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June 4th, 2024

Great data really does improve your pipeline: here’s how…

B2B Opinion
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As businesses try to gain a competitive edge, they’re turning more and more to data analytics to improve their performance, inform their decision-making and pep up their pipeline.

To make this happen, good, clean data is a must. The effects of it can be felt throughout the entire sales process, from defining and engaging with prospects, through the nurture journey, right through to conversion.

We show you exactly how much of an impact it can have, in five simple ways.

#1: Data informs your decision-making

Want a clear picture of your prospect universe and be able to communicate effectively with them? Then you need top-quality data. It’s particularly important in the world of B2B, where there’s often a limit on the size of the audience that will be relevant to your product.

Using the best quality data possible will help you draw an accurate picture of your prospects’ world – their goals, aspirations, challenges, and pain points. Think of this as the difference between looking at a grainy old photograph next to a 300dpi digital image: the more accurate your data is, the clearer your picture becomes.

Once your target audience has been brought into focus, data then helps you demonstrate exactly how your service will help them achieve their objectives. You can build structured nurture programmes to establish and maintain relationships with the prospect until they become a customer, target them at precisely the right time, and even perform in-depth competitor analysis. Quality data becomes a solid foundation on which you can base and back up your business decisions – from budgets to GDPR compliance.

And to keep your data reliable, make sure it’s regularly reviewed. Data cleansing and verification both improve data quality and provide more accurate and consistent information for your decision-making process.

#2: Great data helps you define and analyse your target audience

With data, it isn’t a case of “the more the merrier”. You can have all the data in the world, but unless it’s both accurate and relevant, you won’t be able to open up the right conversations with your target audience. B2B operates in a tighter sphere than B2C, so it’s even more vital to make your data work as hard as possible.

By prioritising quality data, you can optimise your business processes, understand your customers and their buying cycles, and discover new markets to engage with.

What good B2B data looks like for your business will depend on a lot of variables, including your sector, product or service and audience. But these are a good starter for ten:

  • Your prospect’s industry
  • Their job function
  • Their level of seniority
  • Their challenges
  • What they consume online

Once you have a handle on your relevant data, you can craft your marketing and sales decisions around it, be that branding, tone of voice, proposition or messaging. It’s this level of accuracy that lets you get more nuanced with your customers and become more relevant. Relevancy builds trust, not just at the beginning of the sales pipeline, but throughout the whole cycle.

#3 Great data connects you to the right decision-makers

It might seem obvious, but sending the right message to the wrong person will lead to poor conversion rates, and yet this will happen if your data is off the mark. As we said earlier, good quality data can reveal a contact’s role within a company, their seniority and – most importantly – if they’re a key decision maker and whether it’s actually worth targeting them.

Once you know this, you’re better able to build connections with a positive outcome, as well as:

  • Timely calls to your chosen contact
  • Appointments set with a decision-maker
  • Sales made with the right people
  • Relationships built and maintained

Don’t forget the importance of keeping this data up to date. Key contact information can become worthless very quickly as people leave and join a company or restructure within one.

At Golley Slater, all the data we source is telephone verified, so will result in a higher percentage of connected calls for your business, meaning better campaign performances.

#4 Great data identifies trends and patterns

Good data goes beyond acquiring new customers – it helps you analyse trends, patterns in prospect behaviour and your sales performance.

Use data insights built from quality data to get an in-depth understanding of your datasets. It helps you to make informed decisions from data and get insight into your customer base, such as:

  • Who’s buying from them?
  • What are they buying?
  • How are they buying?
  • How often are they buying?
  • When are they up for renewal?

Good insight also enables you to check out the competition. Do your customers have a propensity to buy lookalikes? What are your competitors doing and how can you structure your strategy to ensure you’re staying ahead of the game?

#5 Great data optimises your call-handling

Good data really does turbocharge your call-handling capabilities. From analysing trends in call volume (helping allocate resources at optimum times), to highlighting areas of improvement, to streamlining workflows and reducing call handling times, good data helps you make the most out of your call centre.

At Golley Slater, we use MaxContact call centre software, which elevates your data power even more:

  • Call routing. Resolve queries quickly by routing customers to the best agent available, based on skills matched with customer’s needs.
  • Queuing strategies. Avoid customer frustration during busy periods by providing them with a queue position and calling them back at a time that suits them.
  • Agent scheduling. Get a higher close rate by connecting the right agent, to the right caller, at the right time.
  • Call automation. Optimises data to save agents from making complex decisions.
  • Agent talk time. Personalised, real-time-updated scripts are built into the dialling system.
  • Dials per hour. More dials per minute means agents can tackle contact lists as efficiently as possible.