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How to Perform a Sales Data Analysis

79% of sales teams use or intend to use sales analytics technology to improve efficiency.

There's no getting past that every company should at least use some basic sales data analysis. With the vast majority of sales teams already using it, sales data analysis has become necessary just to keep up.

But where to start? Read on for a summary of the key steps you can take to start your own sales data analysis.

Benefits of Sales Data Analysis

Everything you do in business creates data. Without any sales analysis, all of that data just passes by you, unused. Given that we now live in the era of big data, and the big data market is growing so fast that it's expected to double in just the next 3 years, this data could be being better used.

By recording your actions to create data, you can then organize that data to create powerful tools for analysis. Sales graphs and other analytical tools can be the best way to get a big picture understanding of what's been going on in your company and what you can do about it.

As soon as you know what influences your sales trends, you become the driver, able to take effective, intentional action to positively affect your sales. No more will you be subject to mysteriously fluctuating sales numbers, with no apparent rhyme or reason.

Collecting Data

Most of the data you're going to need is probably already being collected. If each of your sales reps records their sales along with when they happened, how big they were, and in what area, then you have plenty to start with.

On the other hand, you may need to shore up some blank spaces in your landscape. Are your sales reps recording the timeline of their sales? Ideally, they'll record when they first found a lead, how quickly they contacted the lead, how quickly they offered a quote to the lead, and how long it took them to close on the sale after they offered a quote.

Additionally, you'll need data from your storage or warehouse indicating how quickly you run out of any given product.

Entering Data

The next thing you'll need to do is transfer all the data you're collecting to a powerful processing tool. Something as simple as Microsoft Excel can work fine, although you can also find specialized software designed for trend analysis.

If any of your data has been collected on paper, then you'll need someone to do data entry to get it all into your chosen processing software product. You might think about updating your data collection procedures to be purely electronic.

You're going to want to get all the data into one place, so you may have to gather it from disparate electronic or paper records. Once it's all in the system, you're ready to start organizing it.

Organizing Data

The simple data points on when sales were made, where, and what was sold is enough to perform a lot of analysis.

First, you need to decide on a given metric and isolate it. For example, you might start with something simple like calculating the sales rate of each of your reps over time.

Knowing how to do trend analysis is as simple as knowing how to make a line graph on Excel and entering the data into the appropriate cells. There is plenty of information on how to do this online.

In short, to make a line graph that displays the sales rate of each of your reps over time, you'll make a column for each representative and enter the total value of their sales each month into a series of cells. Each cell in the column will hold one month's sales.

You then tell Excel to display those numbers as a line graph, and voila! You have a line graph showing your sales representative's sales over time. Maybe you'll see that their numbers tend to be steady, or, hopefully, they go up over time as the sales representative continues to build up experience and sales skills.

No matter what you find, you'll be able to see at a glance any interesting trends in your sales rep's performance. Simply repeat the process for your other sales reps and you'll be able to identify which of your reps needs extra training or deserves special praise.

This trends analysis example is one of the simpler ones, but as long as you have your data and know a few basic tricks on Excel, you can make many more.

Other Sales Metrics

Keeping track of how each of your products is performing is a powerful way to tell which products are no longer worth spending time on, or which ones could be huge moneymakers if you gave them extra attention.

In this case, you'll need to look at what was sold in each of your sales reps reports and break the total sales number down into how much of each product was sold, and for how much.

You can then combine the entire team's sales on each product together to find out which of your products has sold the most, which sold the least, and which were in between. Enter the total sales of each product per month into a line graph on Excel, and you'll be able to see which products' sales are growing or shrinking.

While this will tell you each product's performance, it also paves the way for you to use another sales metric: cannibalization rate.

Your similar products compete with each other, and it's possible that a new product will simply take the sales away from an old one. Since your total sales don't go up when that happens, that new product may only be worth a minimal investment.

