SalesTouch, which is designed for touchscreen devices in the field, analyzes advertiser spending history and revenue trends in order to provide specific engagement strategies that could be used to keep existing accounts, increase opportunities, or allow better use of account executives' time, the company said.

'Actually Helps You Sell'

President and CEO C. Lee Smith said in a statement that his company "didn't want to build another CRM that just counts what you sell." Instead, Smith said, the aim was to build one "that actually helps you sell," by basing the design on the premise that "the only thing more important than what you've done for an advertiser is what you do next."

In the platform, each advertiser's profile information includes a Momentum Dashboard, which contains proprietary algorithms that generate unique assessments, such as an alert about an account that might be in danger of shrinking or going away or, alternatively, about one that appears to be growing.

In its announcement, SDS noted that individual advertisers' revenue momentum is rapidly changing, and said that Momentum Dashboard provides a "distinct advantage" for sales professionals trying to figure out how to engage advertisers.

There's also a full integration with AdMall, SDS' sales intelligence database for local and digital advertising. Local ad sales opportunities are provided to SalesTouch users through AdMall, as well as local market background research for over 400 business types and an online version of AdMall's Diagnosis Call.

AdMall Pro, Conversation Starters

Diagnosis Call provides needs analysis, consumer spending at a ZIP Code level, and direct access to Facebook and Twitter to search the social networks of prospective advertisers.

The company said that AdMall is utilized by the sales staffs of more than 2,000 media properties in TV, cable, direct response, out-of-home, radio, and magazines.

AdMall Pro is available as an upgrade for SalesTouch. Pro enables the ability to develop sales presentations, proposals, and marketing materials within SalesTouch, as well as functions to map spending and retail sales.

SalesTouch also provides conversation starters from trending topics, quick demographic profiles of the market surrounding a given location, and local traffic and weather reports. The service is available for the iPad and iPhone, and for Android smartphones and tablets. In April, SDS released an AdMall mobile app.

Founded in 1989 and based in Westerville, Ohio, SDS provides tools, training and intelligence for salespeople. In addition to SalesTouch and AdMall, SDS's products and services include the Media Sales Today blog, the Media Sales Monthly and Marketing Forecast video podcasts, Advertising Smarter instructional videos, Ad-ology market research, and Media Sales Basic self-paced video training program.

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