Sales data is an important source of information about your customers – especially in B2B sales. In this guide, we look at how to use sales data to make better decisions, optimize sales strategies and much more.
Specifically, we review:
- What is sales data?
- Why should you keep track of your sales data?
- How do you keep track of your sales data?
- Who can use sales data?
What is sales data?
Sales data is the information and statistics that a company collects about its sales activities. It can include information about products or services sold, sales volume, prices, customers, geographical areas, sales transactions, and promotional activities. Sales data provides insight into what is working well in a company and where there is potential for improvement.
Why should you keep track of your sales data?
There are several reasons why keeping track of your sales data is crucial:
- Improved decision-making: Sales data gives you fact-based insights into which products or services are performing well and where you need to put extra effort. This helps you make more informed business decisions.
- Understand customer behavior: Through sales data, you can get a better overview of your customers’ preferences, buying patterns and which campaigns generate the most engagement.
- Sales process optimization: By analyzing sales data, you can identify bottlenecks in your sales process and optimize your activities to improve efficiency and increase sales. Read more about sales processes.
- Trend prediction: With historical sales data, you can anticipate future trends and adapt your strategies to meet changing market demands.
Managing your sales data is especially important in B2B sales. The information that sales data provides is fundamental to long-term success – it’s a complex area where you need to find the hidden opportunities in the data you have available.
How do you keep track of your sales data?
To get a handle on your sales data, follow these steps:
- Implement a CRM system: CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems like HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive can help you collect, organize and analyze sales data. These systems centralize all interactions and transactions with your customers. Read more about CRM systems.
- Automate data collection: Use automated tools to collect data from your sales platforms, e-commerce solutions or marketing channels. This ensures you always have up-to-date data to analyze.
- Analyze sales data continuously: Use dashboards and reporting tools to continuously monitor sales performance. Here you can analyze KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as conversion rate, average order value and customer lifetime value.
- Train your teams on data usage: Make sure your sales teams understand the importance of data and remember to take note of the data they collect in their interactions with customers.
- A dashboard: Get a dashboard made to visualize sales data. Read more about sales dashboards.
Who can use sales data?
Sales data is useful for multiple roles in your business. It can be used to optimize your value proposition, which means a lot for your company’s revenue. Below you can see what the different departments can use sales data for.
The sales team
Sales reps can use data to understand customer preferences, customize their pitch and focus on the most profitable leads. They can also use sales data to see where to focus their future efforts.
A concrete example is that you would normally contact the company’s CFO first, but that the sales staff can see in your sales data that for a given company they always have to go through the production manager. With this knowledge, sales reps can ensure that they are successful with their inquiries.
The marketing team
Marketers can use sales data to personalize campaigns, segment audiences and improve lead generation. For example, if the sales team always notes that a certain type of customer is unhappy with the price, marketing can create price-focused campaigns tailored to that segment.
Management
Top management can use sales data to monitor company performance, identify growth areas and adjust strategies based on current sales results. Overall, sales data can explain fluctuations in, for example, revenue and where to invest.
Finance department
CFOs use sales data for budgeting, forecasting and analyzing the financial health of the business, and this is where it’s essential.
Overall, sales data is an invaluable resource for improving business decisions and ensuring that company activities are aligned with customer needs and market demands.
Meet some of our sales experts
Kasper Bjerggaard
Kasper is Co-founder of Radiant and has extensive experience in B2B sales across the verticals; Finance, Professional Services, Tech and SaaS. Kasper has and is involved in the strategic and tactical aspects of sales processes and with a practical experience he bridges the gap between strategy and execution in sales processes.
Christoffer Tofte
Christoffer is a Partner at Radiant and has a very broad and professional background in B2B sales. Christoffer has helped tailor sales processes for some of the country’s largest companies and startups. Here is a selection of tasks he solves within sales processes:
- Understanding the sales process from lead to deal
- Optimizing the sales process based on data
- Building, executing and continuously optimizing sales processes
