Radius, a provider of B2B predictive marketing software, just closed on a $50 million series D funding round. It brings the start-ups total financing to date to $125 million.
Founders Fund led this round, which also included participation by Salesforce Ventures, Formation 8, Yuan Capital and others.
Much has changed since Radius did a capital raise, CEO Darian Shirazi told CMSWire. The company has doubled its valuation, increased revenues to a significant degree, adding new customers and built up a formidable internal team.
Focusing on Customer Success
In its customers, Shirazi said. Specifically, it plans to use the proceeds to hire as many customer success managers as possible.
A customer success what? A customer success manager is not a sales rep and it is not a service rep.
A service rep helps customers with specific problems, usually related to technology. The sales rep, of course, is the person who converted that company from a lead into a Radius customer in the first place.
The customer success manager sits in between, providing ongoing assistance on the use of the Radius product.
"This is the person who will explain to the customer what it can expect to achieve working with us," Shirazi said.
The customer will receive regular content such as webinars, papers and best practice studies as well as custom advice on what the company should do to leverage its investment in Radius.
Becoming a Cloud Differentiator
Not all cloud companies offer this layer of customer service. But a growing number are starting to do so.
Salesforce.com has hundreds if not thousands of such people on staff and they have an excellent reputation, Shirazi said.
Other companies such as Marketo and HubSpot offer this service as well.
In Radius' case, the customer success managers will also be spending time helping customers rethink their approach to marketing as they accumulate more and more data points — and perhaps junking some of the shelfware they have accumulated over the years, Shirazi said.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Apr
5
Adopt a Modern Digital-First Marketing Strategy
Learn how to use a composable DXP to your advantage
Webinar
Apr
13
Composable Commerce The Future of Retail
The Adobe Commerce approach to composable and why it's best in class
Webinar
Apr
13
Accelerating Content Velocity Across the Digital Supply Chain
Learn to integrate DAM with upstream tools to improve workflow efficiency.
Webinar
Apr
18
Drive Business Growth Through Customer Service and Support
Defining the future of technology. What is AI’s role in the future of customer service?
"Companies have acquired a lot of software that either didn’t deliver what it promised or doesn’t work in this new environment," he added.
What they won't be doing is spending time showing customers the basics in how to use Radius. That simply won't be necessary, he said.
An Easy UI + Powerful Platform
Predictive marketing software has not, traditionally, been a cakewalk to use. And companies have found it notoriously difficult to get their arms around business intelligence — or at least leverage it into actual, revenue-producing actions.
Radius claims it's different, starting with its easily navigable user interface.
A look under the covers of Radius, though, can be dizzying.
The application itself is called Radius Predictive Marketing Software and it is based on a proprietary data science engine called the Radius Intelligence Cloud.
This data cloud incorporates some 50 billion dynamic signals across every US business in what the company calls the Radius Business Graph.
The platform connects to the company's CRM and then uses the data cloud and its information sources to refine and improve the company's marketing strategy.
This package allows the company to identify, say, related companies in its customer network that might make good leads for a new product. Or identify new accounts that match the profile of the highest revenue-producing customers and the best ways to convert them. Or better personalize campaigns for new leads.
It sounds complicated but once chief marketing officers hit the UI, they can't seem to get enough, Shirazi said. Their only limitations are in their understanding of what works and what doesn’t. And that is where Radius' new customer success army comes in.
