I have been holding off on writing my mini-profile of InsideView for a few weeks now. They posted some teaser screenshots on their blog a few weeks ago, but the UI has yet to launch so you’ll get a mix of old and new UI shots in this overview.
InsideView was the first sales intelligence vendor to use the term “social selling” and created the Social Selling University site for training and promoting the use of social media in sales and marketing.
InsideView has been around since 2005 so offers a mature set of sales intelligence features in their InsideView for Sales product offering. What distinguishes InsideView for Sales is their sales trigger functionality, relationship finder tool, and social media viewing tools. They also support a broader set of partners than their competitors. Not only do they offer connectors for the top CRMs, but they also support NetSuite and SugarCRM. Last September, they launched a full service OpenAPI service and began to OEM their content in other sales and marketing services. Finally, they have built marketing enrichment and update connectors for Marketo and Eloqua which help marketers match company and contact data from InsideView into their Marketing Automation platforms.
For a few years, their move into APIs and marketing services required them to put less emphasis on InsideView for Sales Intelligence development. The good news is they are once again investing in their sales product. Recent enhancements include an expansion of companies and contacts and a new UI for InsideView for Salesforce.
A refreshed InsideView for Sales UI is pending, but they have provided teaser screenshots and a video.
The Company Overview tab shifts from content and feature lists to an emphasis upon key workflows: Research & Qualify, Connect to Key Contacts, and Find the Right Message.
The new layout moves from a traditional tab driven design for company profiles to a mobile layout with icons placed on a left-hand toolbar. The new design also provides a stacked report approach which allows for quick scrolling on touch enabled devices.
The stacked flow format raises in prominence some reports which were buried in the Other Tab of the old design: news, jobs, financials, and industry profile.
The People profile provides a biographic overview, executive news and tweets, and connections between the user and the executive. Users can also link to the person’s social media profile, email him or her, synch the profile with CRM, and follow the person. Following adds a company or person to InsideView’s email alerts.
A longstanding strength of InsideView is its social media tools. A Buzz Tab provides a feed of company Twitter, blogs, and Facebook. Users may even keyword search the feed. Other social media tools include People Alerts which alert on Twitter posts; a who knows who relationship finder that imports relationships from LinkedIn and email; and social sharing of news and sales triggers.
The Build a List feature supports a broad set of variables including sales triggers, email presence, and social media link presence. Both company and contact lists are supported. Users may download records to Excel or upload them to their CRM.
While the service offers a set of eighteen high precision sales triggers (called Agents by InsideView), they are only available for thirty days. The agents are displayed within company profiles, daily email alerts, and a filterable Activity Stream report.
InsideView aggregates its news and contacts from multiple vendors including Equifax, S&P Capital IQ, and Reuters. Coverage spans 12 million global companies and 16 million people. While these counts are below those of their competitors, they have doubled coverage this year and intend to add additional international profiles in 2016.
InsideView for Sales is reasonably priced at $99 per user per month or $999 per user per year. Volume discounts are available for larger purchasers. This price includes CRM connectors and mobile apps. There are additional charges for their marketing data hygiene services.
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