How to use analytical data to drive sales and increase revenue.

By Elaina Hundley

By 2025, 60% of B2B sales organizations are expected to transition from experience- and intuition-based selling to data-driven selling, according to new research from Gartner. With the rise of ecommerce across all markets, as well as the shift towards a more multi-platform consumer journey, it is clear that a key to success moving forward will be quality outreach driven by hard data.

Gone are the days of volume-focused cold calling, today’s customers on both the B2C and B2B sides are inundated with sales messages in the form of spam calls, pitch emails, advertisements and content marketing. More is no longer more, which is why strategic, value-driven outreach is key. When you contact your prospect, not only should they be someone actively looking for your product—but you better also have something customized and useful to say or your message will never cut through the noise. 

Targeted industry data can yield crucial insights into how to approach any given market, whether you’re looking for customer demographic information in the retail space or details about which healthcare facilities are opening and/or closing in different areas.

When used strategically, this kind of data can help convert new customers and drive new revenue. But it can also be useless if you don’t know how to utilize it. Below are a few ways sales organizations can make the most of the data they collect or purchase to support their sales strategies. 

Use data to understand your industry 

Following trends in the industry allows for a baseline understanding of its major players, pain points and evolution—i.e. who you need to reach with your product or service and how it can help solve pressing industry challenges. With a clearer picture of the industry, you will be able to better support its players as they prepare for the future.

Both industry newcomers looking to learn and industry veterans can benefit from reviewing historical data. Oftentimes the information gleaned by studying historical trends can be surprising!

Use data to drive strategy 

Data insights can help you understand where to start when it comes to selling. Who needs your product? How should you communicate with them? What message is most likely to resonate? Half the battle in sales is often deciding where to start—but having a clear, data-informed plan will help you hone in on the most viable prospects. Knowing who to engage will make it easier to communicate with them using the right message at the right time, rather than throwing as many darts at the wall as you can and just seeing which stick. 

You’ll save time and effort by using data to narrow your sales funnel and craft the most compelling campaigns to convert each audience. 

Use data to target sales 

Make sure your messaging will cut through the clutter. By focusing on the nuances within any given audience, you can target your strategy to sub-segments—and then use personalization to more effectively grab your prospect’s attention. 

Use data to put the right ad, or send the right email or even share the right LinkedIn update to the right audience at the right time. When in the year might a target company have extra budget they need to use before they lose it? Time your ad or message to that time-frame. Customize the selling points you highlight based on who you are speaking to. Rather than marketing to your target audience as a whole, delve into more specific categories within it. This will help you make your sales messages clear, relevant and specific to each recipient. 

Use data to reflect on whether or not your approach is working

Data is not just a place to start when developing your sales strategy, it should serve as an ongoing part of the process. With each campaign, cold call cycle and content deployment, your company should take in its own data and analytics about the efficacy of each marketing and sales tactic. Using this info as well as the data reflecting broader market shifts can provide you with meaningful guidance for how to tweak your next strategy, making it stronger than the last. 

While a working lunch sales presentation may be a thing of the past (for the time being at least), it might help to think of data as the details you’re able to collect during an in person meeting. All those social cues and physical tics that reveal how your prospect is feeling about a deal—we can now use movement online, demographic information and more to garner similar cues on a much larger scale. And, if we are smart and savvy, we’ll take them in, learn from them and use them to recalibrate our approach. 

If all this data talk is making your head spin, turn to Blue House Sales Group. If you have data that you aren’t sure what to do with, we can help you develop a targeted programmatic advertising campaign that will help you reach the right audience at the right time.

If you are in the ASC space and interested in gaining data to drive your own sales strategy, visit ASCdata.com today. 

Want to learn more? Get in touch today.