As Mohan Natarajan, Services Practice Leader at Klizer, explained in a recent episode of Klizer Konnect, “AI-powered personalization is not just a nice-to-have in B2B eCommerce anymore; it’s becoming essential. By leveraging AI and data analytics, businesses can build deeper customer relationships, improve sales, and create more intuitive shopping experiences.” This transformation is pushing B2B companies to rethink how they deliver value to their customers and manage their digital sales channels.

Why Personalization Matters in B2B eCommerce

Personalization has become a significant focus in the B2C world, but it is equally, if not more, important in B2B eCommerce. Unlike consumer transactions, which are often quick and straightforward, B2B transactions are more complex, involving longer buying cycles, higher volumes, and often multiple decision-makers. In this environment, personalization can have a profound impact on the customer experience.

“When you’re dealing with high-stakes transactions, personalization goes beyond simply recommending products,” Natarajan explains. “It’s about understanding the customer’s business needs and offering tailored solutions that save time, reduce costs, and simplify the purchasing process.” AI makes this level of personalization possible by using machine learning algorithms to analyze past purchases, browsing behavior, and even predictive needs.

Natarajan offers an example from the industrial supply industry: “Imagine a distributor using AI to recommend products based on past purchases. The system learns from the buyer’s history and suggests relevant products before they even realize they need them.” This proactive approach not only enhances the customer experience but also strengthens customer loyalty.

Furthermore, personalized dashboards powered by AI can give B2B buyers a seamless way to access relevant products, order histories, and support resources. “A well-implemented AI solution can act like a 24/7 sales support system, knowing exactly what the customer needs and offering it before they ask,” says Natarajan.

The Role of AI in Enhancing B2B eCommerce

AI’s ability to drive personalization in B2B eCommerce hinges on two key technologies: machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). Together, these tools enable businesses to understand customer preferences and behaviors on a granular level. AI-driven platforms continually refine their recommendations based on interactions, ensuring that the eCommerce experience evolves with the customer.

“AI doesn’t just react to a customer’s actions—it learns from them,” says Natarajan. “Every interaction helps the system become more intuitive, offering smarter, more relevant solutions over time.”

For example, an off-market parts vendor could leverage AI to develop personalized customer profiles. These profiles would track not just past purchases, but also maintenance schedules, product preferences, and even customer support interactions. With AI analyzing this data, the system can offer hyper-specific recommendations, such as when it’s time to reorder a part or schedule maintenance based on equipment usage data.

“B2B eCommerce is about relationships as much as it is about transactions. AI allows you to nurture those relationships by delivering personalized, relevant experiences at scale,” says Natarajan. He further emphasizes that AI-driven personalization enables B2B companies to operate with a level of precision and responsiveness previously unattainable.

Data Analytics: The Backbone of AI-Powered Personalization

While AI powers the personalization engine, data analytics is what fuels it. Effective personalization requires large volumes of high-quality data, and that’s where data analytics comes in. “The quality of your AI’s recommendations is only as good as the data feeding into it,” explains Natarajan. “Data integration, ensuring data quality, and maintaining data security are all critical for making AI work effectively in B2B eCommerce.”

Natarajan highlights that one of the biggest challenges for businesses is managing the vast amounts of data generated by eCommerce platforms. “It’s not just about collecting data,” he says. “It’s about using that data in a meaningful way—turning raw data into actionable insights that drive decision-making.”

One of the most exciting applications of data analytics in B2B eCommerce is predictive analytics. By analyzing historical data, businesses can predict future trends, enabling them to stock the right products, anticipate customer needs, and streamline their supply chains. “Predictive analytics allows companies to be proactive, rather than reactive,” says Natarajan. “It’s about staying ahead of the curve and anticipating what your customers will need next.”

However, Natarajan also notes that with great power comes great responsibility. “Managing customer data responsibly is paramount. You need to be transparent with your customers about how their data is being used and ensure that it’s being protected.” Trust, he argues, is a company’s most valuable asset, and data security is a critical component of maintaining that trust.

Real-World Applications and Challenges

Despite its promise, implementing AI and data analytics in B2B eCommerce is not without challenges. Businesses need to integrate these technologies with existing systems, which often requires significant investment and a shift in organizational thinking. “Data silos are one of the biggest obstacles,” Natarajan says. “If your data is fragmented across multiple systems, your AI won’t be able to access the full picture. You need a unified data strategy to make AI truly effective.”

Another challenge is ensuring that the data feeding AI models is accurate and up-to-date. “The success of AI in personalization hinges on data quality,” Natarajan stresses. “If your data is incomplete or outdated, it could lead to inaccurate recommendations, which can erode customer trust.”

Security is also a top concern. “When dealing with sensitive customer information, businesses need to prioritize cybersecurity,” he warns. “AI is powerful, but it’s also a target. Cybercriminals are always looking for ways to exploit AI systems, and businesses need to be vigilant.”

The Future of B2B eCommerce: AI and Beyond

Looking ahead, the future of B2B eCommerce is incredibly exciting, with emerging technologies like blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) poised to take personalization to new heights. “AI and IoT integration is the next frontier,” Natarajan predicts. “Imagine a world where IoT sensors in your customers’ equipment automatically alert you when maintenance is needed, triggering an automated order for replacement parts. That’s the kind of personalization that’s possible when AI and IoT come together.”

AI’s role in B2B eCommerce will only grow as businesses continue to adopt these technologies. Natarajan believes that companies not leveraging AI-powered personalization are at risk of falling behind. “It’s not just about offering a better eCommerce experience; it’s about staying competitive in a market where customer expectations are higher than ever.”

AI and Data Analytics as Drivers of B2B eCommerce Innovation

As AI and data analytics continue to evolve, they are revolutionizing how B2B companies interact with their customers, drive sales, and build lasting relationships. Personalization, once considered a luxury, is now an essential component of successful B2B eCommerce strategies.

“AI is no longer just a buzzword—it’s a business imperative,” says Natarajan. “Those who embrace AI-driven personalization and data analytics will not only meet customer expectations but will exceed them, building stronger, more efficient, and more profitable eCommerce platforms.”

For B2B companies, the message is clear: the future of eCommerce lies in the intelligent use of data and AI. Those willing to invest in these technologies today will be the ones shaping the marketplace tomorrow.

Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth podcast by John Rougeux who is VP of Marketing at Skyfii. Gerhardt discusses conversational marketing as a new B2B product category and how it is changing marketing from reaching out to you later to a conversation that is happening now:

Conversational Marketing is About Connecting You Now

Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales. The traditional way of doing marketing and sales is all about later. Come to my website and fill out this form and somebody is going to reach out to you later, when it’s convenient for them. The big shift that is happening in marketing and business over the last five to ten years is customers have all the power today. You can’t make people wait. Information is free now.

