Sendside Salesforce Appexchange 5 Star Review.

OK, I'm excited. Sendside's integrated with Salesforce CRM and we're now available on Salesforce's Appexchange Marketplace for any business using Salesforce.com. And... we've received our first review, a stunningly well written comment from one of our clients, Vetrazzo, a green manufacturer of high-end recycled glass surfaces.

Here's what Vetrazzo has to say about Sendside in their review of Sendside on the Salesforce Appexchange.

Integrating with Salesforce gives Salesforce users all the benefits of Sendside's external communications (multi-dimensional tabbed messaging, Sendside Packages, instant notifications, detailed reporting and analytics) directly from inside a Salesforce account. It's a perfect pairing of two complementary technologies.

The result is that management can see into the sales funnel (which is why businesses implement Salesforce) and gives the sales team a real reason to use Salesforce and close more deals (which the sales guys like).

Here's the copy from Vetrazzo's Appexchange review:

At Vetrazzo, we use the Sendside Packages technology for automated lead follow up on all our web inquiries. We're able to send them a rich content, customized information package that hits the prospect immediately - while they're still excited about Vetrazzo from their website visit.

When we presented Vetrazzo Recycled Glass Surfacing at the Dreamforce Keynote, we received a flood of traffic to our booth on the exhibit floor; people flocked to see the product. All the lead data we captured onsite was gathered through a force.com site and then triggered a Sendside Package full of product content as a follow up. So if you were one of the many hundreds that filled out that form and received a package from Vetrazzo - that's Sendside.

In short, value is great, they've been very supportive and we're working on integrating this tool into our overall marketing strategy more comprehensively.

Very nice to have our first Salesforce integration review of Sendside on the Appexchange be a perfect 5 stars.

12 Extremely Effective Guerrilla Marketing Stunts | Strategic Marketing

Ad-agencies are finding it more and more difficult today to get through to the average consumer, and marketing saturation only grows with every year. It’s for that reason that guerrilla ad-campaigns are becoming so prevalent in the industry.  Here we take a look at some of the recent, most effective and ingeniously simple guerrilla marketing found since our 8-part series last year.

Simple Ideas

(images via onthegroundlookingup, gothamist, stephengates)

It doesn’t take much to get a reaction from people when it comes to guerrilla marketing.  Above we see how sandal-maker Havianes used the vibrant colors of their own products to catch eyes in Paris.  Cleverly placed prop-replicas from V For Vendetta caused thought-provoking pause in the step of passers-by, and coffee-giant Folgers had the bright idea to use a manhole in New York to remind city-goers just how good a steaming cup of coffee can look in the morning.  Meanwhile, an adventurous plastic surgeon found success in a local coffeehouse.

Good For Any Purpose

(images via geckoandfly, arrestedmotion, adofdamonth)

Many public-awareness campaigns are using guerrilla tactics in their ads.  Here we see smoking targeted in a Cancer ad giving us a glimpse of our early demise.  Cities around the globe began spotting graffiti referring to the then-upcoming Watchmen movie, in a bold move that not only mimicked the film and its graphic-novel predecessor, but also made viewers think a little more politically.  DHL took the comedic route in a fun global stunt that showcased their package tracking, by placing large pixelated mouse-pointers on their couriers.

It Shows Up in the Most Unexpected Places

(images via pzrservices, whatsthecrack, myselectedads, parsons)

Reynolds Wrap had a great idea for inner-cities with their wrapping of storefronts campaign; it was nearly impossible to walk by and not notice the familiar household item now super-sized.  Beach-goers were surprised to find enormous clams scattered about, only to then find an advert for a local eatery sealed inside them.  An Indian BBQ seller got creative with street-drains, while Nationwide Insurance got friendly with a paint company, and created a hilarious, building-sized ad that was absolutely impossible to miss.  It really is the simple things that are most overlooked, unless they’re guerrilla.

via weburbanist.com

Guerrilla marketing somtimes = strategic marketing.

Posted via web from 1 to 1 Strategic Marketing

Dreamforce Sales Automation 2009: Photos from the Dreamforce Expo.

The Sendside booth at Dreamforce was rockin'. These photos were all taken between sessions of pitching Sendside's sales acceleration and customer communication platform.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Sendsider

Dreamforce 2009: Photos from the Dreamforce parties.

Dreamforce 2009: These photos are from the Black Crowes concert and the meetup the next night. Fun stuff.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Sendsider

8 ways to kill an idea

from Scott C.

Sales Automation + Acceleration: Packages flow.

A simple diagram of how Packages work for sales, marketing, and management.

1. Marketing creates the content.
2. Sales personalizes and sends as a 1 to 1 'personal' communication with instant read notifications.
3. Management, Marketing, and Sales can all see the results.

For Marketing

Packages give marketing capabilities they never had before.  In the past, Marketing was responsible for 'getting leads' and then handing them off to sales. It's a 'fire and forget' system that doesnt' give Marketing any feedback into what's actualy working to close deasl. But with Sendside, Marketing can design the individual, personal communications that are being used by Sales, and see exactly how they're being used, and what's working.

