Sales analytics is a process used to track, measure and analyze sales data in order to improve business performance. It can help businesses identify trends, optimize marketing strategies and increase sales productivity. If you’re thinking about using b2b Sales Analytics in your own organization, here are five benefits that you can expect:
B2B Sales Analytics
B2B Sales Analytics is the process of analyzing data to identify trends and patterns that can help improve the sales process. This data can come from a variety of sources, including customer surveys, sales data, and website data.
By analyzing this data, businesses can identify areas where they can improve their sales process, such as by increasing the number of leads, improving conversion rates, or increasing the average order value.
Most marketing data is relevant to sales, including prospect and client behavior, preferences, and engagement. Sales reps can also access their own interaction histories, such as emails and phone calls.
Analytic software provides functions that help salespeople discover, diagnose and predict outcomes.
Sales has always been a number’s game, but now with the explosion in data, it is more important than ever for sales and marketing teams to use data analytics.
By understanding which sales strategies are working and which are not, companies can make more informed decisions about where to allocate their resources. Sales analytics can also be used to identify trends and patterns in client behavior, which can help businesses better target their marketing efforts.
7 Ways You Can Use Data Analytics in Sales
The advancement of technology, especially in regard to digitization, has led to the exponential growth of data.
While in popular belief, data can be dull or uninteresting, it is nothing more than information that can be utilized.
And information is powerful – and in today’s modern business world, analytics provides a competitive advantage.
Where should you implement analytics in your sales funnel?
Here are 7 ways you can use data and analytics to gain a competitive advantage.
1. Pricing
Analyzing historical data allows for a pricing strategy that is based on hard numbers.
Customer segmentation and clustering allow you to develop the optimal price for your product or service, as well as make “value” sales.
2. Segmenting your customers.
Sales analytics is the process of using data and artificial intelligence to segment customers and develop sales strategies. By understanding customer buying behavior, needs, and industries, businesses can more effectively target their sales efforts and improve conversions.
3. Optimizing your customer portfolios.
Sales analytics is the process of analyzing customer data in order to make more informed and targeted sales decisions. This may include creating buyer personas, understanding customer needs, and improving conversion rates.
4. Optimizing your product offering.
Customer data can be used to better optimize your product offering, resulting in more up-sells and cross sells.
5. CRM
Sales analytics is the process of analyzing customer behavior in order to predict future buying patterns. This information can be used to optimize sales strategies and improve customer relationships. By understanding how customers make purchasing decisions, businesses can more effectively target their marketing efforts and reduce customer churn.
6. Managing a sales team.
The prioritization and segmenting of customers allow salespeople to more efficiently manage their time. Not all customers are the same, so they should not be treated the same.
A data-driven approach to scheduling helps salespeople improve their performance, both personally and for their organization.
7. Lead prioritization
Understanding and using sales data can help your sales reps to prioritize which lead is the hottest, and which are most likely to convert into paying customers.
In conclusion, the digital transformation of sales and marketing through the availability of data has provided new insights for sales and marketing teams to improve their performance.
3 Tips to Launch Your Sales Analytics Initiative
Today, companies are using new and better ways of analyzing their business-to-business (B2B) data.
Sales analytics is a powerful tool that can help organizations achieve their sales goals. By looking at the experiences of others, organizations can learn how to apply sales analytics to their own situation and take practical steps to ensure their success.
Sales analytics is the key to a successful sales strategy. Companies that leverage analytics grow their revenues and make their sales more productive.
In a survey of 55% of high-performing sales teams, 55% said that using data and analytics was essential to their business strategy. Only 7% of underperforming teams said the same.
The takeaway? Now—not later—is the time to start thinking about your sales data.
The benefits of using business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing techniques in business-to-business (B2B) selling are numerous.
Predictive lead scoring, where companies score leads in real-time to identify the hottest prospects sales analytics is not only restricted to big organizations. In fact, many small and medium enterprises have also found success in utilizing sales analytics tools to improve their sales productivity.
Sales analytics can help businesses identify patterns in customer buying behavior, which can then be used to inform a next-product-to-buy scenario. Predictive analytics can be used to determine how likely customers are to cross-sell, and this information can be used to make decisions about what products to offer next.
In this scenario, Periscope by McKinsey’s sales analytics were used to help a post and parcel company increase their revenue by 500%. This was done by using predictive analytics to see how customer buying behavior could be patterns for cross-selling.
Developing and deploying a Sales Analytics Solution requires multiple steps. Here are 3 tips to getting started:
1. Share the data.
Many companies have massive amounts of data, but fail to share it within their organization for fear of it not being accurate. However, you don’t need 100% accuracy in your data for it to be effective.
The more people who view and use your data, the more it can be improved and added to. The best thing you can do is get the data out there.
2. Get the right people and technology.
Having the right team and tools at your disposal is crucial to being able to extract insights from your data.
The most successful companies have small, specialized teams dedicated to analyzing their data. These teams are led by an Analytics Leader, Data Strategist, and (of course) a Data.
To guarantee their ongoing success, companies look for technology that can aggregate data into one place, support collaboration, and allow for file sharing—all strengths of the Anaplan Platform.
3. Use data to align your sales compensation plan.
In order to operationalize your analytics-driven campaign, you’ll need to align it with sales compensation. This will ensure that your front line is motivated to succeed.
The success of your data-driven initiatives hinges on the frontline, so incentivize them accordingly.
The Benefits of B2B Data Analytics?
Sales analysis software increases accountability for sales teams and helps them understand which factors influence their sales figures.
There are a number of applications enabled by sales analytics. Some of these include:
Reduce the amount of time you spend on sales support activities
According to most studies, sales reps spend way too much time on tasks other than selling. This includes forecasting, prioritization, and approach. All of these can be automatically done using an application like Salesforce.
Behavioral analysis can help you identify which of your prospects are showing buying signals.
Improved Prioritization
Sales analytic software helps prioritize your sales process by tracking your deals, identifying your hottest opportunities, and forecasting your pipeline.
Using predictive analytics, you can determine which of your incoming leads to prioritize. You can also tie your sales reps’ performance to metrics that are tracked with your sales data. And, finally, you can determine how much of a deal’s revenue should be attributed to each of your departments.
Enhanced Sales Processes
Sales insights can help sales managers learn from their high performers, as well as improve their own sales processes and coach their reps.
Disadvantages of B2B Data Analytics?
Large companies need sales data to make better business decisions.
Analytics can be extremely helpful for sales teams with at least 10 reps and 10+ customers. A stable and predictable market is also required so that the customer base does not fluctuate wildly.
If your sales data is simple enough to fit into an Excel spreadsheet, then you probably don’t need any fancy software.
The transparency of sales data is often limited in today’s artificial intelligence (AI) software. This makes it difficult to trust the insights these systems provide.
Conclusion
If you’re thinking about using b2b Sales Analytics in your own organization, there are many benefits that you can expect. It can help businesses identify trends, optimize marketing strategies and increase sales productivity. If you’re looking to improve your business performance, consider investing in sales analytics.
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