Sharpening Your Marketing Skills

Does your sales team need to improve their performance? Are they failing to close enough deals? Or do they not have enough in the pipeline? One of the big reasons may be that they don't have enough information at their disposal. Technology has dramatically changed the way most companies operate, especially when it comes to sales. Many sales teams use sales intelligence tools that help them focus their attention on prospects who are ready to buy, which helps those teams close more deals and be more effective. Here are three ways that you can use sales intelligence tools to improve your results:

Track prospects' news and social media activity. Often, sales success comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Sales intelligence helps you do that by notifying you when your prospects may be ready to buy. Sales intelligence tools can track company news and social media activity and keep you informed of any important changes. For example, a company may issue a press release about a new project that they're initiating. The sales intelligence tool can make you aware of that announcement. If your product or solution could work well with their project, you could use the announcement as a reason for reaching out and making a connection.

Get alerts when they visit your site. What if you could know when your prospects were most interested in buying from you? If you had that knowledge, then you would know exactly when to contact them. Sales intelligence tools now give you this ability. You can see when your prospects visit your website and exactly what information they're viewing. You can also see if they're opening your emails or clicking on links within those emails. You can use that information to see where their interests lie and to gauge their interest in your solutions.

Find the right contact. One of the biggest sales challenges, particularly in business-to-business selling, is finding the right person to contact. You may not be sure who holds which position in a prospective company or how to contact that specific person. Many sales intelligence tools now have the ability to scrape hiring information and company organizational charts to provide you with a transparent view into the company structure. You can see exactly who holds which positions. You also may be able to get the person's direct phone number and email address so you can contact them quickly.

If you want better results from your sales team, you need to give them the tools to be successful. Contact a sales intelligence tool vendor for more information. They can help you find the right tools for your team.