I can find anything I want to know about a company without ever having to go to your website. It’s crazy to think that you are going to force people to go to your website, fill out a form, wait three days to hear back from your sales team, and then get a demo. Conversational is all about connecting you now with the people who are ready to buy now while they are live on your website.

B2P – Marketing to People

It’s not about buyers. It’s not about sellers. It’s not about sales. It’s not about marketing. It’s about people. That’s how people all communicate online today. I pressed one button in my car and I got a list. I ordered something from Amazon while I was here this morning to send back to my house and it’s going to be there tomorrow when I get home. There are countless examples of that. That is how we all behave online in our real lives today.

But then something happens weird happens. We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people. That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.

What Ties Our Products Together is Conversation

We have an email product and we have a landing page product. Black and white versions of those people would say everybody has email, everybody has landing pages. The thing that ties those together is conversation. That forces us to think about what is conversational email? What is conversational landing pages? What is conversational whatever? That one word forces our product team to think about how can we change this? If our fundamental stance as a company is that the internet should be one conversation, then how does that weave into everything that we build?

Ultimately what we care about is that email becomes a conversation. Meaning, the way that marketers have had to use email the last decade is a one-way channel. Email is meant to be a two-way channel. Marketers have been using it as, “John come to my webinar.” What happens if you actually respond to that email? Most of the time you can’t because it’s donotreply@ or it just goes to some inbox where nobody is answering it. That is a terrible experience. Our belief is that if you reply, “Hey actually I can’t make it. Can you reregister my colleague?” That should get handled. We are thinking of that from an evolution standpoint.

The same thing with landing pages. Most landing pages today are static. You go to the landing page, put a bunch of info in and you are gone. What if that was a real-time conversation on the page? That one topic has to weave itself into everything we do from a product perspective.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Drift Marketing VP Dave Gerhardt on the B2B Growth podcast.

Avishai Sharon, Co-founder & CEO of TrenDemon, discussed their software on ILTV:

How Do You Connect Content Marketing to Sales?

My personal background was heading a marketing agency for many years and one of my biggest struggles was how do I prove our value and our effort to our customers and how do you connect the impact of what we call content marketing to business goals and to sales? When we couldn’t find an easy way to show that correlation three and a half years ago we went ahead and founded TrenDemon to help companies do just that.

We connect their marketing efforts, which today rely mostly on content, you want your audience to consume valuable content, as opposed to just advertising. The big challenge is how do you attribute those efforts to sales? There’s actually a prior problem, how do you actually map the customer journey? How do you track those different touch points into one picture?

Reverse Engineering Successful Customer Journeys

The first thing we do is look at all the different touchpoints that a customer has had over his lifecycle. We ask the question, not just where do they come from, but how deep was their engagement? Did they actually watch the video? Did they actually read the article? Then you can start reverse engineering those successful journeys and say what’s common about all of these successful journeys.

What we found, and this is the interesting thing, we’re working with over 90 companies today worldwide and the vast majority of content the companies produce, over 90 percent, is ineffective at driving business goals. As you guys know it’s very expensive to create quality content and it takes a lot of effort.

If People Read the Right Content They Will Covert to a Sale

The second interesting thing is that if you do manage to find those 10 percent and you find a way to get it in front of the right people you’re actually able to improve dramatically your results. So there’s not just a correlation between what buyers did beforehand, there’s also a causation, a causal relationship, that if people read the right content at the right time they’re more likely to follow a path. We’re not probably as sophisticated as we believe that we are.

We’re a SaaS company, a cloud-based solution. We’re working a lot in the US and one of our biggest markets and growing markets is Japan. They’re investing a lot of content and a lot on technology. Essentially, because we look at the customer journey and not necessarily specific languages we can operate in any environment which allows us to grow pretty much anywhere. As long as they have content, which means that they’re producing something other than just advertising, they want people and audiences to actually engage with what they’re producing and they do have some business outcomes that they’re looking to measure.

About TrenDemon:

Founded in 2013, TrenDemon is the world’s leading content marketing attribution and optimization solution, helping marketers prove and improve their content’s impact.

TrenDemon insights can help you uncover your content marketing ROI, impact on business goals, and engagement to help guide the content strategy. Our optimization units will help you increase conversions and shorten time to convert on your owned assets.

TrenDemon proudly serves a wide range of customers, from Fortune 500s and brands to SaaS, B2B, and financial companies and is backed by leading VCs.

Scott Heimes, Chief Marketing Officer at Zipwhip, discusses how two-way text messaging can be an extremely effective way to communicate with your customers in an interview on the B2B Growth Podcast:

76% of Consumers Have Received Text From Businesses

Over 76 percent of consumers have received some kind of text from a business. The most common are appointment reminders or bank alerts. This really just scratches the surface. Texting has so many applications beyond just alerts and reminders. There are sales and marketing, discount coupons and giveaways, customer support and service, recruiting and staffing, and internal communications at places like educational institutions. It’s so new and businesses are continuing to innovate in this medium. There are a lot of powerful use cases for businesses.

We have over 30,000 businesses using our software today. They range from very small businesses like yoga studios or lawn care services all the way up to multi-billion dollar insurance companies that are using our solution in their claim call centers. Industries include financial services, staffing and recruiting, healthcare, legal, and more. We have 156 professional sports teams that use our solution. They use it for ticket sales and customer service. There are lots of fitness gyms, radio and TV stations that use our text solution as well. It really does run the gamut of anybody that wants to communicate with their customers via this preferred medium.

Report Shows Increasing Use of Texting by Businesses

I just talked to the Director of Communications for the Sound Transit Authority, the public transit authority in Seattle, who uses our solution. They publish an 800 number to text or call when people see problems on the trains. Rather than get on the phone and calling, more and more people are texting those alerts. It’s really an interesting use case. Another one is during a recent hurricane down in Houston we had an insurance agent that was using our software to communicate with all of his customers in the area because the phone lines were largely down. Texting was working well to create engagement and communication during those tough times.

We recently created a report called the State of Texting which is a deep research study that highlights the adoption curve of text messaging as a business communication tool. It identifies how many consumers are already being texted by businesses as well as many other key insights and trends. One of the things we saw was that there are a lot of one-way texting tools where you get an alert from your doctor’s office, for instance, but you can’t respond to it. It was actually fired off by a CRM using an API that was just one way.

