Companies now need to go beyond focusing on customer prospecting methodologies, strategies and processes. Of course, these aspects are essential to generate qualified leads and close deals. But, currently, it is necessary to incorporate greater sales intelligence in all activities related to the commercial sector to achieve better results and greater performance.
This intelligence in the commercial area can and should be implemented in the various processes carried out, involving:
- Study of the ideal customer profile and analysis of the competition;
- Lead generation operations through Big Data and artificial intelligence;
- Creation of prospecting lists;
- Lead qualification;
- Elaboration of automated and personalized cadence flows, with points of contact by email, telephone and LinkedIn;
- Telephone sales pitch;
- Team performance indicators, both productivity and results delivered;
- Achieving goals;
- Leads generated, conversion rate, deals closed and revenue generated;
- Sales pipeline analysis and sales projection.
Therefore, sales intelligence is an essential action to evaluate commercial strategies and their results, optimizing and improving processes and operations in order to generate better performance.
It is worth noting that sales intelligence is on the rise. According to the Crack the Sales 2021 survey, investment in platforms of this type is one of the fastest growing, with 72% of companies seeking to increase the allocation of resources to these tools.
Additionally, 65% of salespeople rate these tools as indispensable for closing more deals.
So, in this content, we are going to go into more detail about sales intelligence.
But what is this sales intelligence?
In a simple and summarized way, sales intelligence encompasses all the intelligence generated through the analysis of information from the market, from the company itself, from current and potential customers, in addition to the internal processes of the commercial sector, prospecting strategies and sellers’ performance.
Thus, based on such evaluations, it is possible to have solid, reliable and structured data to identify bottlenecks and problems in the commercial sector, as well as to visualize opportunities to be explored by your business and behavior patterns of prospected leads.
That is, in the end, the intelligence promoted by the data and numbers of the operation guarantees insights for sales managers to facilitate decision making regarding:
- Definition of the ideal customer profile;
- Planning of commercial actions;
- Changes and redirection of commercial strategies;
- Changes in objectives and targets;
- Better allocation of resources;
- Hiring new employees in the commercial sector, such as prospectors and salespeople.
How sales intelligence works in practice
It is clear that sales intelligence is reflected in business processes, in the team’s action plans, in the salespeople’s actions in relation to leads and potential customers, and in closing sales.
To be implemented in practice, it is necessary to adopt not only good practices in data analysis, but also technologies and tools to collect, measure and monitor information and performance indicators.
It is good to remember that this intelligence acts on 4 pillars. Let’s go to them:
Planning: structuring and defining commercial actions based on the study of information from potential customers, the market and competitors.
Data analysis: gathering data on prospecting strategies and commercial operations carried out in accordance with business objectives and selected sales KPIs.
Assessment: with all the data and numbers collected, measured and presented, it is possible to correctly assess the scenario of the company’s commercial area and make decisions based on these insights.
Disclosure: in this cycle of intelligence in pursuit of high sales performance, it is essential to disseminate data and results on current strategies and processes, showing why changes, new actions, redirections and other decisions were taken.
What are the main benefits of sales intelligence in business?
We have already seen the importance of using sales intelligence with a focus on sales performance. But what are the main points that are positively impacted by this strategy? Check out:
Gather lead data
The first very beneficial point of using intelligence is the collection of data on the customer’s profile, their challenges, pains and difficulties, purchasing habits, communication channels used, the history of interactions and relationships with the company, among others. details.
All of this helps to discover which stage of the sales funnel the lead is in, creating more assertive approaches to evolve in the buying journey and identifying the customers most likely to buy.
Assist in closing deals
The intelligence process allows gathering a series of information about leads to help sales representatives, making prospecting more effective and facilitating the generation of value for leads. As a consequence, it is possible to increase sales and improve the conversion rate.
Optimize the role of the sales team
Imagine the sales rep just running around with different activities and processes to try to hit targets. It is certainly a waste of productivity and will not generate the expected results.
Therefore, sales intelligence helps a lot, as it makes the team’s performance more efficient, with detailed knowledge about leads, and can improve its approach. Which allows you to achieve better closing rates.
Improve prioritization of business activities
By creating histories of interactions and relationships with leads during cadence flows, it is possible to store a volume of data and results about these contacts. From there, management can visualize what type of interaction, at what time and through which channel was most successful.
With all this pattern of behavior mapped and identified, managers are able to establish procedures for the team to achieve better results. For example, if a lead opens a prospecting email twice, what’s the next step? Should the salesperson call, send another email, or schedule a follow-up?
With all the previous study mentioned, the sales representative will know exactly what to do and will be able to evolve with this lead.
Facilitate sales forecast management
Sellers and managers are not always able to look at the sales pipeline and predict which leads are most likely to close. That is, they do not know what the future sales projection is.
However, with sales intelligence tools, it is possible to estimate which leads have the highest profile, need, opportunity and budget to close a deal. In addition, you can also check the urgency of the lead to complete the purchase.
Thus, with a view of all stages of leads in the funnel and this data, a more assertive prediction of the sales forecast is guaranteed.
Count with ASB Marketing to increase your sales
If you want to implement demand generation strategies in your business, it is of paramount importance to start with planning.
In this scenario, understand your audience, online behavior, preferences and, especially, make an analysis of your competitors and current demands of the market.
Then understand how your sales process works and what characteristics need to be changed to meet your ideal customer profile.
In addition, it is essential to keep in mind that demand generation does not only occur by paid media, on the contrary, inbound marketing actions (attraction marketing) and demand generation generate very advantageous results for organizations when well employed.
Finally, you can count on an experienced marketing and sales company to support the implementation of these strategies, such as ASB Marketing.
With the best innovative methodologies and tools, ASB Marketing finds its ideal customer and qualifies them through fully automated and personalized email cadence.
When the lead arrives at the purchase decision phase, we only passed on to your commercial team to close the negotiation. With this, we guarantee increased sales, reduction of trade cycle, cost optimization and support in long -term business expansion.
Do you want to know more? Go now and see how ASB Marketing can help your business!