Author: Miha S

Company Signals API

We started PredictLeads with the mission to find actionable business  data in public documents.

 

HISTORY

Categorized news articles about companies was our first offering, with which our partners were able to display highly relevant news to their customers. But quickly we saw even bigger demand for more structured business data.

The main issue was that there was no way to extract such data with our existing classification approach. For example, there was no way to know which company was acquired and which one did acquiring. Or, who was hired to which position within a company.

Although we knew the solution to the problem, we wanted to build something for the long term. Today, after 6 months of building systems, gathering training data and QA processes, we’re proud to finally launch Business Signals API.

 

FUTURE

At its core is PredictLeads Entity and Relationship Extraction System (PERES) which performs 3 steps:

  1. It starts with scanning millions of public documents every day.
    1. Public document examples: news articles, blog posts, SEC filings, job openings, PR releases, industry news etc.
  2. System then extracts 20 different types of entities from the those documents.
    1. Entity examples: organizations, persons, locations, money, job titles, business divisions etc.
  3. At the last step, it tries to identify relevant relationships between these entities.
    1. Relationship examples: acquisitions, personnel changes, investments, expansions, office closures, recognitions etc.

Well, actually, there’s a fourth step, human supervision. We know that machines are not yet fully reliable, so most of the relationships are still human approved for highest quality.

 

To get a better picture what types of data are we talking about, here are two examples of data in JSON format:

{
    "id":1656497,
    "type":"signal",
    "categories":[
      "launches"
    ],
    "title":"BMW launches ReachNow car-sharing service on Sep 19th 16'.",
    "body":"BMW will launch its ReachNow car-sharing service in Portland on Sept. 19, the car-maker announced today.",
    "domain":"bmw.com",       "url":"http://www.geekwire.com/2016/bmw-unveils-details-reachnow-car-sharing-launch-portland-next-month/",
    "found_at":"2016-08-15T02:00:00.000+02:00",
    "removed_at":null,
    "data":{
      "location":"Portland",
      "product":"ReachNow car-sharing service",
      "date":"2016-09-19T02:00:00.000+02:00",
      "organizations":[
        "bmw.com"
      ]
    }
  }

 

Or

 

{
    "id":1915491,
    "type":"signal",
    "categories":[
      "invests_into_assets"
    ],
    "title":"Domino Printing Sciences Plc invests into assets : factory on Aug 18th 16'.",
    "body":"Cambridge-headquartered commercial inkjet printing business Domino Printing Sciences has opened its new £19m factory in China.",
    "domain":"domino-printing.com",
    "url":"http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/central-and-east/domino-printing-sciences-opens-chinese-factory",
    "found_at":"2016-08-18T09:44:26.000+02:00",
    "removed_at":null,
    "data":{
      "location":"China",
      "amount":"25332000",
      "assets":"factory",
      "date":"2016-08-18T09:44:26.000+02:00",
      "organizations":[
        "domino-printing.com"
      ]
    }
  }

Above are 2 of 30+ possible types of signals. Full list is available here: https://predictleads.com/docs/#signal

 

APPLICATIONS

Types of applications are (almost) endless, but I will list a few we had in mind:

  1. Sales Enablement Solutions: empower customers to know everything about their prospects’ business without Googling around.
  2. Predictive Lead Scoring: high quality buying signals should be core data for predictive models
  3. Account Based Marketing or Sales: enable customers to generate automated highly personalized and relevant messages to their existing or potential customers.

 

Contact us for your API key or to find out more.

sales@predictleads.com

8 Sales Triggers Stats That Will Make You a Believer

By now you have probably already heard of sales triggers or trigger event selling. Maybe you even went as far as setting up a Google Alerts system to track specific keywords or accounts. But do you actually use that information in conversations with your prospects or customers? As we’ve discovered from our interviews with customers and prospects the answer is “Probably not.”

In case you just need a little nudge, here are 8 stats that might help you take the next step .

But, before I get into details, let me tell you a story how InnoPath discovered the value of sales triggers by accident.

When InnoPath was just starting up, the founders were trying to match their algorithm with the right application. By talking with NEC, one of Japan’s then leading feature phone manufacturers, they found out  the corporation is concerned about costly device recalls on account of several firmware malfunctions and bugs. That made InnoPath founders realize they could leverage their algorithm to build a solution which uncovers hidden firmware bugs. Demo with NEC went great and InnoPath’s first deal was signed.

Now that InnoPath figured out who their ideal customers are, they set up a system that tracks keywords revolving around firmware bugs appearing in news articles or forums. In the next 3 months they closed a number of major handset manufacturers, such as Samsung and Sharp.

Eventually, InnoPath achieved over 90% market share in Japan. Deals were closed within months at high-margin prices and competition couldn’t come close.

An inspiring success story.

Now, without further ado, here are the stats:

  1. Prioritising your prospects by key trigger events lifts conversion rates. Companies where key trigger events occurred are 400% more likely to buy. (Source: B2BLeadBlog)
  2. Connecting with companies that have recently received funding is a great first step to sales triggers adoption. Those who recently experienced a financial event and can now afford your services, are now up to 8x more likely to buy. (Source: SHIFT! By Craig Ellias)
  3. Depending on industry and geography, the data suggests that a change in vendors is triggered by changing managers 28% of the time.  (Source: PersistIQ)
  4. Frustration with the existing vendor is one of the greatest motivators for change. Organizations recently dissatisfied with the status quo are up to 10x more likely to switch vendors. (Source: Craig Ellias)
  5. Always be on the lookout for trigger events at target accounts and start a conversation with them before anyone else. Sales reps have a 74% chance of closing the deal, if they engage a prospect first in a consultative manner. (Source: DestinationCRM)
  6. 70% of customers want to talk to sales during the early stages in the buying process: when they’re information-grazing, when they first learn what you can do and when they put you on the shortlist. (Source: ITSMA)
  7. You can close that event-triggered account, even though your solution wasn’t budgeted for at the beginning of the year. 80% of B2B purchases are unplanned and unbudgeted. (Source: DemandGen)
  8. Segment your accounts by trigger events to gain a better conversion rate. Event-triggered campaigns will see their messages receive, at minimum, 5x the response rate of non-targeted push messages. (Source: Gartner)

 

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