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Jamie McCoy
Digital Director,
Consenna[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”336″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
Lee Anderson
Programme Operations Manager,
Consenna[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Jamie McCoy & Lee Anderson, Consenna
If we told you that the value of data in the sales enablement process was comparable to the underlying message in the much-loved fairy-tale Hansel and Gretel, you’d probably snigger politely and move on swiftly. But grab yourselves a coffee and hear us out…
On their first foray in to the forest, the German siblings needed the pebbles that they’d laid as a path to guide them home; they needed to look behind where they’d come from and they then used those pebbles as the route to apparent safety – we wont dwell on what happened when they next used breadcrumbs…
What we draw from this, however, is an approach that suggests we need to i) know what to look for; ii) know where to find it; and iii) appreciate how to best use it once we’ve found it. And it’s now that the relevance to the successful utilisation of data in the sales enablement process starts to become clearer.
Sales enablement is about equipping a sales team with the necessary tools, support, and information so that it increases the number of sales it secures and the role of data in that simply cannot be underestimated.
But this isn’t a case of any data adding value. In the same way that Hansel and Gretel knew they had to look specifically for the pebbles, it’s important that you know what data to draw on in your sales journey.
Identifying data to deliver improvements requires a level of exclusivity as to the datapoints you choose to track. The biggest mistake is trying to track too much at once – this leads to being dragged down rabbit holes which whilst potentially interesting, serve no value.
Having established that it’s not necessary to monitor all data, you’re still left with the question as to what to follow.
Ask yourself what the activity you’re doing is supposed to deliver; what’s needed to get there; and what you need to track to measure those steps – this could look something like this:
- What is it trying to deliver: warmer data for the sales team, higher conversion, and more money
- What’s needed to get there: the user has to receive the email, open it, click through to the page, be called by a salesman, have a good conversation and ultimately purchase
- What do you need to track to measure the steps: delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate, contact rate, average talk time and revenue reporting
With greater clarity on what to track, we need to know where to find it. Is it as simple as the pebbles behind us?
We’d love to tell you it is, but in all honesty the ‘where’ will be defined by the overall landscape of your activity. Instead, think in terms of the journey you’re going on and the touchpoints along the way. In an email marketing campaign that’s intended to improve telesales, that would include the delivery rate, open rate and click-through rate all of which mean you should refer back to your email platform. You then move on to the contact rate and average talk time which point you towards the telephony/PBX/VoiP system, before reviewing sales and revenue reporting which should direct you to the CRM or sales system.
You now know what data could prove useful and you’ve identified where to locate it… now you’ve just got to use it successfully!
By this point you should be able to visualise the journey, identify the points that require attention and then focus activity and optimisation there.
If the email open rate is excellent but not enough traffic is reaching the landing page, you should revise the email template in order to drive click volume. If the delivery rate of your email looks poor compared to the industry average, then you should verify the quality of your data.
With the lifecycle of your programme visualised as a map, your job becomes infinitely easier.
In the same way that if Hansel and Gretel hadn’t had the pebbles to follow, if you don’t follow this process, you’re chasing empty metrics and missing out on real business impact. You might even find yourself lost in the woods, and that rarely ends positively…[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
