How important are prospecting insights to your sales strategy? It turns out they’re pretty important.
Of course, your sales strategy’s success, including reaching your revenue goals, depends on the sales team hitting their numbers.
But consider this:
HubSpot Research found that 72% of companies with less than 50 new opps per month didn’t achieve their revenue goals, compared to 15% with 51 to 100 new opps and just 4% for companies with 101 to 200 new opps.”
What are the companies with greater new opportunities doing right?
More importantly, what information do they have that can lead to more deals?
It could be that their sales reps know how to prospect effectively. Most likely, though, they use prospecting insights to reach their sales goals.
This leads us to today’s post.
Read on to discover the role that prospecting insights play in your sales strategy — what they are, the benefits, and how to use them to reach quality prospects and close more deals.
What Are Prospecting Insights?
Prospecting insights are the information a sales team uses to understand who to target when, where, and how.
A sales rep uses the information (i.e., prospecting data) to identify buyer attributes such as:
1. Contact information: email, full name, and title.
2. Company fields: number of employees, revenue, and parent company.
3. Job functions: sales, operations, and marketing.
They load the prospects’ data into lists then reach out to potential new customers.
However, not all data is good data.
Reinforce Your Sales Strategy With Prospecting Data
As part of your strategy, your sales reps use ideal customer profiles (ICPs) to guide prospect cold calls and have a personalized voicemail script ready if they can’t reach their decision-maker prospect.
They personalize outreach emails with the contact’s name and get follow up calls on the calendar before they hang up.
But, when your senior sales exec says a call went down the tubes because 1) his knowledge of their tech stack was off, and 2) his contact person no longer works at the company, your sales strategy starts to crumble.
Here’s the thing, your sales strategy is only as good as your data.
Company and contact information change.
New companies rise from the ashes of mergers and acquisitions.
World events disrupt business operations.
And, yes, even C-suites dismantle.
These changes wreak havoc on your CRM data, including the decaying third-party data you bought a month ago.
It’s not all bad, though. Once you clear out the dirty data and replenish your CRM with fresh, quality data, your sales team can use the insights to streamline their prospecting and turn more leads into customers.
Reap The Benefits Of Powerful Prospecting Insights
You know you need great data to fuel your prospecting efforts and shore-up your sales strategy. But let’s look at the standout benefits and what that means for your sales outcomes.
Save Time Chasing the Wrong Leads: With accurate data, your reps hone their prospecting to identify and reach the right people.
Grow Your Brand Reputation: If your sales team sounds professional — from getting the target CEO’s name right to knowing about the company’s recent SaaS purchase — your brand credibility goes up.
Beat the Competition in the Door: With intent data, you get intel on prospects (beyond their contact info). Reps can track buyer behaviors to enhance their prospecting and get an edge on the competition.
Hone Your Prospecting Techniques With Data Insights
Let’s face it, prospecting is challenging, making it critical to get right and ensure you reach your strategy’s goals.
You know the challenges: the reps who excel at building prospecting lists but avoid cold calling, the salesperson who finds talking to a seasoned CEO daunting, and the new team member who pushes products after “Hello.”
That’s where your prospecting insights come in.
When your team prospects with smart data, your reps’ cold-calls become warm conversations, your sales person’s expertise guides C-suite interactions, and the new team member personalizes outreach calls and emails.
Moving Forward With Prospecting Insights
You’ve got a sales strategy that informs how you’ll reach your revenue goals and a talented sales team that’s chomping at the bit to close more deals.
And at the heart of each strategy detail and sales rep’s call are prospecting insights — powerful, intelligent data that convert prospects into valuable customers.