Text is a Great Way to Increase Engagement

Increasingly, consumers would prefer to be able to respond to those texts and have an actual interaction with a human on the other side to either reschedual that appointment or alert them that they are going to be five minutes late or something like that. We are seeing a trend where people want to be able to respond to texts and have an interaction as opposed to continuing to be one way.

For businesses, the communication channels of email and phone are just becoming less and less effective. Text is a great way to increase your engagement and responsiveness with consumers. They’ll actually respond to a text. One of the things we are doing as a company is everything we can to maintain the purity of the texting medium to make sure that spam doesn’t leak its way into this channel.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Zipwhip CMO Scott Heimes on the B2B Growth podcast.

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, discusses how B2B influencer marketing can be a highly effective force in driving leads and conversions for companies. Lee was interviewed by Tim Washer at the 2019 Content Marketing World Conference & Expo:

Influencer Marketing Is Powerful Because Of Influence Itself

Influencer marketing is powerful because of influence itself, not about the people. Influence has always been a factor in being persuasive and being effective as a communicator, as a marketer, and really being able to tap into the dynamics of that. The psychology and sociology of that is something that is everlasting, it’s evergreen. While there are trends in terms of tactics that come and go, there’s this consumerization of B2B. B2C influencers are misbehaving and have fake followers, etc. and some of that’s leaking over into B2B. But I think that’ll reconcile a little bit and kind of clean itself out. In the future brands are going to be looking at influence as a really key component of their holistic marketing strategy internally and externally.

A lot of people when they think of influencer marketing they think of a Kardashian or some people think of something like Baddiewinkle, a 90-year-old woman who wears hip-hop clothes and now has her own makeup line on Sephora versus someone like Tamara McCleary interviewing an executive at Dell about the right IT infrastructure for doing edge computing. That’s really what it’s about in B2B.

B2B Influencers Actually Have To Have The Main Expertise

One of the big differences between B2B and B2C influencers is that in B2B you actually have to have the main expertise. You actually have to be knowledgeable and have a depth of that expertise in what it is that you’re influential about. It’s also important to have a network for distribution and a place to publish your content. It’s great to have a personality and that’s less common in B2B, where you have charisma. Well, lack of personality is a form of personality I suppose. 

The good thing is that we’ve figured out ways to coach folks that have that domain expertise and an active following but they’re not necessarily used to being social. We are coaching them in how to activate themselves and to pull out the best of what they have to share in a way that’s very promotable. Many of them start to open up a little bit after we show them how to do it.

B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Conversion

In the planning stages (with a client looking to promote something) we’ll look at the topics that are important around the announcement and how it affects customers and how customers will think of that news and how it’ll affect or change their lives. Those topics are then what we want to be influential about. We’ll use those keywords or topics to search our network using influencer marketing software to find who is influential around those topics, who’s publishing content, who self-identifies around that topic, and whose audience is actually activated around that topic. We find those people who have trusted voices with an active community and we invite them to collaborate on content and give their opinion about the announcement. 

We co-create content with them in concert with brand messaging. So now instead of people just ignoring the press release we actually have storytelling happening with these different voices. You have this intersection of one or two or three or four influencers talking about this topic and those audiences intersect and cross. They intersect across channels too. Your customer is hearing this credible message not only from the brand but also from people that they trust in different channels. That all adds up to yes. That all adds up to nurture and ultimately conversion.

Scott Tousley, Senior Team Lead of User Acquisition for all products at HubSpot, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth Podcast by David Kelly, General Manager at Sumo Dojo. Tousley discusses how HubSpot is using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to drive leads and sales:

Surround Sound Marketing Strategy Starting to Take Off

There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas. He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website. I don’t care where it comes from. Whether it comes from search or social or referral traffic or email, it doesn’t matter. You’re always looking at how do I get more traffic to my website? The reality is that when we are trying to buy something you don’t go to one website. You go to multiple different websites when you are trying to make a purchasing decision.

For example, I’m in South Lake Tahoe right now. One search I just did recently was “best bars in South Lake Tahoe.” I wanted to see a list and I wanted to see some reviews from a couple of different websites. I also like to surf, so let’s say I’m in the market for a new shortboard. So I search for “best shortboards 2019.” First, I’ll read a listicle, then I will go back to Google and I will click on the next list. Then I will go back again and click on the next list. Then I will start to narrow my decision based on seeing the same thing over and over. Once I narrow it down I will do a versus search such as “lost puddle jumper” vs. “channel islands average joe.” I’ve narrowed my decision at that point.

We Want To Be At All Stages of the Purchasing Decision

What we are trying to do at HubSpot right now is figure out how to be everywhere. We want to be at all stages of that purchasing decision when people are searching for “what is the best blank that exists today.” Well, there are a ton of lists that are out there and a ton of review sites and HubSpot’s B2B software (has to be there). There are a lot of review sites just dominating search engines right now like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and Software Advice. A lot of those are pay to play. You have got to pay to get listed on what appears when you land via search. Most of them are.

But listicles are free. Not only are they free to get added to, but they are free to create. That’s one of the biggest things we are working on right now. How do we change our mindset from being so obsessed at driving traffic to our website? How do we make sure that HubSpot’s brand is everywhere when you are doing your product research and you are on many different websites? We actually sometimes prefer that we drive traffic to multiple different websites where we are listed versus just to our own. It’s good for social grouping.

Listen to the full interview with HubSpot’s Scott Tousley.

Nirosha Methananda, Vice President of Marketing at Bombora, discusses the challenges of marketing without annoying your potential customers by bombarding them with marketing messages in an interview with Logan Lyles on the B2B Growth Podcast:

Marketing Is Really About the Customer Experience

As a B2B marketer, I get marketed to a lot. It’s something that I have increasingly noticed and I’m probably not the only one. That’s just becoming part of the experience in terms of being inundated with different messaging and different calls and this, that, and the other. Use this, do this, buy this, whatever it is. It’s really not a great experience. It doesn’t necessarily provide value. Marketers are so busy as it is, and I know that is applicable across the board with everyone we are marketing to. Being able to cut through the noise and having an understanding of all these different things is very challenging. 

Having on top of it being inundated with this constant flow of messaging like meet me, meet me, meet me, is not very helpful. That’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. It’s really about customer experience. I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying

It also leads to this annoyance and irritation which leads to distrust of brands and that’s not great for this industry. From a customer perspective those bad experiences, unfortunately, more than good experiences, they stay with you for longer and you remember that. Another thing that we don’t necessarily think of is that it’s wasteful. It’s wasteful of time and it’s wasteful of money especially for marketing and sales where money is a precious resource. It’s not something to be wasted. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.

