How Can Sales Intelligence Software Increase Your Sales?
Sales intelligence software is designed to make it easier to gather the data you need to perfect your sales strategy (and ultimately make better sales and marketing decisions). But can it really increase your sales? And if so, how?
What Does Sales Intelligence Software Do?
What exactly does sales intelligence software do?
That’s going to depend on the sales intelligence software you choose to use, since each platform is going to come with some unique features and differences. However, most sales intelligence platforms offer some combination of the following:
- Customer research and analysis. With the right sales intelligence platform, you can do immediate customer research and analysis. If you’re new to the business, you can figure out who your target market is. Otherwise, you can research new demographics, better understand how your customers are changing, and more.
- News alerts and industry knowledge. You’ll also get alerts when new stories are breaking, so you aren’t behind on reading up on the latest industry news. This can help you better understand your competitors as well as the topics and stories that are most interesting to your target customers.
- Competitive research. Any sales strategist knows one of your biggest obstacles is going to be overcoming the competition. But the better you understand your competitors, the better you’ll be able to equip yourself to deal with them. That’s why many sales intelligence platforms focus on making competitive research easier and faster.
- Prospecting tools. Sales intelligence platforms may also have built-in prospecting tools, allowing you to do research on individual customers or leads before reaching out to them. You can discover how their business operates, what their budget is, and more this way.
- Outreach support. Some sales intelligence platforms also make it convenient and easy to segue from researching about a customer to reaching out to them. After reading about what a business is doing and what their likelihood of making a purchase is, you can click a button and immediately send a message to them.
- Education and training for sales reps. Modern sales intelligence software also typically features tools for educating and training your sales reps. You can formally document your sales process and make sure every Rep in your organization has access to it. You can rely on existing training modules or customize some of your own. Newcomers and veteran sales reps alike will appreciate all the resources they have to become better salespeople.
- Collaboration tools. There may also be built in tools to help salespeople collaborate with each other, sharing information and avoiding duplicated effort.
- Integrations with other tools. You may also find that your sales intelligence software has built-in capacities for integrating with other tools. This way, you can share customer information and other data across a variety of different platforms.
The Benefits of Better Sales Intelligence Software
So how can sales intelligence software increase your ability to get sales?
- Streamlined functionality. One major advantage is the streamlined functionality of the product. To learn more about your customers, gain access to collaboration tools, and revisit their earlier education, salespeople don’t have to jump from platform to platform, nor do they need to rely on their own documentation. They can get anything and everything they need from this one portal, making their job easier and limiting the headaches related to technology.
- Information, knowledge, and support. It can go without saying that most sales intelligence software strives to provide more information, knowledge, and support to sales reps. Your sales team will go into each potential interaction equipped with more knowledge and context, better understanding your competitors, leads, and your overall business environment. As long as the information is accurate and your sales reps handle it appropriately, an increase in sales is to be expected.
- Automation and time savings. Modern platforms typically have at least some features that employ automation. You may set up automatic alerts or automatically trigger certain messages at certain times. You may also have access to templates informs designed to save time. The bottom line with all of these features is that your salespeople spend less time dealing with annoying platforms and manual effort, so they can spend more time actually selling.
- Alerts and perfect timing. Thanks to alerts and new notifications, you can respond to new events with perfect timing. If there’s a change in leadership or a major development at a business you’ve been trying to target, you can immediately pounce and send a message with perfect relevance and impeccable timing.
Using sales intelligence software isn’t going to guarantee that you can increase your sales or your bottom line. However, it can give you the tools, features, and incentive structures you need to know your customers better and ultimately make better pitches to them.
