Brian Carroll

InTouch Acquired by MECLABS Group, Parent Company of MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments

When I started the B2B Lead Generation blog back in 2003, my purpose was to have this blog be a launch pad for practical ideas, not commercials. So that’s why many of you probably don’t know what I do in my day job as CEO of InTouch. But today I’m making an exception. 

After a long partnership with MarketingSherpa as a featured speaker and presenter at their B2B marketing summits, we made the decision to be acquired by MECLABS Group, the parent company of MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments. Read the press release.

With this acquisition, nothing will change for InTouch clients, future clients, partners and employees. We’ll keep our name, our staff, and office in Arden Hills, MN. I along with our executive team will stay intact and we will continue to focus on building the company.

I often talk about the need for a “human touch” in marketing to overcome this age of automation and depersonalization. I fervently believe the only way to drive sales is to feed this need for relationships.

What exactly does InTouch do? We’re a professional B2B contact center that provides clients with the essential human touch required to develop and convert more leads into sales.

At age 24, I started InTouch (then Carroll Communications) back in 1995 out of my apartment living room with a second hand computer and $350 (I’m not kidding). At the time, I hoped to make a living while making a difference with how companies acquire and grow customer relationships through B2B telemarketing.

In 1999, we acquired one of our clients with which we had developed awfully good synergies, iNETech, an IT consulting Services Company specializing in software application development and I gained two great business partners, Pat Lorch and Brandon Stamschror. The new name of the firm, of course, was InTouch.

Since then, our company has been executing lead generation programs designed to profile sales prospects, uncover viable opportunities and create demand. Core services include: teleprospecting, lead qualification, lead nurturing, lead management, and marketing automation tools. Peg Davis over at MarketingExperiments blog wrote a great post that explains more.

That’s why all of us at InTouch are excited about tapping into MarketingSherpa’s practical case studies and know how, and MarketingExperiments’ online laboratory to discover what really works. Together, we can profoundly change the way people think about lead generation for the complex sale.

Plus, now our research for you will be supplemented by the team at MEC Labs Group. They run an actual laboratory facility in Jacksonville Beach, FL, where they conduct live campaign experiments in partnership with folks such as The New York Times and Reuters.

I want to sincerely thank you all of you for reading this blog. I have learned so much from your comments and our conversations. This blog will continue. And I look forward to us learning, doing and sharing together what really works for lead generation for the complex sale

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

Current Affairs, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Leadership, Public Relations (PR), Sales Leads



  1. November 7th, 2007 at 12:17 | #1

    Brian – Congrats to you and your firm! Couldn’t have happened to a better guy! – Mike

  2. November 7th, 2007 at 12:44 | #2

    Brian,

    Congrats — sounds like a great move for you and it’s terrific to see two of the premier B2B thought-leaders getting together!

    Allen

  3. November 7th, 2007 at 23:05 | #3

    Bravo… Bravo… And Congratulations are well deserved!

  4. November 8th, 2007 at 22:25 | #4

    I heard this just the other day at a marketingexperiments webcast..I was surprised, just never saw it coming! Congrats…you deserve this..and I’m glad the blog will continue. It is priceless. Best wishes.

    Interesting too that techtarget just bought knowledgestorm…announced just this week too.

  5. November 9th, 2007 at 07:10 | #5

    What’s great about this for MECLABS is that they get, not only your thoughtful insights, Brian, but your great humanism, your ability to communicate sometimes complex business processes in ways people easily understand.

    Congratulations to everyone involved. What a great partership. Best of luck!

    - Steve Gershik

  6. November 12th, 2007 at 06:34 | #6

    Brian,

    Congratulations! I look forward to continuing to read your posts.

    MW

  7. November 13th, 2007 at 14:30 | #7

    Congrats Brian! Sounds like a great move.

  8. November 16th, 2007 at 10:57 | #8

    Brian,

    Congratulations on the news. I look forward to reading your blog and learning about your insights..

  9. November 17th, 2007 at 09:55 | #9

    Brian – Congratulations on your new partership MECLABS. I am big fan of MarketingSherpa and they recently ran a case study on our solution. You can read the article at http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30203

  10. November 19th, 2007 at 12:29 | #10

    Congratulations on the good news! I am sure that you will find some great synergies between your company and MECLABS. I have enjoyed following your blog and hope that you continue to spread the importance of bridging the divide between marketing and sales. Fortunately, as you have noticed from your speaking engagements over the past year, B2B marketers are getting ever more sophisticated and increased presence for subject matter experts will only further help B2B marketing and sales technologies catch up to their counterparts in the B2C space.

  11. November 19th, 2007 at 13:05 | #11

    Brian
    Look forward to your future insights. Congrats on a job well done.

  1. No trackbacks yet.