Posted by D&V Philippines
May 10, 2016
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It is unquestionable that business intelligence and analytics are beneficial to all facets of a business across all industries. However, the biggest influence on the profitability of a business would greatly rely on the sales and marketing departments, also known as your “customer acquisition” teams, and that’s why it’s essential for them to utilize business intelligence technologies to be guided towards the right direction. Here are three powerful ways that business intelligence can help your sales and marketing teams drive more profit.
1. Increase Sales by Telling Stories Based on Facts
Putting facts and statistics related to your product offering in front of an audience is a sure way to attract some customers, but won’t be as impactful as telling a fascinating story to completely win them over. Stories stick to people’s minds, making it more personal and memorable for them, and even pushing them to act upon it. According to Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick, after a presentation, 63% of attendees remember stories and only 5% remember statistics, and that’s enough reason to use the facts gathered by business intelligence software as a tool to build stories that will captivate, influence, and sell.
2. Develop More Accurate and Timely Sales Forecasts
One issue when building a sales forecast is how it is being developed in a subjective way, depending on the optimism or conservatism of the sales representative. This technique which lacks substantial facts is costly to any business because it’s like pitching in the dark without any clear goal. A business intelligence system can provide the right information and a detailed account of sales history, significantly easing the development of more accurate and reliable sales forecasts for better decisions when it comes to procurement and inventory.
3. Clearly Identify High-profit Customers and Target Similar Prospects
Customers who give you the highest value are not those who buy big-ticket items on occasion, but those who purchase a good amount of your products on a regular basis. These customers are low-maintenance and dependable, which means that they rake in income for your business with little effort on your part. However, any business must not stop there, and must even use these customers as leverage.
Business Intelligence solutions include tools that help sales and marketing teams rank customers based on the value of their purchases, as well as how frequent and recent those purchases were. Some BI systems even allow you to put in other complex factors such as timeliness of payments, complaints, returns and exchanges, and can help establish an accurate profile of your most profitable customers. With this, you can: 1.) Capitalize on existing relationships with these high-value customers by promoting upgrades or upselling; and 2.) Improve customer acquisition by focusing your marketing efforts to target prospects with a similar profile.
By employing business intelligence, you eliminate the guesswork and time-consuming analysis of your customers and sales performance. By making decisions based on facts, your sales and marketing teams will be able to craft a more targeted approach to acquire more customers and drive in more sales, and concurrently make use of business resources more efficiently.
Interested in tailor-made business intelligence solutions to help your sales and marketing teams perform better? Get in touch now with D&V to learn more.
