Developing a Data-Driven Sales Strategy
 

Data informs nearly every aspect of how businesses operate today and is becoming an essential asset for sales processes too.

Times are changing. B2B decision-maker preferences and behaviors have shifted dramatically in recent years. With the digital transformation, alongside the global pandemic, 80% of B2B buyers are now expecting to do more business online than before, and customers are following the same example. (McKinsey and Co 2021).

Modern B2B sales teams must adopt more data-driven strategies to effectively identify, prioritize, connect and optimize with prospective clients.

Assuming what your prospects want no longer makes the cut. You don’t want to make an ass out of yourself for guessing!

Imagine you guessed they were interested in peanut butter but really their preferences lay with jelly? Or sales, marketing, or revenue but you get the jist…

It’s time to drill down into data and understand their needs and preferences before reaching out with your product or service.

The use of data in sales teams is more powerful than ever.
 

How powerful really is data?

A LinkedIn survey found 56% of sales professionals now use data to target accounts, and there has been a 54% increase in those using sales intelligence tools since 2018 (Forbes, 2021)

Expectations from B2B buyers are higher than ever before. It’s time to stand out from the crowd. One size fits all no longer makes the cut.

Are you sending generic, mass sales messages? You’re wasting your time. Your prospects expect sales reps to understand their preferences and focus on helping them achieve their goals rather than making a quick sale.

This increased demand for data in sales has created a new concept: data-driven sales.

“According to a Business Application Research Center (BARC) survey, by using data-driven sales strategies profits increased by up to 8%, while reducing the overall cost of operations by 10%.”

In the competitive B2B sales landscape, to be able to make informed decisions before reaching out to potential customers, sales teams require access to real-time, reliable data to help make sales more personalized, targeted, and relevant.

But how do you do it?

Lead Onion is the tool you need. With 10 intent-driven prospecting tools, using 17 sources what more could you ever need?
 

The 4 elements of Intent-Driven Sales Plans

1. Identify 
 

All prospecting starts at searching for your ideal customers. Identifying buyers that fit your ideal customer profile is essential for targeted prospecting and successful conversion.

Using Lead Onion’s powerful search engine, you can use the integrated filters and find your best leads at a touch of a button.

Lead Onion has the tools you need!

1. Contact Search: Providing you with access to 400 million global GDPR and Data Protection compliant B2B profiles, Lead Onion will provide you with relevant prospects that match your specifications, complete with fully compliant email addresses and phone numbers.

   
    

2. Social Intent: The built-in Social Intent tool mines social media sites for interactions that may indicate buying intent. Companies engaging with your competitor, your target audiences attending industry conferences, changes in new technology use, or B2B buyers interacting with tracked industry keywords are some of the intent signals that Lead Onion’s ai-powered intent engine can pick up on.
    
3. Public Intent: Lead Onion’s public intent tool will scour over 5,000 B2B content sites for comprehensive coverage of the organizations in your market. Combined with access to 4.2 million in-market accounts you are guaranteed to find out about organizations that are in buying mode. If you want to monitor companies who have received an investment, and have $$ to spend, then public intent is the tool for you.

   
    

4. Topic Intent: With Lead Onion’s Topic Intent tool, you can compile a list of companies that had a sudden increase of searches into your selected topics and target your prospects at the beginning of their buyer journey.
    
5. Review: Connect Buyer Intent Data from G2, or other software review sites, to the Lead Onion platform and we will cross-reference the data with our sources of intent. Spotlight the accounts that are showing intent on G2, as well as across your other channels such as social media or your website.

   
    

6. Website Intent: Lead Onion’s Website Intent tool will identify the companies visiting your site. You can then reveal your target personas from within the organization!

   Turn your anonymous website into a visible storefront.
    

2. Prioritize
 

Once you have gathered the data on your prospects, you then must prioritize your outreach.

Who do you target first? To help you identify buyers who are in that research stage and put your brand in front of them early in their buyer journey.

1. Surge: Lead Onion’s Surge tool highlights companies showing intent across multiple intent sources, indicating what accounts your sales team should give their time to and the accounts which are high value.
    
2. Automation: With automated solutions, you no longer need to sort through long lists and organize your databases to find your hottest leads.
   
    
3. Auto Reveal: With Lead Onion’s Auto Reveal tool you can reveal your target personas from within the companies who are showing intent to buy, without lifting a finger!

3. Connect

With an average of 7 decision-makers involved in the B2B buying process, the buyer journey has changed drastically.

Connecting with prospects and creating a sequence of touchpoints with them to establish a strong connection is key.

For successful sales, it is critical to coordinate sales outreach plans across multiple channels to incorporate a multitude of touchpoints. The automated cadence and workflow functions available on the platform allow sales teams to leverage buyer intent data and start more meaningful sales conversations with hot leads.

Sales teams need a combination of the right tools and the right data in order to succeed, and with Lead Onion, you get both.

1. Cadences: Connecting with prospects and creating a sequence of touchpoints with them to establish a strong connection is the key to a cadence

4. Optimize

Working on leads that turn out to be the wrong fit is a frustration for any salesperson, especially when there are targets to be met and sales to be closed.

According to Sales Insights Lab, 50% of sales team time is wasted on prospects who aren’t the right fit.

Every sales person has experienced it in their career, putting their focus and energy in chasing leads who they thought were the right fit, that turn out to be unresponsive, incorrect and maybe even outdated data.

So why when you have found your sweet spot in prospecting and a persona that converts, is this not expedited? With Lead Onion you can…

1. Lookalike Contact Search: Upload a list of the deals you have closed and we will analyse the data, derive the firmographic properties of your list and will create a bespoke Lookalike Search which shows you companies who mirror your previous wins.

   It’s like a magic engine identifying companies who are more likely to purchase!

   
    

2. Lookalike Intent Audience: Let’s take it to the next level…

   Upload a list of the deals you have closed and we will ur customer list as a seed audience and we will derive the firmographic and intent parameters of that list to cross-reference against all companies showing intent to buy.

Wow. Game Changer. 

Get the Guide to Learn More! 

Identify, prioritize, connect and optimize with leads at scale, all under one roof with the market-leading Intent-driven sales enablement platform.