As an example, our Intent Event was our first flagship event that we did last year. It was a closed event so we did have limited numbers and we were limited as to what we could do with promotion. What we did was try to have mindfulness around what we were sending out and ensuring that it was helpful. Making sure that the recipients, the people that we invited, were given all the relevant information, but there was brevity in the communication as well as encouraging them to participate without forcing them to be there. 

There was certainly some urgency around some of our communication but it wasn’t you need to attend this and this is why you must attend this. It was more about being a bit more subtle in presenting them the idea and the concept of what it was, why it would help them, and exactly the information that they needed. What that meant was not sending out multiple emails, being very controlled around it, really thinking about what the experience was before the event, to during the event, to after the event. We were really focused on the customer and making sure that all of the content and communication was educational and helpful.

Nirosha Methananda, Vice President of Marketing at Bombora, discusses the challenges of marketing without annoying your potential customers by bombarding them with marketing messages in an interview with Logan Lyles on the B2B Growth Podcast:

Marketing Is Really About the Customer Experience

As a B2B marketer, I get marketed to a lot. It’s something that I have increasingly noticed and I’m probably not the only one. That’s just becoming part of the experience in terms of being inundated with different messaging and different calls and this, that, and the other. Use this, do this, buy this, whatever it is. It’s really not a great experience. It doesn’t necessarily provide value. Marketers are so busy as it is, and I know that is applicable across the board with everyone we are marketing to. Being able to cut through the noise and having an understanding of all these different things is very challenging. 

Having on top of it being inundated with this constant flow of messaging like meet me, meet me, meet me, is not very helpful. That’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. It’s really about customer experience. I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying

It also leads to this annoyance and irritation which leads to distrust of brands and that’s not great for this industry. From a customer perspective those bad experiences, unfortunately, more than good experiences, they stay with you for longer and you remember that. Another thing that we don’t necessarily think of is that it’s wasteful. It’s wasteful of time and it’s wasteful of money especially for marketing and sales where money is a precious resource. It’s not something to be wasted. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.

As an example, our Intent Event was our first flagship event that we did last year. It was a closed event so we did have limited numbers and we were limited as to what we could do with promotion. What we did was try to have mindfulness around what we were sending out and ensuring that it was helpful. Making sure that the recipients, the people that we invited, were given all the relevant information, but there was brevity in the communication as well as encouraging them to participate without forcing them to be there. 

There was certainly some urgency around some of our communication but it wasn’t you need to attend this and this is why you must attend this. It was more about being a bit more subtle in presenting them the idea and the concept of what it was, why it would help them, and exactly the information that they needed. What that meant was not sending out multiple emails, being very controlled around it, really thinking about what the experience was before the event, to during the event, to after the event. We were really focused on the customer and making sure that all of the content and communication was educational and helpful.

Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth podcast by John Rougeux who is VP of Marketing at Skyfii. Gerhardt discusses conversational marketing as a new B2B product category and how it is changing marketing from reaching out to you later to a conversation that is happening now:

Conversational Marketing is About Connecting You Now

Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales. The traditional way of doing marketing and sales is all about later. Come to my website and fill out this form and somebody is going to reach out to you later, when it’s convenient for them. The big shift that is happening in marketing and business over the last five to ten years is customers have all the power today. You can’t make people wait. Information is free now.

I can find anything I want to know about a company without ever having to go to your website. It’s crazy to think that you are going to force people to go to your website, fill out a form, wait three days to hear back from your sales team, and then get a demo. Conversational is all about connecting you now with the people who are ready to buy now while they are live on your website.

B2P – Marketing to People

It’s not about buyers. It’s not about sellers. It’s not about sales. It’s not about marketing. It’s about people. That’s how people all communicate online today. I pressed one button in my car and I got a list. I ordered something from Amazon while I was here this morning to send back to my house and it’s going to be there tomorrow when I get home. There are countless examples of that. That is how we all behave online in our real lives today.

But then something happens weird happens. We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people. That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.

What Ties Our Products Together is Conversation

We have an email product and we have a landing page product. Black and white versions of those people would say everybody has email, everybody has landing pages. The thing that ties those together is conversation. That forces us to think about what is conversational email? What is conversational landing pages? What is conversational whatever? That one word forces our product team to think about how can we change this? If our fundamental stance as a company is that the internet should be one conversation, then how does that weave into everything that we build?

Ultimately what we care about is that email becomes a conversation. Meaning, the way that marketers have had to use email the last decade is a one-way channel. Email is meant to be a two-way channel. Marketers have been using it as, “John come to my webinar.” What happens if you actually respond to that email? Most of the time you can’t because it’s donotreply@ or it just goes to some inbox where nobody is answering it. That is a terrible experience. Our belief is that if you reply, “Hey actually I can’t make it. Can you reregister my colleague?” That should get handled. We are thinking of that from an evolution standpoint.

The same thing with landing pages. Most landing pages today are static. You go to the landing page, put a bunch of info in and you are gone. What if that was a real-time conversation on the page? That one topic has to weave itself into everything we do from a product perspective.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Drift Marketing VP Dave Gerhardt on the B2B Growth podcast.

Scott Tousley, Senior Team Lead of User Acquisition for all products at HubSpot, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth Podcast by David Kelly, General Manager at Sumo Dojo. Tousley discusses how HubSpot is using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to drive leads and sales:

Surround Sound Marketing Strategy Starting to Take Off

There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas. He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website. I don’t care where it comes from. Whether it comes from search or social or referral traffic or email, it doesn’t matter. You’re always looking at how do I get more traffic to my website? The reality is that when we are trying to buy something you don’t go to one website. You go to multiple different websites when you are trying to make a purchasing decision.

For example, I’m in South Lake Tahoe right now. One search I just did recently was “best bars in South Lake Tahoe.” I wanted to see a list and I wanted to see some reviews from a couple of different websites. I also like to surf, so let’s say I’m in the market for a new shortboard. So I search for “best shortboards 2019.” First, I’ll read a listicle, then I will go back to Google and I will click on the next list. Then I will go back again and click on the next list. Then I will start to narrow my decision based on seeing the same thing over and over. Once I narrow it down I will do a versus search such as “lost puddle jumper” vs. “channel islands average joe.” I’ve narrowed my decision at that point.

We Want To Be At All Stages of the Purchasing Decision

What we are trying to do at HubSpot right now is figure out how to be everywhere. We want to be at all stages of that purchasing decision when people are searching for “what is the best blank that exists today.” Well, there are a ton of lists that are out there and a ton of review sites and HubSpot’s B2B software (has to be there). There are a lot of review sites just dominating search engines right now like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and Software Advice. A lot of those are pay to play. You have got to pay to get listed on what appears when you land via search. Most of them are.

