Every salesperson has a hefty responsibility: find new business, engage decision-makers, and close deals.
Their success hinges on buyer engagement — getting the prospect’s attention, holding it throughout the sales cycle, and maintaining interest to build customer loyalty beyond closing.
How do you engage customers and get them excited about your offer?
You give your reps access to data that goes beyond a name and number — information on target market changes (such as new investments), buyers’ pain points and objections in sales conversations, and an account’s increased search activity around a hot-button topic.
Here are three must-have data tips to engage B2B prospects and customers for more wins, renewals, and growth.
1. Engage Prospects Based on Industry Change Data
Getting an alert that an ideal company just raised money signals the need to spring into action and hit the phones.
With this type of news, sales reps need to engage as many people as possible. Why? Because investors want to drive growth and drive it aggressively. And guess what? Your competition wants in on the action, too.
If you have the data to learn about the investment round, then you have one significant budget objection out of the way. Next step: pull up the org chart and decision-maker direct dials and start calling.
When you get the CEO on the phone, the investment information is your segue to steer the conversation toward helping them scale, grow, and (to appease their investors) hit their number as soon as possible.
With this level of data-based engagement and an investment-alert response, chances are you’ll get your foot in the door first.
Pro Tip:
- Confidence is critical for engaging the C-suite. These leaders typically don’t have time for cold sales calls. Skip the canned questions, kill BANT, and use the data to tell prospect decision-makers what they need to hear. Then book the demo before the call ends (preferably for the same day).
2. Engage New Leads Using Sales Call Data
It can take many calls to close a deal. Historically, the conversations that happen between prospects and sales reps are a blind spot for sales managers. Revenue teams can engage new leads and move the sale forward with access to sophisticated call data that enables you to:
- Identify and reach out to additional people
- Flag and course-correct deals that are in jeopardy
- Manage objections and obstacles (such as competitor mentions)
With call data and a sales call intelligence tool, reps can use the customer’s voice — what they said and how they said it — to inform each consecutive conversation.
3. Engage Existing Customers Using Intent Signal Data
Buyer engagement does not end when a buyer signs their contract. Engaging existing customers is critical for securing renewals and decreasing churn.
According to Showpad’s recent study, 50 percent of participants said their churn rates had significantly increased since the pandemic. “To be precise,” says Tamara Shenk, strategic advisor at Showpad, “27 percent experienced churn rates up to 10 percent, and 51 percent reported that their churn rate had increased between 11-50 percent.”
How do you engage customers and increase renewals, upsells and cross-sell opportunities? With high-quality intent data.
Intent data signals compare current topic-search activity with past activity. When a company, or in this case an existing customer, demonstrates an above-average “spike” of interest in a topic (such as multiple people within the organization showing interest in a topic related to your product), the signal shows up in your dashboard.
The data may indicate that the account is looking at similar products to yours. This alerts your team to reach out to the customer — to ensure they’re happy and not about to jump ship and go to the competition.
The intent signal data also provides upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Has something changed in a customer’s business that your solution can help with, such as an acquisition or larger international presence? That’s when you jump on the phone and reconnect with them.
BONUS: Data and the Dream Sales Scenario
- In addition to keeping an eye on your accounts, also pay attention to data on existing contacts. For instance, an alert on a leadership change may indicate that your decision-maker contact has joined a new company. You now have a primed contact within a new account to go after — someone who knows you and your product.
Help Sellers Engage Buyers and Sell More
In the complex, fast-moving world of B2B sales, sellers must engage customers from the first interaction and beyond. To do that, they need access to comprehensive, real-time information.
That includes using investment alerts to get ahead of the competition, driving sales conversations based on what the customer says, and securing renewals and upsells based on intent signals.