaction is rated positively on TrustRadius with an average “likelihood […]

In the spring of 2015, Spear Marketing Group, a leading full-service B2B demand generation agency, conducted a market research survey designed to document the level of maturity (or lack thereof) present in the typical marketing automation deployment. It was the firm’s hypothesis, based on anecdotal evidence and its own work with marketing automation clients, that underutilization of marketing automation software was rampant in the B2B community. To test that hypothesis, the agency designed a survey that targeted B2B marketing executives, marketing operations titles, and other marketing automation users. More than 100 respondents completed a series of 33 questions that asked how much their organizations were either: 1) Using specific features, in a way that would illustrate full utilization of the functionality available to them, or 2) Enjoying business value in areas consistent with generally accepted best practices. Respondents were then assigned a “grade” based on how many of their responses aligned with those best practices.  Taken as a whole, the average respondent answered 56% of the questions “correctly” and scored a grade of C. Whereas that single grade would suggest a general lack of maturity in most marketing automation deployments, responses to individual questions tell a more complex story. In some notable […]

Earlier today we announced the release of its TrustMaps™ for Talent Management software, which rank products based on user satisfaction ratings and evaluation frequency among SMBs and enterprises. Unveiled in the company’s first Buyer’s Guide to Talent Management Software, the TrustMaps™ help software buyers quickly locate the solutions most highly rated and widely adopted by companies of a similar size, and therefore most closely aligned to their needs. Each TrustMap™ depicts Talent Management suites on two dimensions – “likelihood to recommend” ratings by users and evaluation frequency on TrustRadius, as measured by unique page views. All ratings come from authenticated users of Talent Management suites who reviewed or rated the product on TrustRadius.com. The guide also includes common capabilities and key factors to consider when selecting Talent Management software. “Enterprise talent management suites encompass an ever-broader range of integrated capabilities forcing standalone vendors of individual components to focus on the mid-market or on more complex needs for niche markets.” said Vinay Bhagat, CEO of TrustRadius. “Our Talent Management TrustMaps™ provide HR professionals with a pragmatic approach to identify the best-fit solutions based on market segment, user satisfaction and evaluation frequency on TrustRadius.” Michael D. Haberman, Co-founder and Senior Consultant, Omega HR Solutions agrees: “With […]

  Every business wants an answer to certain questions: What do people say about our product? Who is talking about – and who likes or dislikes – our product? However, businesses have a few options for how to develop insight into their customers. They could run focus groups, but those are logistically difficult, expensive, and the data is inaccurate because the study subjects are psychologically “primed”. They could dig into owned data they have on their current customers, which is a great idea. But this can only go so far: what about customers who chose not to purchase? Or who switched products? The Social Web and Its Vast Data There is a world of customer data out there, ready to be used to drive real business results. This is the social web (or web 2.0, or more commonly: “The Internet”). Ever since the dawn of social networks, forums, blogs, comments, and all such 2-way conversation channels, people have been talking about what they do, like, eat, wear, hate, love, think, and feel. This massive set of unstructured data can actually be mined and analyzed. More often than that, the results produced can be used to define new assumptions, or modify […]

In our latest Buyer’s Guide to CRM Software, users among all market segments – small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises – have picked Salesforce as a top rated CRM software. Salesforce is also the most frequently evaluated software on TrustRadius. Products with large customer bases or high growth momentum are usually evaluated more frequently. However, in our Buyer’s Guide to CRM Software we have also seen a few new highly rated CRM tools. For those considering purchasing a CRM or switching from your current CRM, is Salesforce a sound investment given the highly rated alternatives? We asked five experts: “Do you see anything shifting in Salesforce’s position i.e, more dominant, less dominant, or more focused on a particular segment?” Here are four main takeaways from their responses: The CRM software market is largely untapped, with many companies still using email or homegrown solutions. Most experts agree that Salesforce dominates the CRM space. However, there are too many categories within CRM for Salesforce to claim leadership in all of them. Salesforce has been shifting focus to the enterprise, and expanding beyond CRM to become a software development platform. A tool that is highly focused and helps companies give valuable context to each customer interaction is going […]