But listicles are free. Not only are they free to get added to, but they are free to create. That’s one of the biggest things we are working on right now. How do we change our mindset from being so obsessed at driving traffic to our website? How do we make sure that HubSpot’s brand is everywhere when you are doing your product research and you are on many different websites? We actually sometimes prefer that we drive traffic to multiple different websites where we are listed versus just to our own. It’s good for social grouping.

Listen to the full interview with HubSpot’s Scott Tousley.

Max Levchin, CEO of Affirm, describes the company’s debit card as the anti-credit card:

Affirm’s Debit Card Is The Anti-Credit Card

It should not be called a credit card for sure in part because it’s sort of the anti-credit card. I don’t need to be provocative but the idea of credit cards fundamentally is to get you to spend, get into debt, and stay in debt. You will not know when you’re done paying off any specific purchase. You’re not really sure exactly how much you’re gonna pay. You should actually expect late fees if you miss a payment.

Literally, every single one of these things is the exact opposite for Affirm’s card. You know exactly what you’re going to pay. You know exactly what the schedule of repayment is and there’ll be no late fees under any circumstances. It’s sort of the exact opposite in many ways. It does serve the same purpose. You get to pay for things right now or over time.

Card Form Factor Is Extraordinarily Elegant

I don’t really know how long the card as a form factor will be with us, but I do think it’s extraordinarily elegant. The majority of the offline world certainly in the US still transacts with plastic and chips these days so I think it’s important to meet the customer where they are. I do know that our user base is primarily millennials and Gen Z’s. They love their debit cards they love to transact with them offline.

The purpose of this product was to bring by functionality that they have really loved online and really offline as well with us but have never had in a card. Particularly, a card that is embedded inside their daily everyday spend tool. The debit card form factor is a metaphor for everyday spend and that’s what we’re trying to get to.

What I Care About Is The Return Of The Country

The primary signal that I care about is the return of the country. We’re all kind of holding our breath a little bit to see when vaccines are coming. There are a bunch of reopenings and, knock on wood, everything sort of starts to come back to a little bit more normal. There’s just an incredible amount of opportunity to grow with this product that we have. It’s seen so much adoption in areas like travel, which has been effectively zero growth for the last several quarters because of the pandemic.

There are lots of interesting new challenges as the country reopens. The dominant thread is that there is that reopening creates a lot more opportunity for this product. We have proven that this product is what our customer wants and needs. This debit card will absolutely meet them where they are as they hopefully come out of their houses and go into restaurants and coffee shops and start traveling and buy tickets.

Rene Lacarte, CEO of Bill.com, says that the pandemic reinvention is real for small and medium-sized businesses and that they need to innovate and digitize the back office:

SMBs Deserve Innovation

At the core of why I started the company is that I believe SMBs deserve innovation. That innovation that we focus on that I really believe is missing out there is around the digital processes that are lacking. We digitize the back office. Then we connect that back office to the banking system so money can move, to the accounting system so records can be reported, and to the accounting firms that they’re involved with.

All of that connection creates a connective tissue that operates and automates the financial operations. Because of that it’s driving demand, it’s driving opportunity, and it’s driving growth across our existing customers as well as the new customers coming in. That’s how we do it. That’s how we bring the back office into the back pocket.

Pandemic Reinvention Is Real For SMBs

Nobody gets into business to actually do the back office. I grew up in small businesses. My parents had small businesses. My grandparents had small businesses. A lot of our friends had small businesses. This was always the bane of existence. This is what people had to do on Friday night. Who wants to do this on a Friday night? That’s what people are doing when they’re trying to run their business from their back pocket when they don’t have the tools. They have to do it at night at home.

We take care of that. We automate the processes. That’s what’s driving the demand, it’s the opportunity. We’ve seen it in part with the pandemic showing that there’s a need for being digital. This opportunity to be able to run your business from anywhere is a requirement now. The pandemic reinvention is real and something that we think is going to stick around.

“We’re loving the enthusiasm from customers so far—from the photos we see online to the car fans who stop our drivers for a first-hand look at the vehicle,” said Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet and Products. “From what we’ve seen, this is one of the fastest modern commercial electrification programs, and we’re incredibly proud of that.”

Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet, outlines the company’s electric delivery plans:

“We are reimagining sustainable delivery,” says Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet. “Climate change doesn’t allow us to sit back and be passive. We can’t wait. This vehicle went from sketch, to design, to on-road testing with customer deliveries in just over a year. And we’ll build on that momentum heading into full-scale production.”

“Amazon made a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040,” notes Rachey. “Electrifying our fleet is going to help us get there. We’ve relied on Rivian’s automotive expertise. We’ve listened to our drivers. We’ve created something that’s at the leading edge of safety technology, that’s better for our drivers, better for the planet, and unlike anything that’s out on the road today. We’ve reset expectations for electric delivery vehicles. And we’re just getting started.”

Amazon partnered with Rivian, leveraging its customizable skateboard platform to create a first-of-its-kind all-electric delivery vehicle. “Rivian’s purpose is to deliver products that the world didn’t already have, to redefine expectations through the application of technology and innovation,” said RJ Scaringe, Rivian Founder and CEO. “This milestone is one example of how Rivian and Amazon are working toward the world of 2040, and we hope it inspires other companies to fundamentally change the way that they operate.”

The current fleet of vehicles was built at Rivian’s studio in Plymouth, Michigan, and can drive up to 150 miles on a single charge according to the company. Amazon has installed thousands of electric vehicle charging stations at its delivery stations across North America and Europe.

Amazon explains it’s ambitious goals:

Along with custom electric delivery vehicles, Amazon is exploring new technologies, alternative fuels, and delivery methods that deliver packages to customers in a more sustainable way. Amazon currently operates thousands of electric vehicles worldwide and is redesigning its delivery stations to service electric vehicles—ranging from the electrical design to the physical layout. Last year, Amazon delivered more than 20 million packages to customers in electric delivery vehicles across North America and Europe and will continue building on that momentum in 2021.

Key findings from the full U.S. B2B SMB survey:

• SMBs accelerated their pivot to digital: 93% of B2B companies are now conducting some portion of their business online, up from 90% in December, and 43% are utilizing ecommerce, an 8% increase over the same time period.

• SMBs are finding opportunities internationally: even with supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, 63% of B2B companies report conducting some amount of cross border B2B trade, up from 59% in December.