For Sales

For a sales rep, Sendside opens up an entirely new world. No more time waste. Instead of wasting time making endless follow-up calls to ask if a prospect has 'had a chance to take a look a those materials", every sales rep is instantly notified when a prospect opens a Package, and knows what they're looking at. The effect is dramatic. Some of our clients are seeing sales acceleration above 50%.

For Management

Sendside's reporting and analytics give sales managers insight into the individual communications that the sales team is sending. What's working. What's not. Management know has the ability to make better decisions because they can actually see how successful deals happened, and they can reproduce that exactly in the future.

via blog.sendside.com

Sales Acceleration with Sendside Packages.

Posted via web from Sendsider

For any remaining IE6 users...

Hi, if you are coming to this site via Internet Explorer 6, you might not be getting the best experience possible. Honestly, I can't even begin to think about what your entire experience on the internet must be like? (...probably like riding a bike on the highway while cars blow by you on their way to Costco to get gallons of mayonnaise and 60-inch plasma TV's). How will you ever be able to use this website?????? You wont. You're an asshole and your browser is an asshole. So look, I'm going to be honest: I kind of hate you. BUT we c-a-n make this work. Here is what I am going to need you to do: fire up your Toshiba ShitBook© that weighs about 45 pounds, wipe the Cheeto dust off the screen, download Safari, delete Internet Explorer from your computer, punch yourself in the face, and get me a pulled pork sandwich.

via newtoyork.com

Dave McClure: How to pitch a VC

Dave McClure - How to Pitch a VC (aka Startup Viagra: How to Give a VC a Hard-On)

Confusion + Information

Jessica Hagy at Indexed, says it perfectly:

The first rule of fight club is...

While this could be me after the first fight club, it's actually my eye after removal of a skin cancer. Can't say I could see much out of it. Unfortuanely, it was like this for about three days before it abated.

We'll see how others look after the next Fight Club meetup.

Reminder: Fight Club is on Twitter.

If you're a Fight Club Member, contact me and I'll add your feed.

Fight Club on Twitter

Fight Club is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffbarson/fight-club

Fight Club Member? Email and I'll add your feed.

Sales Acceleration

Sendside's Sales Acceleration & Sales Automation Platform explained.

The presentation above details some of the value around Sendside's sales accleration for sales teams. The studies discussed are from MIT Sloan School of Management and Kellogg School of Management and were commissioned by insidesales.com.

If you'd like these studies, just fire off an email and we'll be happy to send them to you.

Sendside Packages: Sales Accleration + Sales Automation

We've just finished the Package below that showcases sales acceleration, sales automation, strategic marketing, and customer retention.

 

View this Package.

When you click the link above a new window will open... a Sendside Package.

You'll immediately notice that it's unlike email. It's much more like a web site.

In fact, anything that you can display through a browser can now be sent a a communication that can be controled.

Sendside Packages

Packages presents an entirely new way to respond to new leads and follow up with interested prospects. Rather than sending boring, uneventful emails that don’t offer any insights into prospect interest or delivery status, Packages allow organizations to send pre-bundled content that’s branded, personalized and interactive. Packages take sales collateral to a whole new level.

Designing User Experiences for Social Traction

Designing user experiences.

Take a look at this post from one of the founders of Posterous on how they designed their user experiences to start with interaction and only then move on to account creation:

Being able to post to Posterous without an account was something we designed for from day one, even before the name "Posterous" existed. I didn't want there to be hurdles like registration forms and email confirmations for new users.

Emailing to Posterous without an account is actually great for us in a couple different ways. First is the typical "try before you buy" scenario. It makes more sense for a user to *use* the service and see how great it is, before we ask them to sign up. But obviously, most of our users do eventually sign up to get access to all our advanced features.

But sign-up free posting is also great for group sites. When you setup a group Posterous site, you add contributors by adding their email address in site settings. Those people can now email post@sitename.posterous.com with no account. We do see these people engage with Posterous in the long term with no account, especially users who aren't tech savvy.

Using Posterous without an account isn't just some gimmick we did with email, it's something we believe in through and through. Registrations forms and other hurdles slow down adoption. We want to prove to you how valuable our service is *before* we ask you to sign up. That's why we allow this flow not just through email, but through our Twitter posting API and even our iPhone application.

Asymetrical Sales Acceleration & Strategic Marketing

Sales Automation & Strategic Marketing. Take a look at this image contrasting convetional and irregular warfare strategies.

If you swap 'Users' for Population and 'Management' for Military, it's a pretty good analogy of the way companies sell.

Traditionally, companies have sold into management structures who have then pushed downstream into their users. Installed software companies are a great example of this. If you buy installed software you're making a big investment and taking some risk. The sales focus is on getting the management to buy or adopt. End users usually have no say in what they end up with.

Increasingly, and espectially with SaaS models, the emphasis has changed from selling to management, to selling (through adoption) to end users. The parallels to asymetirical or irregular warfare are striking.