Every situation is different, but by tracking each product's performance and then comparing them all, you may notice that one product's performance goes up at the same time that another's goes down.

Now that you can see what's going on in your company, you'll be able to apply your judgment to decide what to do about it.

Know Your Company

We hope you learned something helpful in this brief explanation of sales data analysis.

As you optimize your sales performance, you'll need more leads to power your sales. Check out our other pages to find out how you can use real-time and aged leads in your sales team. You can also learn more about the effective use of business and consumer data.

Contact us today to find out how we could help your business.

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by admin

10 Sales Analytics All Professionals Should Track

More and more companies are learning to take advantage of the power of sales analytics. In fact, "79% of sales teams currently use or are planning to use sales analytics technology to increase efficiency."

The strong majority of sales teams have decided that sales analytics tools are the way to go, so how can you get the most out of them?

Read on to learn 10 ways to use sales analytics to help your company grow.

Benefits of Sales Analytics

Every action anyone takes in your company creates data. These data points can be a goldmine of insights into how you can refine your business model and buff up your bottom line.

But none of those opportunities is worth anything if you don't take advantage of them! Tracking, sorting, and storing data in an accessible and comprehensible way can empower leaders to track the business behaviors that are adding to, detracting from, or doing nothing for the bottom line.

Making these connections can help you to double down on your winning behaviors, and eliminate or adjust patterns that are a waste of time or actively harmful to your business success.

How Many Sales Each Sales Rep Makes

A company's strength is ultimately built on the sales team, and a sales team's strength is built one representative at a time.

When programs and incentives and everything else is taken care of, the thing that really determines your success is going to be how effective each of your representatives is.

Companies are used to using crude rules-of-thumb for guessing at the effectiveness of their reps like seniority. While seniority may be a useful hint at your most valuable reps, tracking sales per rep can give you a much clearer picture of who's generating sales and who isn't.

Sales Targets

Sales targets require you to first set a goal and then keep track of how successfully your team is moving towards achieving that goal.

At first, you might not know exactly what goal to set, but over time using this sales performance metric, you'll learn about how much your team can accomplish on average and what they can achieve when they're motivated to do their best.

Growth in Sales Over Time

Changes in your rate of sales are of supreme importance to your company. Tracking growth in your sales rate can isolate moments of extreme significance for you to look into.

Anytime you see a drop or an increase in sales performance, you'll want to investigate and find out how to prevent potentially fatal losses and how to magnify anything that increases performance.

Cannibalization Rate

When you introduce a new product, there's always some chance that it will be a competitor not just with other companies' products, but with your own products!

The more similar your new product is to an old one, the more likely it is to end up pulling sales away from old products.

The cannibalization rate measures how many of a new product's sales are dragging sales away from old products. By measuring your cannibalization rate, you'll be able to tell if a hot new product is really benefiting the company versus if it's just shifting sales from one place to another.

Average Purchase Value

Sales take time and there are only so many hours in the day for sales reps to make them. Sales data analysis metrics like this track how valuable each individual sale is to the company.

You might find that two sales reps have the same number of sales, but produce vastly different amounts of value for the company. Maybe one rep has many low value sales while another has many high value sales.

You may be able to encourage your reps to shift their time away from low value sales and towards making high value sales, to create more company value in the same time and in the same number of sales.

Total Sales

Your total sales metric simply tracks how many sales you've made since the beginning of the company. Hopefully, you'll see more sales over time and an increase in the rate of sales over time!

Tracking total sales can help you achieve insight into which historical company events have produced positive or negative changes in sales.

Sell-Through Rate

Your sell-through rate tracks how quickly you sell an inventory's worth of product.

For quick sellers, knowing your sell-through rate can help make sure you don't run out of product and end up losing sales. For slow sellers, this sales analysis can help you adjust the rate of delivery so you don't end up over-stocked.

Performance of Each Product

Keeping track of how well each of your products performs is key to knowing which ones need to be emphasized or advertised, versus which ones should be phased out or left as a sideshow.

