How important is Data?

What is the most important thing to you as a marketer? Is it pushing leads through the sales funnel? Is it generating more leads for the sales team? Is it achieving a 25% email open rate? How about this one –the ability to make decisions based on real metrics and analytics?

The reality is, is that all those things aren’t possible without data-driven insight. Some marketers shoot in the dark and hope for the best, but do they yield maximum results? Are they able to roll out stronger and more refined campaigns without real data? If you are a marketer that’s interested in executing the kind of campaigns that work to convert prospects into customers, you must have enough experience to say: ‘The most important thing for me is gathering insight’.

Sales and Marketing execs that make business decisions require a Marketing and Sales strategy. And that means leveraging the kind of data that works to help them put in place an analysis and measurement framework to make the most informed decisions. This section will look at the ways data-driven insights work to roll out strong campaigns for the sales team while enabling Sales on sales-call and beyond.

The Affect of Data on Sales

What is the most important thing that enables the sales team to sell more? The most critical tool in the sales rep’s arsenal is the ability to be backed up by the kind of marketing team that knows how to collect data and knows how to use this data to execute better, stronger campaigns. The metrics that matter most are the ones that enable the sales team. And at the end of the day, it is Marketing’s job to supercharge Sales with metrics that delve deep into customer data.

We know that quality data enables the sales team. Logically, it would appear that poor data quality stagnates the Sales Enablement process. And how does poor data impact your Sales and Marketing process? It hinders Sales from coming in strong in the face-to-face interaction, wrecks marketing’s effectiveness with campaign execution, and gets in the way of the ability of the sales team to convert prospects into buyers.

Data and analytics work best when the sales and marketing process is aligned. If Sales and Marketing aren’t working in a set of common definitions of what constitutes sales-ready leads, it becomes hard for Marketing to use proper segments and properly nurture leads. In order to gather data-driven insight, each stage of the sales funnel has to be defined for marketing to execute strong campaigns and for Sales to go on sales call with sales-ready leads.

Mobile Sales Enablement

Leading companies are going to market with a very different strategy these days. They are using Mobile Sales Enablement. In a customer-centric world, buyers have become informed about products and brands like never before. The mobile has emerged as the new platform that has grown to differentiate Best-in-Class performers versus companies that lag behind. Top performers are using Mobile Sales Enablement to better engage with customers and this is all made possible with integrated data and analytics.

In a survey of 1,500 top performing organizations, over 90% of businesses have already adopted tablets or are starting to use them. Marketers have become empowered to roll out better, stronger campaigns as a result of the data gathered by sales reps on sales call. Data-driven content has improved messaging by incorporating the preferences and behaviors of customers. The sky is the limit when it comes to impacting the decision-making processes of customers using data analytics.

Are you being supported by good data and metrics? Are you seeing success with your current efforts or do you need more insight into your customers’ preferences and behaviors?