A service that’s increasing in popularity, especially in this challenging economy, is something called an automated Sales Alert or Trigger Alert for Sales.

The general concept is: There are companies out there that will spider the web and other data sources looking for meaningful information about your customers or prospects, then will serve up sales triggers or alerts to the appropriate sales staff members.

The alerts are usually served via CRM systems such as Salesforce.com or Siebel. Your company database info is cross-references with Company trigger info and the Sales Rep assigned to the account receives an “activity” or “to do” in their in box. Some companies also offer email delivery of their alerts.

Sales trigger events may include:

• management changes
• mergers and acquisitions
• social networking/marketing comments
• new customer announcements
• funding or financing news
• expansion/new locations
• job postings/hiring announcements
• earnings releases

The sales triggers used can be customized to your exact specifications and may be vertical specific, geography specific, company size specific etc.

What is the Value Proposition?

By leveraging sales alerts and triggers, your sales reps will be freed up to spend their time selling, versus surfing the vast internet and web pages for information.

Up to the minute, proactive information about your target companies will turn a cold contact into a warmer lead, therefore speeding up and enhancing the sales cycle… leading to more pipeline and more sales. (The buzz phrase for this is to “speed up sales velocity”)

Companies Offering This Service

Interestingly it was hard to find information about these services on the net.. so perhaps there’s a PR opportunity here! Here are a few of the companies I was able to uncover:

Inside View, in California, http://www.insideview.com/cat-company.html

Pardot, in GA who have a product called “Prospect Insight Marketing Automation”, http://www.pardot.com/company/index.html

Trigger Leaders, in New Mexico, http://www.triggerleaders.com

Other Articles on The Topic

Brian Carroll, “The Physics of Trigger Events”

Alen Majer, “Trigger Events, How To Find Your Next Customer”

Has your company leveraged Trigger Events? Please comment below!