We’ve recently asked BI users about their Business Intelligence software usage and spend in our 2015 Business Intelligence Survey. The results indicate that BI continues to be a strategic area of focus and investment for companies of all sizes. While intent to invest is highest amongst small and mid-size companies, large companies will invest more in areas like Cloud BI, Data Discovery and Visualization, and Big Data. Most companies will continue to use multiple tools in tandem with each other rather than look to a one-size-fits-all solution; if anything the number of distinct BI tools used is likely to increase. In our Buyer’s Guide to Business Intelligence Software, we talk more about this renewed interested in the BI software space, particularly in the areas of cloud, big data, and data visualization. Here are the key findings from our 2015 Business Intelligence Survey: 1. Many companies are using multiple Business Intelligence solutions Large companies, not surprisingly, use the most BI software products, using an average of 2.5 distinct tools per company (fig. 1), with 55 percent using two or more tools, and 29 percent using four or more (fig. 2). More surprisingly, 34 percent of small companies (those with less than 100 employees) use […]

How has Tealium expanded beyond tag management, and what is the strategy behind that expansion? Tag management is a foundational element to any digital marketing strategy and it starts to crystalize quickly that it is not just about managing tags on a page, but about managing the data collected across the multiple systems marketing uses to create seamless and effective user engagement and experiences. Our customers have on average 20 or more systems they are using to create user experiences for their customers. Their marketing technology portfolio consists of disparate, siloed systems, collecting information in unique, inconsistent ways making it nearly impossible to create a truly integrated program. We solve this problem by harmonizing and standardizing all this data, connecting vendor actions and delivering real-time action based on user behavior. When using Tealium, our strategic approach to data management and our purpose-built marketing solutions to integrate the data across channels—social channels, e-marketing channels, mobile, website— enable marketers to stitch together omnichannel, multi-device data to build a universal, 360-degree profile of their customer. We are changing the data game with point-and-click simplicity. Now marketers are able to see, in real time, the panoramic view of their customers and are able to take action on these customers […]

3/17/2015 Earlier today we announced the release of our TrustMaps™ for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, which rank products based on user satisfaction ratings and evaluation frequency among small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises. Unveiled in our first Buyer’s Guide to CRM Software, the TrustMaps™ help software buyers quickly locate the solutions most highly rated and widely adopted by companies of a similar size, and therefore most closely aligned to their needs. Each TrustMap™ depicts CRM products on two dimensions – “likelihood to recommend” ratings by users and evaluation frequency on TrustRadius, as measured by unique page views—an indication of product growth or momentum. All ratings come from authenticated users of CRM tools who reviewed or rated the product on TrustRadius.com. The guide also includes common capabilities of CRM software, key factors to consider during the evaluation process and pitfalls to avoid when implementing CRM software. “While Salesforce remains the dominant player in the space, we see a lot of highly rated, small business-focused CRM tools that are simple to use and include other functionalities like marketing automation,” said Vinay Bhagat, CEO of TrustRadius. “Our CRM TrustMaps™ provide prospective buyers with a pragmatic approach to identify the best-fit solutions based on market segment, user […]

A lot of HR tools are switching from being specialized to adding broader functionalities from other adjacent HR categories resulting in many talent management suites. Vendors are moving towards providing a one-stop shop, so customers don’t have to deal with the hassle of syncing data across multiple tools. However, picking best-of-breed vs. talent suites is much more than just comparing features and functionalities. We asked four experts: Tim Sackett, Jon Ingham, Ward Christman and Bryan Wempen about when HR should pick best of breed vs. talent suites and what the pros and cons of each system. Here is the take away from their responses: A lot of best-of-breed HR software often get acquired and assimilated into larger suites. If you are a nimble organization, which can adapt when HR software companies get acquired and want software with in-depth features, then go with the specialized HR tool. However, there is no guarantee that the software you purchase is not going to be merged with a mature product. Also, be aware that innovative products may require continuous training. However, if you prefer stability with everything located in one place then go for suites. Read their responses below for more insights: Tim Sackett Suite vs. […]

We recently conducted an in-depth analysis of 250+ reviews for 10 Core HR Software to understand how HR products were meeting customer expectations and what was important to buyers in the market. In our analysis, we found that Core HR software is seeing a shift in value from features to usability. More and more users are looking for a better user experience and usability and, as a result, many Core HR Software vendors are focusing on user experience improvements. So we asked three experts about their take on usability in HR: Tim Sackett A 20 year HR/Recruiting Talent Pro with a Master’s in HR and SPHR certification, currently residing in Lansing, MI.  Currently the President at HRU Technical Resources – a $40M IT and Engineering contract staffing firm and RPO. He tweets at @TimSackett I think all HR vendors face a core issue, not that there software isn’t valuable, effective, or return a great ROI, it’s how do we get people to actually use it the way it’s designed to be used. Which leads to your point of usability. If HR software isn’t user-friendly, it doesn’t get adopted and used properly, and ultimately the company doesn’t sign up to keep using it.  User […]