Hey there! Are you looking to drive more deals and revenue for your business? Leveraging sales intelligence is one of the most strategic moves you can make. These insights empower your sales teams to establish deeper customer connections, have more relevant conversations, and ultimately close more business.
This comprehensive guide will break down exactly what sales intelligence is, the immense value it offers, and most importantly, how to execute an intelligence-driven strategy that pays dividends for your bottom line. Let‘s get started!
What is Sales Intelligence and Why Does it Matter?
Sales intelligence refers to the collection, analysis, and activation of various data sets to uncover strategic customer, market, and competitor insights for your sales organization.
It provides a 360-degree view into your ideal buyers, their pains and motivations, as well as early signals predicting their needs. These could include trigger events, challenges faced, upcoming projects and more.
With this intelligence, your sales reps can engage accounts with relevant, personalized messaging that speaks to exactly what your prospects care about.
According to MarketsandMarkets, the sales intelligence software industry will grow from $2.7 billion in 2020 to over $7.3 billion by 2025, a high-growth CAGR of 21.2%.
So what‘s driving this surge? Businesses have realized implementing intelligence leads to game-changing outcomes:
| Business Outcome | Lift from Sales Intelligence |
|---|---|
| Improved Lead Conversion Rates | +66% |
| Increased Average Deal Sizes | +65% |
| Higher Sales Team Productivity | +62% |
| Better Ideal Customer Targeting | +72% |
Let‘s explore the sales intelligence landscape and how to execute an intelligence-led strategy that delivers results like these for your organization.
The Sales Intelligence Capability Landscape
Sales intelligence spans a range of capabilities and data types that come together to offer a comprehensive view of customers and markets.
Key Capability Areas
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Firmographic Data | Intelligence on company attributes – size, industry, locations, financials |
| Intent Data | Early signals of customer engagement & research – content downloads, site visits |
| Technographic Data | Details on technologies used by target companies – apps, tools, solutions |
| Organizational Charts | Maps of decision-making hierarchy, roles and buying committee makeup |
| News Alerts | Real-time notifications of developments relevant to customer base |
| Market Research | Macro-level intelligence on trends, challenges and shifts in customer verticals |
| Relationship Mapping | Visualization of connections between target companies, roles and contacts |
| Event Tracking | Monitoring for trigger events like new funding, leadership moves, product launches |
| Predictive Intelligence | Identification of future opportunities and risks using ML algorithms |
As you can see, sales intelligence paints a robust, 360-degree view of your ideal customers by tapping into both internal data from your tech stack as well as external signals from the market.
Now, let‘s explore how to build an intelligence-led go-to-market strategy.
How to Develop a Sales Intelligence Strategy
Follow this five step approach:
Step 1: Define Your Ideal Customer Profile
First, leverage historical customer data, market analytics, and research to build an ideal customer profile (ICP).
Key elements to define:
- Firmographic Criteria – company size, industry, geography parameters
- Technographic Criteria – technologies and tools used
- Buyer Persona Details – role, responsibilities, pain points
- Intent Signals – content interests, site activity
- Demographic Data – decision making team parameters
This provides a blueprint for the accounts most likely to benefit from your solution.
For example, here is an ICP for an enterprise cloud storage company:
- Company Size – 1,000+ employees
- Industry – Financial Services, Healthcare
- Roles – CTO, Head of Infrastructure
- Intent Signals – Visits to cloud migration guides, business continuity content
- Technographic Data – Currently use on-premise NAS devices
Step 2: Identify Intelligence Data Sources
Next, determine the systems and tools you will use to gather market and customer intelligence.
Potential sources include:
- CRM and marketing automation systems
- Intent monitoring tools like Bombora and Demandbase
- Events tracking tools like G2 Track
- Firmographic databases such as ZoomInfo
- Market research publications
- News monitoring platforms
Choose sources that integrate well together for unified data access.
For example, sales teams could get alerts of key trigger events directly within their Salesforce CRM for rapid follow up.
Step 3: Gather Insights on Accounts
With sources set up, start consolidating the intelligence flowing in to uncover impactful insights.
Key insights to gather:
- Customer pain points
- Ongoing projects
- Technological bottlenecks
- Desired functionality
- Competitor analysis
Leverage analytics to spot trends and patterns across target accounts.
Step 4: Execute Intelligence-Informed Sales Plays
Armed with insights, develop campaigns to accelerate deals using the intelligence gathered.
Sales plays to execute:
- Send targeted and personalized outreach sequences speaking to prospect pains and goals
- Craft tailored content offers based on intelligence
- Develop value propositions emphasizing desired outcomes
- Upsell based on expanded visibility into account needs
- Personalize collateral and narratives
- Time engagements to align with initiatives
For example, if intelligence surfaces a company launching new mobile apps, proactively pitch relevant mobile migration packages.
Step 5: Continuously Refine Strategy
Treat intelligence as an ongoing initiative, not a one-time effort.
Ways to continually refine approach:
- Expand breadth of data sources
- Iterate ideal customer profiles regularly
- Uncover new projects early
- Apply win/loss analysis to improve intelligence ROI
Regular feedback loops lead to greater pipeline contribution, deal sizes and sales velocity over time from intelligence.
Start Applying Intelligence Today
This guide provided an in-depth overview of sales intelligence, key capabilities, use cases, and steps to execute an intelligence-led GTM strategy.
The key takeaway is that leveraging intelligence allows you to establish tighter customer connections, have more relevant sales conversations, and close more business as a result.
Now is the time to start building an intelligence foundation – identify initial data sources, pilot software tools, develop key questions and use cases.
What sales intelligence approaches have you found to deliver the biggest lift? What challenges have you run into? Let me know in the comments!