Sales in Each Region

Knowing your sales in each region can help you identify which markets offer greater opportunity for sales to your company.

Even profitable areas may need less emphasis if they're already saturated and can produce no more sales. Some new areas may be fruitful ground for greater sales while others may be duds.

Time From Quote to Close

Your quote to close rate isolates and focuses on how good your sales team is at closing. If your team is effective at producing leads and getting to quotes, but is lacking in moving from quotes to close, you may need to adjust what kind of sales training you emphasize.

On the other hand, you might find that your team is brilliant at closing and your company would benefit by producing more leads for your sales team. If you have a brilliant sales team, you don't want to end up wasting this rare resource.

Sales Metrics to Take Your Business to the Next Level

We hope you learned something helpful about sales analytics in this short piece. To learn more about how to collect data and get the most out of it in your business, check out our other articles!

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by admin

How to Be Successful in Direct Sales: 6 Strategies All Sales Professionals Should Know

Direct selling has leaped into a multi-billion industry. In the US, by 2018 it had jumped past $35.4 billion in annual retail sales. Many people continue to join the industry to enjoy the flexibility and financial independence on offer.

As the stats show, the model is still a viable business. Direct selling has stood the test of time and the growth of MLM companies is proof of its viability. But success in the industry doesn’t come easy.

Like any other business, you need to identify your market, deliver an appealing message and meet customers’ needs. Regardless of your networking model, there are some basic strategies you can use to succeed. Check out these six tips on how to be successful in direct sales.

1. Choose Your Products Wisely

Most of the leading marketers love what they do. They love their product, the hustle, the customer and selling itself. In the entire business world, passion is critical to selling success.

Your customers can discern if you’re giving an ordinary sales pitch or providing a solution. The more you’re passionate about the product the better. Passionate sales professionals can overcome selling rejection and sell where many people wouldn’t.

Leading sales professionals mastered how to be successful in direct sales. They choose to sell what they love and talk about their products enthusiastically.

You can use the products to understand them better and sell them from user experience. That way, you can express the benefits of your product without any fear.

2. Persistence Wins In Direct Selling

In direct selling, your marketing tactics don’t count without persistence. Most leading professionals portray direct selling like it’s a walk in the park. The truth is if it was that easy, many people will succeed.

Persistence is one of the most crucial skills in direct selling. If you know how to be successful in direct sales, persistence is the character to nurture. Prospects won’t buy after your first or second pitch.

In direct selling, you’ll lose prospects or fail to impress them. You may invest a lot in a proven marketing tactic, and experience minimal response. Often people will yell, scold or even hang op on you.

Thanks to persistence, all the rejection needs to be your launchpad to success in direct sales. Instead of focusing on rejection, you can fine-tune your strategy and target high-quality leads.

3. Embrace Target Marketing

How can a list of potential prospects help you be successful in direct sales? Most of the times your prospect list features only the warm market. That is your friends, family, church members, and workmates.

Warm marketing may be effective in the short run, but it may keep you to your comfort zone. Getting used to cold pitching prospects will get you further along when your first list is exhausted.

In many businesses, sales professionals prefer niche or target marketing from the onset. That way, you can identify the people interested in your products and streamline your marketing efforts.

Another mistake you might be making is targetting to recruit people instead of selling. You’re more likely to become successful in direct selling by targetting buyers. People interested in your product are more reliable when you want fast growth multi-level selling.

4. Sell Value

61 percent of customers expect you to listen to their needs and provide relevant information without being salesy. Customers expect value out of your product. Determine how your product addresses the needs of your market.

How will the customers feel or respond after using your product? Will they be happy and return to buy more?

One of the best ways to determine the value of products is to break down its features and benefits. A better product will have more features and benefits. When you understand the benefits of your products, you can aim your pitch to focus on value addition.

