Updated on February 1, 2021
It is not good enough to make sales decisions based on educated guessing or by following your gut feeling anymore. Instead, the demand for data usage in sales has created the concept of data-driven sales. Nowadays, sales teams need to rely on data to create their selling strategy. Experienced sales teams reveal the key advantages of using a data-driven sales strategy to boost your sales.
Techniques for a data-driven sales strategy
1. Creating personalized sales campaigns
It is easier to customize your sales tactics and campaigns to match customer needs when you have data from your customers. For example, if your website is predominately visited by 30-year-old females from Germany, you can change, edit and create the content to speak directly to them.
Before you start creating personalized sales campaigns, make sure to filter your desired audience using tools for data automation, which can offer bulk data processing and help you select your desired audience based on the geographic location, number of employees, type of industry, and many other filters.
2. Eliminating bad data consequences
Your data-driven sales strategy is as good as the data you have access to. Good data leads to less time spent prospecting, more meetings and more closed deals. The impact of bad data can lead to revenue loss. A survey by Zoominfo states that inaccurate data wastes 27.3% of sales representatives’ time which is 546 hours a year. Furthermore, Gartner’s case study shows that Fortune 1000 enlisted enterprises lose more money in operational inefficiency due to data quality issues.
For your data-driven sales strategy to work, make sure your team has access to high-quality, clean data and measure the sales stats. The first step to ensure that your data is up-to-date is to verify it. A way of doing this is to have a third-party vendor that takes care of your data updates or to use software with a data verification tool, that can help you validate data points such as phone numbers, email address and company info.
3. Increasing profitability
One of the main advantages of data-driven sales is increased profitability. According to research presented by McKinsey&Company, companies that inject data into their sales are 5-6% more profitable than their competitors.
According to Hubspot, almost half of all deals are lost because of a budget. With data, you get insight into customers’ budgets, and offer them flexible options that are more likely to convince them to close the deal. You might offer them payment plans or increase initial customer support in order to land more sales.
4. Empowering your sales team
With so much data available, some salespeople still fall into the trap of treating all leads equally. This happens even when there is clear data showing that sales teams waste their time on contacts that may never convert into customers. Sales teams can no longer rely on their intuition to guide them through the sales process. Instead, data gives sales teams access to an endless supply of information about their leads. This allows them to target exactly who they want to from the start.
Why you should use a data-driven sales strategy
With so much data available, it has never been easier to make the switch to a data-driven sales approach. Using this viewpoint, your company can have numerous benefits. From getting to know your customers on a more personal level, to creating a sales enablement strategy that leverages the best talents of your team, data is becoming one of your most powerful business allies of modern times.
