B2B Sales is a numbers game where managers must monitor activities and analyze the behavior of their prospects. According to a 2020 sales report from HubSpot, 90% of companies already use two or more lead generation tools to learn more about prospects. If you feel out of the loop, you need to ask yourself one question: Why data-driven sales in B2B companies performs better?
There is something very important about data analytics tools that help agile businesses thrive, so you should learn more about it and figure out how to use new technologies to increase your potential.
We want to show you how to improve sales in your company, here we present 6 benefits of having a data-driven sales strategy in place.
1. Data Analytics Improves Sales Planning
If you plan your sales strategy based on sheer intuition, you are open to make a lot of mistakes -and lose money on the way-. A survey by Salesforce reveals that high-performing sales teams are 1.5 times more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights.
The main idea of data-focused sales forecasts is to set objectives that are realistic and challenging at the same time. Data analytics tools can help you to come up with ambitious KPIs and targets that are attainable by every sales representative.
It’s an in-depth planning strategy that takes into account numerous sales metrics and parameters. As such, data analytics guarantees to maximize efficiency without overloading your sales reps.
2. It’s Easier to Analyze and Rank Prospects
At least 50% of the prospects chased by sales representatives are not a good fit, this means your teams are likely to spend 50% of their prospecting time working on leads that won’t end up buying your product and services.
This is where data-driven companies drastically outperform traditional sales teams because they analyze and rank prospects much better and more accurately. They do it based on numerous criteria such as:
- The history of purchases
- Product performance in specific industries
- Previous interactions of sales agents with a given prospect
- Prospects’ positions within the sales funnel
- Conversion rates and times
There are many other parameters that can tell you a lot about any buyer persona, but you can hardly detect it without the use of data management platforms.
3. Personalization is key
Modern buyers don’t want to be treated as part of the pack, but rather as unique individuals with highly specific traits and characteristics. In order to achieve the results you want, you must pay attention to their interest.
Instead of sending generic messages and try to reach as many people as you can, you should be trying tailored messages, targeting specific individuals that match your buyer persona characteristics.
To make this happen, you must use data analytics as you need to adjust sales strategies according to prospects’ purchasing habits, income levels, interests, locations, and other factors that influence their purchasing decisions.
4. Personalized marketing makes upsell easier and efficient
Personalization goes a long way, which means that it extends beyond sales activities to synergy with marketing teams. And as you all know already, sales and marketing are meant to support and boost each other performances.
This is way too important to let it pass unnoticed, almost 80% of consumers say they are only likely to engage with an offer if it has been personalized to reflect previous interactions the consumer has had with the brand. Companies must be proactive to understand these trends and tailor experiences to their customer journeys.
It’s easy to see personalized marketing in action, just pay attention every time you visit a website, it’s likely that ads are related to your purchase or search history. This is possible because of real-time data insights coming from advanced analytics platforms.
5. Internal Sales Analysis
You should be able to conduct internal sales analyses and point the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team. Usually, CRMs allow you to explore the operating efficiency of your sales unit and also to perfectly understand each segment of your business strategy and their behavior.
How to divide your internal sales analysis?:
- Analyze sales results by products: This is the best way to analyze the entire portfolio and identify top-performers and underachievers in your system.
- Analyze sales results by agents: Almost every manager will take the chance to analyze the results of individual sales representatives. Although you don’t want to put too much pressure on your staff, it is always good to know the most and least productive people on your team.
- Analyze sales results by branches: In case you are managing a bigger team with multiple units, you might as well focus on specific branches during data research.
6. Spot New Trends with Data Analytics
If you focus on present-day activities too much, you can hardly keep pace with proactive competitors in the long run. This is why we suggest using data analytics to figure out customers’ needs and predict future trends.
Data management platforms are able to accumulate huge volumes of data and you should definitely use them for trend detection. For instance, users’ social media comments, online reviews, email complaints, and many other sources of information can serve as a valuable indicator of things to come.
That way, you can prepare your sales team on time and be ready to answer customers’ requests as soon as the new trend starts dominating the market.
The Bottom Line
How is your team distinguishing between promising and irrelevant prospects? Can they recognize new sales opportunities timely? Is there enough potential to grow your customer base?
The answers to these questions make the difference between good and bad sales teams, but it turns out that companies with advanced data analytics almost always perform better than their more traditional competitors. A data-driven approach to selling will make your company rely on a better sales process rather than a good salesperson.
If you want to give your sales strategy a big boost, you better adopt a data-driven approach to the business. It will give open up fresh perspectives and help you win over more clients sooner than you think