What is Sales Data?
What is sales data and how can it help you?
As technology continues to drive and refine how we approach B2B prospecting, intuition isn’t enough to reel in best-fit prospects. Companies require accurate, real-time sales data to inform their sales process and hit sales targets.
However, understanding and applying this data is a challenge, made more complicated by the vastness of today's sales data.
When we discuss sales data, we refer to any information related to the sales process that may benefit your sales team.
For example, this may include any data used to help an e-commerce business identify new prospects and improve sales forecasts in ways previously unrealized by the sales team.
Given how broad this definition is, organizations need to understand how they can use different types of sales data to their advantage.
To help you get started, we’ll be exploring ways sales data can help your business grow and how to gather accurate information with powerful sales intelligence tools such as Owler Max, plus organizational methods and various application points.
What Does Sales Data Do?
To improve decision-making and surpass sales goals, businesses need to know where and how they can enhance their B2B sales strategies.
This is where data comes in. According to a report by McKinsey, businesses that integrated data into their workflow showed a 6% higher profitability than companies that didn’t.
Data sets derived from internal and external sources are essential to optimizing your sales practices. Let’s discuss why that is in further detail below:
Identify Potential New Customers
Lead generation is critical to your sales process. It helps you identify companies in a position to buy and discover prospects who would benefit from your products or services.
Without credible, actionable data, sales leaders cannot determine who these potential customers are, much less construct the buyer personas needed to guide prospecting.
Sales data even supports post-purchase relations, including identifying your customers’ buying patterns and utilizing this information to promote customer loyalty.
Streamlines the Sales Process
Routine data tracking and analysis allow sales leaders to assess problem areas in their team’s sales process and develop realistic solutions.
One area to fine-tune is your team’s methodology and the design of the sales pipeline itself. Among other uses, sales data provides the information needed to assess relevant KPIs and advise any changes made to your practices.
If organized well, sales data is also readily available for your team to view in Excel or similar spreadsheets. Since data encompasses everything from customer demographics to sales forecasting, team members guided by data will never be misinformed or leave their activities up to interpretation.
Where is Sales Data Collected From?
A data-driven approach to sales can optimize your workflow and generate new opportunities for your company. However, you will need good data to achieve these results.
Good sales data can be extracted from multiple public domain sources. Your potential customers’ and competitors’ social media, websites, and other web content is readily available to analyze and use to your advantage.
Meanwhile, for dynamic data-backed prospecting, you will need B2B sales intelligence that may be more difficult to come by without using a research tool like Owler Max.
Empowered by an extensive network of business professionals, Owler Max provides you with intel on your potential customers, prospects, and competitors. With Owler, information gathering is streamlined thanks to comprehensive company profiles, real-time data on market trends, trackable news alerts, and more.
Where to Organize Sales Data Sets
Given the sheer amount of data you will inevitably generate, you and your team will need an easy method of tracking and organizing information. Fortunately, there is software readily available to achieve that.
Keep in mind your team’s familiarity with the tool you choose. If they’re unfamiliar, train them on how to use it and ensure they’re inputting data after every interaction in the sales process.
Here are two ways you can organize your sales data sets:
Excel
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Excel (or any other type of spreadsheet) is a simple software for gathering and assessing data. Most people are familiar with Excel, so your team will experience less of a learning curve. To add, spreadsheets can be programmed to automatically perform calculations and structure data, limiting some manual effort on your team’s part.
That said, Excel and similar programs do rely on manual inputs. Furthermore, templates must be well-structured to keep all your data organized.
CRMs
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Customer relationship management (CRM) software offers greater functionality than spreadsheets.
Although more advanced CRMs are not free to use, they can automate many of your basic manual tasks and streamline reporting, giving you a ready-made source of data.
For example, a CRM will document your interactions with new customers, maintain a consistent record of historical data, and track communications so your team can focus on more critical tasks.
If your pipeline requires a complex workflow, consider integrating a CRM tool.
What Can Your Sales Team Do with These Data Sets?
Regardless of your choice of software, once you have a way of collecting and organizing sales data, you can move on to analyzing it.
Let’s explore some data application points below:
Identify Key Opportunities
Credible sales data will not only help you pinpoint high-value opportunities—but it will give you the intel you need to close bigger and better deals.
Accurate, real-time B2B sales data on your prospects will help you craft the perfect introduction topic and build rapport. The same information may provide openings for an upsell or cross-sell pitch down the pipeline. Data on deal size will enable your team to flag high-risk deals, ensuring you prioritize prospects efficiently.
Create Sales Forecasts
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Good data is necessary for sales forecasting. Backed by accurate information, sales leaders may use forecasting to devise new strategies and hit sales targets better.
AI-powered CRM tools take forecasting a step further with comprehensive reporting of your pipeline.
Platforms like Salesforce can help you track where and how your team is meeting their targets and provide valuable tools for pinpointing sales challenges and where you might be missing objectives. CRMs also maintain historical data so you can compare and contract past forecasts.
Track Important Sales Metrics
Sales metrics refer to data points used to measure a salesperson’s performance. They’re a powerful type of sales data, helpful in evaluating your KPIs and assessing your team’s effectiveness across various activities. You can use this information to educate and guide your team.
To harness this kind of intel, you can use self-service tools to carry out evaluations, crunch data based on team members’ respective sales reports, or monitor their activities on a CRM platform.
Prospect for New Sales
As with all aspects of sales, prospects require accurate, up-to-date information.
Internal and external data drive prospecting by supplying and continuously updating you with industry insights.
Data on anything from market trends, sales attribution, competitor movements, customer analytics, and much more can help you prospect for new business. You can also use data to inform your internal activities and pinpoint where your lead generation tactics are succeeding and where they might not.
Upgrade Your Sales Data Collection with Owler
Data is the foundation for a smarter, more profitable sales process. Accurate information empowers your team and enables you to maximize revenue and optimize workflow.
To collect the data, you need to improve your performance. Look no further than Owler Max’s in-depth sales intelligence.
Harnessed directly from the companies you’re interested in, Owler delivers actionable insights and business-critical opportunities straight to your feed.
To learn more, join our thriving community of business professionals and support your team with our exclusive Owler Max team product.