How to use big data to sell

By François Dumont

In Sales Optimization

The rise of Big Data has had a considerable impact on marketing activities, particularly in online sales. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate its impact on the B2B sales approach. Indeed, building a discourse and adapting one's behavioral approach according to the data available to sales reps is an important differentiating asset. This is one of the advantages of Mobile Sales Enablement.

Thanks to Big Data, the extraction and analysis of customer data allows for the evolution and optimization of sales paths and sales pitches in order to better target customer expectations and needs.

Think big data is too technical or complex to impact your sales force?

Do you think that big data is too distant from your field and operational issues?

Let us show you otherwise!

Use the data to propose concrete solutions

Before the advent of Mobile Sales Enablement, when a salesperson went to the customer, they used brochures, catalogs and could project a PowerPoint presentation. By the very nature of these tools, it was impossible to know what was working and what was not.

How do you measure customer journeys and their thought processes? How do you know which tools, pages or links work better than others? And most importantly, why?

The analysis of data in the use of the tablet with Mobile Sales Enablement has opened a new path: that of performance. Big data makes it possible to measure in real time the effectiveness and impact of what is presented to customers.

Does one product page consistently perform better than others? A presentation is used more? A video is systematically presented? All of these indicators contribute to knowing what is mastered by the sales teams . This is a good practice for making the necessary corrections, but also for developing the tool and redirecting training plans accordingly.

This approach also reveals which products are popular and which are less so. This is a way of questioning the presentation format on the tablet, if necessary, as it may also mean that the product is poorly promoted in the application. This good practice is part of a process of continuous improvement and optimization of sales reps tools.

With a detailed analysis of the user's journey with customers, it is as if the entire marketing and sales departments were invited to sales meetings to carry out a live quality test. This feedback is essential for proposing concrete and adapted solutions for the use of the tablet in the sales process.

How many sales tools do you know of that you can measure the effectiveness and ROI of in real time?

Observe and optimize the work of your sales reps

Thanks to advanced analytics, it's easy to check how a mobile sales application is being used, which tools are being used most or least, and what results sales reps are being obtained.

But that's not all.

From the back office, data control also allows you to push sales optimization to the maximum, by working on strategic levers. Presentation documents, tree structures, the construction of logical links in the document base and sales pitches can thus be measured precisely and, above all, enriched and updated immediately. In the field, each salesperson receives a notification of an update, whether in terms of content or form, and can thus take advantage of the opportunity to put these carefully optimized innovations into practice.

In the same way that a data manager monitors and optimizes the efficiency of a website, the marketing department can do the same with a sales application, to make micro-adjustments in order to have an evolving and always more efficient application. A way to provide the best working tool and measure its impact in real time on new sales.

Big data is a very important lever in the optimization of business practices. It represents both a time saving in data processing to improve reliability and information sharing, but also a way to make reporting more relevant and qualitative. These are essential qualities for key data, when you know that they have a direct impact on strategic, commercial and marketing decisions.

By sharing, analyzing and using data in a meaningful way, a good Mobile Sales Enablement application allows you to track the use of content at all stages of the sales tunnel. This is an important added value in addition to the value of collaborative work when sharing and creating presentation documents.

A virtuous circle that concentrates all the advantages of new digital uses, fed with big data to adapt its sales approach, to better serve its customers and develop its commercial portfolio.

If you liked this article, I invite you to download our white paper: "All about Mobile Sales Enablement" and to contact us.