• SMB manufacturers surpassed other industries in digitization: amid the pandemic, manufacturers’ online B2B trade increased 8% – twice the rate of the overall 4% increase in all industries for the same period and tied with retail as the industries with the most digital growth. In December, U.S. manufacturers’ online B2B trade volume lagged all other industries except construction but have now passed multiple industries in their pivot to digital.

“We were happy to see the increasing digitization of US B2B companies and that many are increasing trade despite the pandemic, showing the resilience and grit of American business owners and entrepreneurs,” said John Caplan, President of North America and Europe of Alibaba.com. “Our research finds that digitization is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have for companies in every industry to bridge from surviving to thriving in the next era of business.”

In the latest deal with Abnormal Security, Azure customers can purchase Abnormal Security directly via Microsoft co-sell and through the Azure Marketplace. Microsoft says that all purchases count towards enterprise Azure commitments.

“Microsoft for Startups is committed to helping B2B startups use the Microsoft platform to scale their business quickly and deliver innovative AI-powered solutions to enterprise customers,” said Jeffrey Ma, VP Microsoft for Startups. “Abnormal has hit the ground running, seeing success with Fortune 1000 companies in a short time, and we’re looking forward to joining forces to further accelerate their security solution to our global customers.”

Evan Reiser, Co-founder and CEO at Abnormal Security said, “When considering the right cloud infrastructure, startups need to look at both the technology platform and the business opportunity. As a cybersecurity company, we were very intrigued with Azure’s inherent security, privacy and AI offerings and as a startup, Microsoft’s go-to-market support and access to the largest enterprises is unmatched. We decided that to be a high-growth company selling to the Fortune 1000, it made business sense to partner with Microsoft and move our business to Azure.”

“Abnormal’s unparalleled market traction is a testament to incredible value being delivered to their customers and the ability to protect organizations from these cyberattacks that have cost them over $2b. I couldn’t be any more excited to see the accelerated growth with Microsoft co-selling the solution,” said Saam Motamedi, General Partner at Greylock Partners.

It’s definitely a win-win for Microsoft and startups like Abnormal Security. Microsoft gets a fast growing startup exclusively on its platform and Abnormal Security gets access to Microsoft’s massive connections with enterprise companies.

Bednar adds: “Everything you do at that point is the brand.”

Jan Bednar, Founder & CEO of ShipMonk, talks to Logan Lyles of Sweet Fish Media and host of the B2B Growth podcast. Bednar tells how he grew ShipMonk to a $30 million business and how the company’s values have helped drive their success:

Our Values Are the Pillars of the Organization

The one important thing in the way we look at our products and our brand is we try to figure out who are users are and what does our brand mean. We have a certain set of values that are associated with our brand. It’s not just a bunch of text that we put on a whiteboard three years ago and we never look at it. We have them everywhere and everyone knows them. They basically become the pillars of the organization. It’s something that everybody looks up to. You know what they are.

Everything you do in the company drives you toward the vision and the mission of the brand and the company itself. Something we have learned in the last few years is that once you communicate those values and what the brand really means to your employees and to your customers, it kind of does the job itself. You don’t really have to spend a lot of time maintaining it.

Everything You Do is The Brand

Everything you do at that point is the brand. It’s how you answer the phone. It’s how you decorate your office. It’s how you go to work. It’s what you wear to work. Every single detail, as long as you have those values in the back of your mind and you know what the brand really means, it’s almost like a self-sustaining organism at that point.

That’s been really important for us. We really see with our customers that once they like our brand and they see what we are doing they become part of it. It’s one of the most rewarding things. They love coming to our office. They love sharing their thoughts and improving the product. It becomes this one big ShipMonk family in a way. Everything we do from a branding and marketing standpoint surrounds those values and the proposition of the brand.

>> Listen to the full podcast at Sweet Fish Media…

About ShipMonk

From their inception in 2014, ShipMonk has operated with a singular guiding principle: to help small and medium-sized businesses scale by offering technology-driven fulfillment solutions that enable business founders to devote more time to the things that matter most in their businesses. Put simply, ShipMonk helps eCommerce companies stress less and grow more.

Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, VP of Strategic Services at Amperity, discusses how their platform helps brands create a complete view of their customers in an interview on the B2B Growth podcast:

Helping Brands Create a Single View of Their Customers

We are a CDP (customer data platform) based in Seattle that is helping brands create a single view of their customers and to unlock personalized experiences from that data. If you look back to the founding of Amperity about three years ago our founders were canvassing the marketplace. What you saw was a marketplace using a lot of buzzwords but having a lot of trouble executing them. You heard about personalization, customer 360, and a 360 view of the customer. Marketers across major consumer brands were super frustrated.

They spent a fortune trying to cobble some view of their customer. They invested in technology to help them send better emails, to make their media more targeted, and to unveil better analytics. All of those tools that they have invested in talked about the notion of a single view of the customer because they fundamentally needed that to operate. The reality was that nobody was getting to the solution. We came in to say maybe there is a better way.

Machine Learning Helps Brands Get To Nirvana

There were two things that changed in the marketplace that we capitalized on. First of all, it was that cloud computing got a lot cheaper. It used to be that if you were a big brand and got hundreds of millions of customer interactions, it’s just a lot of data. Part of the reason that no one was able to create an easy solution to putting that all together was because it was cost prohibitive.

The second really interesting evolution in the market is that machine learning has become much more mature. What we found was that everyone in the marketplace was using machine learning to make that last mile to the marketer a little bit better. It was used to decide which products to show a customer or to decide which offer to show a customer or to create a customer care solution that’s automated. You go online and type toward a solution and some bot talks back to you. Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together.

We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer. That’s how we were born. What’s interesting is that the customer data platform space is a little bit confusing. You have a lot of companies that started as something else that rebranded as a CDP. We were purpose-built from the ground up as a customer data platform designed to bring all of a brands data, reconcile that data to create a notion of identity on it and then to unleash that data back to the brand anywhere that they want to use that data.

>>> Listen to the full B2B Growth podcast here.

Rowe says that taking in data on sales prospects and making it available to salespeople can drive results: “When you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering salespeople to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.”

Jonathan Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at nCino, discusses how to use data to track and improve marketing ROI in an interview with James Carbary, the founder of Sweet Fish Media on the B2B Growth Podcast:

The Four Pillars of Measuring Marketing ROI

Knowing Your Costs

There are four variables that we use to measure ROI that have proven very successful for us. It starts with your costs. Whether it’s headcount costs where you are investing in people, whether it’s the cost of investing in PR, whether you are doing webinars or podcasts, whether you are advertising, etc., it’s really making sure that you have a good understanding of here’s where I’m actually spending my money and how much. So it starts with your costs.