5. Build A Community

One of the most effective direct sales technique is to build a customer base. Aim at building a strong relationship to keep them coming back. How you relate to them will determine if you’ll be successful in direct sales.

If you build a close connection, customers can turn into your advocates and help you to expand your tribe. You can use Facebook groups to build a community and engage them with helpful tips.

Treat the community like it’s your family. Share inspirational posts and aim at providing the most value. Keep the clan engaged with consistent posts and try to understand their needs.

6. Use Videos And Blog Posts To Tell Your Stories

According to Uri Hasson, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, stories are the most effective tools of communication. Hasson says stories can sync your brain with your audience and create an emotional connection.

In business, marketers prefer stories to nurture audiences and drive consumers towards. Before promoting your products, use stories to hook your audience and allow them to understand your brand.

Focus on how the products have improved your life. Narrate your real experiences with products to pull your audiences.

To increase engagement, you can seek feedback from your existing customers about the products. Stories from customers are more powerful and can show proof about the effectiveness of your products.

Create videos and blog posts if possible to allow the sharing of the products. At the end of each video or blog, you can request the audience to reach out for more information about the products.

The Wrap Up: How To Be Successful In Direct Sales

Are you still wondering how to be successful in direct sales? Here’s one last tip to wrap up this guide.

Great customer experiences are an outcome of a nurtured relationship over the years. To improve the relationships, interact and go personal with customers. Think of creating memorable experiences and offering an emotional punch in every buying circle.

Combine this point with other tips mentioned to improved your salesperson skills. If you're looking for help with advancing your sales tactics, contact us today.

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by admin

Different Types of Leads You Need to Understand - Sales Data Pro

Have you ever wondered what leads are the best leads?

Generating leads is important for many businesses, especially those that focus on selling products. Leads play a major role in the marketing process, so you should be aware of what a lead is and what the different types of leads are.

A lead is someone interested in what you're selling, but they haven't purchased anything yet. As a business, it's important to convince leads to buy something. There are different types of leads that result from various things, so we've put together this list for you to understand them.

Continue reading to learn more about the most common lead types.

Hot Lead

A hot lead is someone that has a lot of interest in your product or service. You can tell you have a hot lead when someone needs what you're offering and are ready to buy it. This type of lead will have a budget set aside that they're waiting to use.

If a lead is looking for a product that solves their problem, they'll most likely invest in yours providing that it's the best thing available. Hot leads are the best types of leads because they're at the closest point to buying something. When you improve the quality of your leads, you'll be more likely to convert hot leads.

Warm Lead

Warm leads are similar to hot leads, but they're lacking a few things. Warm leads typically don't have the money available to buy something or they don't necessarily need it. This lack of budget and time frame can prevent them from buying a product.

When it comes to warm leads, the best thing you can do is convince them. If you teach them about what you have to offer and answer any questions, they'll be more likely to come back when they finally need your product.

Cold Lead

Cold leads are some of the most difficult types of leads to deal with because they usually fail to meet several criteria. These leads won't have a budget, authority, or a need for a product. Just like warm leads, you'll need to convince them why they should get something.

Unlike warm leads, cold leads are nowhere near the point of buying something. They may develop an interest in something you have to offer, but they usually won't consider it unless you talk to them. You'll have to take time, effort, and use a strategy to convince cold leads.

Information Qualified Lead (IQL)

Information qualified leads are those that were just converted. Companies will provide IQLs with information about their company after they've received the lead's contact information. E-books and tip sheets are two common forms of information provided to IQLs.

You can provide IQLs with a downloadable link to a free webinar or sample of your product via email that explains what it is. After a few days, you can send another email to ensure they've received it. Over time, continue to send newsletters and offers to convince them to invest.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

A marketing qualified lead is similar to information qualified leads, but they were instead convinced to look into your company as a result of your marketing. If they read your e-book, browse your blog, or watch your videos, they're an MQL.

