In looking to grow at a rapid clip in the coming months, take a page out of Salesforce.com’s book (or, for that matter, Mintigo’s) and get deeper insights on your customers.
This week, more than 130,000 people will travel to San Francisco for the salesman’s ultimate training conference: Dreamforce. As a business, Salesforce.com itself is rapidly growing due to the fact that they know the DNA of their best customers.
Sustaining More Than 20% Year Over Year Growth:
Earlier this month, there were reports that Salesforce.com is expanding into healthcare in order to give patients “21st Century Customer Service“. And now they have even launched a financial services cloud. According to Forbes, “Salesforce, which specializes in CRM solutions and is the leading vendor in this segment, is tackling slowing growth as it approaches a $7 billion annual revenue run rate. To be sure, the company is still managing to grow at over 20% year on year every quarter…” and theMotley Fool reported that Salesforce.com revenue jumped another 24% in Q2.
The Secret is to Know Thy Customer Intimately
This kind of rapid growth materializes when you know your customers on a very deep level–the kind of level that marries Big Data with key insights–including how to find and attract your very best customers.
It’s no wonder that an effective Big Data company like this is taking over – while they’re teaching businesses to know their target customers and tailor their marketing to them–Salesforce.com is an expert at doing exactly the same thing they teach.
Mintigo Analyzes Salesforce.com’s Customers
It only makes sense to further dissect this incredible growth company using Salesforce.com’s own winning formula–analyzing the available Big Data about the very customers Salesforce.com knows so intimately. Mintigo took a data driven approach to examine the profile of the average Salesforce.com user, using theiraward-winning sales and marketing intelligence technology. And what they found may surprise you. Specifically:
- Salesforce.com users are not as big as you might think–74% of companies that use Salesforce.com have annual revenue between $1M and $50M (with 28% of Salesforce.com users are companies with between $1-5 million in revenues, while 23% of users are companies with annual revenues of $5-10 million).
- Tech using tech to sell to tech–63% of Salesforce.com users are either in software, business services, or manufacturing.
- 28% of Salesforce.com users also use a marketing automation platform.
- Marketo is the undisputed leader among Salesforce.com users, covering 37% of the market.
- There are 4X more sales and marketing employees in the org chart of Salesforce.com companies. That is, 87% of companies using Salesforce.com have sales reps as compared to only 24% of other US companies.
- 38% of Salesforce.com users also use VMWare and Oracle
- Over 40% of Salesforce.com companies are looking for Business Analysts, Agile Developers, and Engineers–this would indicate where most businesses are expecting their future growth from all the data they are collecting.
![The DNA Of Salesforce Users [Infographic]](http://www.mintigo.com/wp-content/uploads/Salesforce-Users-Infographic-Mintigo.jpeg?72e059)
Image Source: Mintigo
If you’re looking to grow at a rapid clip in the coming months, take a page out of Salesforce.com’s book (or, for that matter, Mintigo’s) and get deeper insights on your customers. These platforms are not only getting smarter, but easier to use.
As you tie your CRM and Marketing Automation systems together, you’re learning a lot about your customer’s habits, wants and needs. After all, isn’t that what today’s selling is all about? It’s always been about listening to your customers. What’s changed is that with all the data your customers naturally create, you don’t have to pester them for the insights–you can use platforms like Salesforce.com, Marketo and Mintigo to help you turn your Big Data into Big Insights.