Identifying Marketing Activities

The next step from there is here are all the different activities that we are spending money on. It’s advertising, attending conferences, or doing podcasts. Here are the activities. You have your costs and you have your activities.

Connecting Activities to Sales Opportunities

Then the next big step is connecting those activities to actual sales opportunities. As a B2B marketing organization at nCino, we are selling and marketing to banks. Whenever we initiate a conversation with a financial institution it often takes us 9-12 months from that initial interaction to hopefully when they become a nCino customer.

Over that 12 months, there are hopefully going to be a lot of different marketing activities where that bank and different individuals at the bank interact with nCino. We want to be able to capture that information. So we take the activities that we are doing and we actually connect them to a specific sales opportunity at the financial institution and the individual at the financial institution.

ROI: Measuring Results

The fourth pillar is the results, where we actually turn that prospect into a nCino customer. Then we can say that marketing played this role. At the end of the day, we are in a business where it’s more than marketing. We have sales groups and others involved.

When we sign a financial institution to become a nCino customer I’m always very proud to say here are all the different marketing activities (that led to the sale). Whether it’s white papers and thought leadership or press releases or attending a conference in a booth, how all those activities played an influential role.

It’s really understanding your costs specific to the activities you are doing in marketing, tying those activities to your sales opportunities, and then measuring results.

You Have to Be Committed to Data Analytics

One, you have to really be committed to data analytics. You want to have that marketing driven organization knowing it’s going to take time and costs to get there. Then two, you want to make smart decisions around the technology you use because connecting all of the dots around your data is probably the most important thing. I want to be able to go onto two or three systems which are what we have at nCino and be able to look and see all that data together.

I can see, for example, that Mary who works at a financial institution that we are talking to was on our website yesterday, that she looked at all of these different pages, that she spent seven or eight minutes on each page, and she actually downloaded one of our whitepapers. Then I find out that we are going to see Mary at a banking conference that we are going to in a few weeks.

With all of that automation, I know that the salesperson will log in and see all of that information on the financial institution and Mary.

Track You Customer Journeys in Real-Time

That sales rep will have literally on their phone before they have that face to face conversation at the conference all of Mary’s interactions. Some things you probably don’t want to tell Mary, which is hey, by the way, we’ve been tracking all of your website activity on the nCino website. But what you can have is a conversation around the fact that she downloaded our artificial intelligence whitepaper around banking and you can talk about that.

When you have fewer systems and you’ve made the commitment and you’ve gotten to the place where you are bringing all of the data into one real-time place, then you can start empowering people to use the data. You can track your customer journeys in real-time.

>> Listen to the complete B2B Growth podcast interview.

It’s not about advertising either, it’s about being part of the conversation, being a brand that matters. Here are selected excerpts from Gil’s talk below that highlight this challenge:

The Only Metric that Matters Is Sales

The only metric that matters today is sales. Most of us, if not all of us, know that the reason why we’re on social media is that we want to drive more revenue for our businesses. You go to any CMO or CEO and for them, social media is just nice to have. The reality is that social media is the lifeline between you and your customers.

Oftentimes, we see metrics being referred to as reach, clicks, impressions, but the only metric that really matters is the sale.

I often get asked by businesses and marketers, should I be on Instagram, Snapchat, or something else? My answer to them is very simple, go where your audience is. Each one of these social networks gives you reach and helps put you in front of people who are potential buyers or existing buyers from your brand or your competition. If you are targeting millennials, Snapchat and Instagram might be good to focus on.

Simply think about your business and go where your audience is.

Revise Strategy from One-To-Many to One-To-One

We’re talking about sales, we’re talking about driving revenue. Since the beginning of time sales has always been one-on-one. I think the biggest mistake that marketers are making is they think I’m going to get on social media and I’m gonna have access to reach all of these people. I have all of these followers, but the reality is that most people are not paying attention to the content that you’re posting. This is why you should revise your strategy from being about one-to-many but more one-to-one, and you should stop focusing on the numbers.

Recently, I was working with a client that said to me, we have 30 million social media followers globally but we’re reaching a very small percentage. I looked at the CMO and said, you don’t have 30 million followers, in reality, you have like 300 or less. Their jaw dropped and they were shocked because the reality is that you can’t touch everyone that’s out there.

Social media operates in real time, and with the way content moves, content is relevant today and it’s irrelevant 15 seconds from now.

Millennials Don’t Want to be Sold, They Want to be Engaged

Millennials don’t want to be sold, they want to be engaged. Millennials are really at the forefront of a lot of what we do. For example, I work a lot with real estate agents and they often say that you have to look at the data of who is your target buyer. In the case of realtors, 30 years old is the average age of a first-time homebuyer. You’re not going to reach that customer sending them direct mail.

However, if you run Facebook Ads, if you have any sort of presence in social meeting, you can find a way to get in front of them then. You have a much higher likelihood of promoting your brand and getting that lead. The same thing applies to most businesses.

Go Where Your Customers Are… the Mobile Phone

I work with both B2B and B2C and you have to go where the current is, you have to go where the customers are. The reality is this is your audience today. People aren’t paying attention to really what’s in front of them besides their cell phone.

I’m sure if you go to any boardroom meeting today and you look around, what do people do when they show up, they put their iPhone first thing in front of them.

When I was working at Winn-Dixie back in 2014, we’re doing this campaign where we’re trying to take market share away from Walmart, Target, Burger King and McDonald’s, I made a comment to our CMO at the time. I said why are we focusing so much on doing direct mail at home marketing and instead, why aren’t we doing SMS and push notification ads? Why aren’t we reaching people on the device that they go to the bathroom with and that they use all the time?

We use cell phones for virtually everything that we do, so guess what, the light bulb has to go off if people are using this device all the time and they live by it your marketing has to now appeal to the device itself.

It was funny because in 2014 that CMO looked at me and says huh, SMS is never gonna take off, mobile marketing is never gonna take off!

Marketing is Like Finding Your Match on Tender

You’ve got this high propensity of customers, Millennials, they’re all using social media. I think the biggest challenge that we all face is how do we reach people at the right time and ensure that our content resonates with them? This is why I say that marketing is like finding your match on Tinder.

Business marketing is very much like dating. You’ve got a lot of people out there in this digital ocean and if your content is not appealing to that audience then they’re gonna keep swiping.

Marc Benioff, co-CEO of Salesforce, discusses Customer 360 Truth at their annual Dreamforce conference with Jim Cramer of CNBC:  

Single Source of Truth – A Computer Science Holy Grail

360 Truth is another amazing thing that we’re introducing here (at Dreamforce 2019) that has been the holy grail of computing. It’s what we call SSOT, the single source of truth. We’ve had three amazing waves of computing. They are stems of record, systems of engagement, and systems of intelligence including AI. We’re now entering the fourth stage of computing. It’s the pursuit of Single Source of Truth, and we’ve built that into our platform. 

