It has been a long time since the work of a marketing professional doesn’t look as it was a few years ago. There were times when creativity had the best place on the main stage of marketing, now its place is stolen by data. Because, you know, data is the new oil.
Data analytics and its utilization is a centerpiece of the efforts in order to achieve improved efficiency in almost any business process. Marketing is no exemption, as well as the B2B vertical. This is where leads classification and its scoring in terms of evaluation the potential of generating particular sale is essential. Modern data and predictive analytics have its tools to contribute on this very point thus helping marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts on the potential customers with highest sales generation potential.
Once the predictive algorithm a business knows which are the data signals that typically result in a sale, new leads can be scored instantly. This means that B2B marketing teams are no longer flooding their sales counterparts with a stack of leads and waiting for revenue. With predictive data analytics, B2B marketers are capable of:
- Differentiate leads which has to be sent to sales reps, to be nurtured or discarded
- Which marketing initiatives to be scaled or closed
- Which contacts sales reps should be prospecting next
- Which accounts are most likely to churn
- Which accounts are ready for upselling or cross-selling
Ant those are just the basic benefits. Enabling businesses with unbiased decision making is crucial since it eliminates the ‘gut-feeling’. The outcome of data analytics removes the intuition as a key factor and is improving risk management. And it is not just this. Data is full of insights that might unleash unexplored sales opportunities. This means new customer segments, new channels to use or more effective omnichannel communication, and generally – it helps you to see the bigger picture by identifying unknown correlations. Like this one between diapers and beer.
Lead scoring, as a product of predictive data analytics, helps businesses to create more efficient B2B marketing processes and more successful sales. A research quoted by Kapost says that companies excelling at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. And this is just a small fraction of lead scoring potential powered by data analytics.
Add an automation on top of this and some data mining to find patterns and systematic relationships, which are the foundation of predictive analytics. This way you`ll be able to create more effective customer communication by knowing who to be informed what, and when in order to create fruitful buyer`s journey.