This is a computer science holy grail that we’ve been trying to put together for a long time. Now because we acquired MuleSoft and because we acquired Tableau we are closer to providing for our customers the Single Source of Truth for their customer information.

Enables Companies To Build a Single Source of Truth

The company describes Customer 360 Truth as a new set of data and identity services that enable companies to build a single source of truth across all of their customer relationships. They say it connects data from across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more to create a single, universal Salesforce ID for each customer.

All of a customer’s previous interactions and shared preferences are brought together to create a complete view so companies can better serve and even predict their needs, whether addressing a customer service problem, creating a personalized marketing journey, predicting the best sales opportunities or surfacing product recommendations.

From the Salesforce Press Release:

The Holy Grail of CRM: A Single Source of Truth

Nearly 70 percent of customers say they expect connected experiences in which their preferences are known across touchpoints. However, organizational and technical complexity often gets in the way of meeting these expectations. Companies have legacy infrastructure and data silos, leading to fragmented data and fragile integrations between systems. Inconsistent methods for accessing, reconciling and activating customer data make it challenging for companies to deliver connected experiences across these systems. As a result, companies often have multiple usernames, email addresses, or purchase histories for the very same customer across different systems, and managing a customer’s consent and contact preferences across the business becomes harder as new data regulations come into play. 

Having a source of truth—a single, trusted place that brings together all the customer data needed to deliver amazing experiences—has been the holy grail of CRM. Today Salesforce is delivering it.

Deliver a Trusted, Personalized Customer Relationship With Customer 360 Truth

Customer 360 Truth enhances data management across Salesforce apps and other systems, and provides instant access to consistent, reconciled customer data. Services include:

• Customer 360 Data Manager: Delivers the ability to access, connect and resolve a customer’s data across Salesforce and other systems, using a canonical data model and a universal Salesforce ID that represents each customer. With a click-based user interface for app and data management, admins can easily establish trusted connections between data sources to prepare, match, reconcile and update the customer profile. The reconciled profile across apps enables employees to pull up relevant data at the time of need from any connected system, such as when a service agent may need to pull a list of past purchases from an order system to better assist in solving a problem.
• Salesforce Identity for Customers: Removes friction from the login experience and enables a single, authenticated and secure relationship between a customer and all of a company’s websites, e-commerce stores, mobile apps and connected products. Instead of having separate logins and profiles that lead to disconnected experiences, customers now have one login across all of a company’s digital properties. Identity for Customers also elevates trust and compliance with a simple to use two-factor authentication. And it allows companies to obtain valuable customer insights with the ability to analyze engagement and usage with identity reporting and analytics.
• Customer 360 Audiences: Builds unified customer profiles across known data such as email addresses and first party IDs and unknown data such as website visits and device IDs. It then creates customer segments and marketing engagement journeys from those profiles and delivers AI-powered insights, like lifetime value and likelihood to churn. Customer 360 Audiences goes beyond traditional customer data platform (CDP) capabilities and extends the power of CRM to connect customer interactions across various touchpoints — for example, a customer who was redirected from an email campaign onto the website through a service interaction — and make the profile data available in real-time to optimize the experience. 
• Privacy and Data Governance: Enables companies to collect and respect customer data use and privacy preferences, as well as apply data classification labels to all data in Salesforce. Companies can easily understand what types of data they have, what uses of data customers have approved and how best to interact with them. These capabilities can help customers address obligations from regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), with respect to data governance and customer consent.

Introducing the Cloud Information Model

Salesforce Customer 360 Truth is powered by the Cloud Information Model (CIM), an open source data model that standardizes data interoperability across cloud applications. The publication of CIM is enabled by MuleSoft’s open source modeling technology, providing multiple file formats to make it easy to adopt CIM with varying applications. By easily integrating data in the cloud, developers can build new products that deliver connected and personalized customer experiences. CIM reduces the complexities of integrating data across cloud applications by providing standardized data interoperability guidelines to connect point-of-sale systems, digital marketing platforms, contact centers, CRM systems and more. Developers no longer need to spend months creating custom code. Instead, they can adopt and extend the CIM within days to create data lakes, generate analytics, train machine learning models, build a single view of the customer and more.

Unleash the Power of Customer 360 Truth with MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Customer 360 Truth allows companies to connect siloed customer data sources to a single source of truth, across Salesforce apps or third-party data using MuleSoft. With MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, organizations can easily build APIs that connect any application, data, or device to Customer 360 in an application network, creating a truly complete customer view.

At Dreamforce, MuleSoft also announced new innovations and learning modules, empowering anyone to become an Integration Trailblazer and create connected customer experiences.

Comments on the News

• “Having a complete view of the customer is not a new idea, but it has been difficult to achieve. Companies have siloed data; disconnected apps; a complex, patchwork of sometimes incompatible services; and no way to connect it all,” said Patrick Stokes, EVP, Platform Shared Services, Salesforce. “Customer 360 Truth overcomes those challenges, creating a single source of truth that is the foundation for delivering smart, personalized customer experiences across every touchpoint.”
• “In order to truly succeed with delivering a great customer experience, you have to adopt an agile platform that fosters growth and supports constant innovation,” said Rick Fuson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Pacers Sports & Entertainment. “With the Salesforce Customer 360 platform, Pacers Sports & Entertainment has real-time visibility into all aspects of our business and can operate more efficiently across channels, increase per customer loyalty and drive innovation across the organization.”
• “Connecting customer data and managing consent is more important than ever in light of changing customer expectations and increasing regulations,” said Alan Webber, Program Vice President for Digital Strategy and Customer Experience, IDC. “As a result, companies are prioritizing data unification in ways that will lead to more loyal and valuable customer relationships. Salesforce Customer 360 Truth will help companies break down data silos and deliver the experiences customers expect.”

Salesforce Customer 360 

Customer 360 Truth is part of the Salesforce Customer 360, which includes industry-leading apps spanning sales, service, marketing and commerce, and across every customer touchpoint. The Customer 360 Platform is an underlying set of services and APIs including AI, blockchain, mobile, security, voice and other capabilities that allow companies to connect every customer, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation. Salesforce will power more than two trillion B2B and B2C transactions this year for more than 150,000 companies and millions of Trailblazers—those individuals and their organizations who are using Salesforce to drive innovation, grow their careers and transform their businesses.