An information qualified lead that decides to go through with the things you've provided them will turn into an MQL. However, not all MQLs were previously IQLs. Any activity from your marketing strategy that gets a lead to take action makes them an MQL.

Sales-Ready Lead (SRL)

Sales-ready leads are essentially hot leads, but they're specifically someone that has asked to speak with someone about a product. When a lead asks you or a representative about what you offer, they become a sales-ready lead.

The confusing thing about sales-ready leads is that they haven't purchased anything yet. The name suggests that they're ready for a sale because they're showing deep interest in a product or service. When they request a conversation, they're expecting someone to help them with a purchase.

Sales-Qualified Lead (SQL)

Getting the best online leads to decide that they'd like to buy something will convert them to a sales qualified lead. These are leads that have had a conversation with someone from the company that's convinced them to make a purchase.

Sales qualified leads don't need to make a purchase right away to become one. The moment they've decided that they will buy something is when they become an SQL. If you're looking to make a sale, it's best to do it soon after you've converted someone to an SQL.

Member Service Request Lead (MSL)

A member service request lead is someone that's joined a subscription service. Leads can become MSLs when they sign up on your website, subscribe to a newsletter, or follow your blog or social media account. MSLs are essentially signing up to continue receiving information about your product or service.

Now You Know About the Different Types of Leads

If you have a company that focuses on making sales, you must understand the different types of leads. Knowing what leads are the best leads will help you sell products and grow your business. These leads are the most common ones, so keep these in mind when you're pitching things.

You want to convert all leads to hot leads, so try to provide leads with as much information about your product as possible. You can also offer free samples and testimonials to make them feel confident in you.

Browse our blog to learn more about leads and how they affect your business.

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by admin

5 Ways Sales Data Can Help Your Business Generate Leads - Sales Data Pro

In recent years, inbound marketing has taken the marketing arena by storm. This content-centric marketing technique proved very effective for attracting and retaining customers.

Inbound marketing is a step away from the traditional “in your face” outbound marketing. Instead, inbound marketing strives to create rapport between a company and its clients. Some great inbound marketing strategies include blogs, seminars, SEO, among others.

Data is at the core of inbound marketing. In fact, the way inbound marketing integrates with sales data tracking is what makes it so effective. What’s more, you don’t even need a whole marketing team to track and analyze sales data.

In this piece, we'll look at a few ways sales data can help your business drive up its sales through generating leads.  This piece is especially useful for business owners who have adopted the inbound approach for their marketing operations.

First, however, let’s look at what exactly sales leads are.

What Are Sales Leads?

Any professional marketer aims to generate as many leads as possible. The challenge is coming up with an economically feasible but yet effective way of doing so.

Sales leads are businesses or individuals who are prospective customers or clients. When you generate a lead, you have engendered a potential customer into future inquiries or transactions with your business.

Sales leads are crucial for businesses to make profits. However, sales leads do more than just boost profit margins. They are also good for improving communication as your company expands.

Sales leads also help keep track of the competition and give you connections to some professionals in your field. These professionals may later become excellent additions to your company.

How Can Sales Data Help Your Company Generate Sales Leads?

Nowadays, data is the language of any marketers or marketing agencies worth their name. Gone are the days when companies relied on hunches or intuition to make crucial business decisions.

With the evolution of technology, internet leads, and the whole social media wave, marketing has become more computer-oriented instead of sales teams with banners and posters.

Any business owner can leverage sales data to help generate more sales leads. What’s more, acquiring and analyzing these sales data isn’t even as hard as most people think.

Here are five ways sales data can help business owners generate new sales leads from clients and B2B companies.

1. Reports on the Number of Sales Each Item Makes

If your business is in the line of selling products, you undoubtedly must have some best sellers. You also must have a few items that don’t fare very well on the market.

Any wise business owner will emphasize the best performing products. Also wise is to take some steps to find out why other products aren’t selling as well as they should.

The sales report by item data is especially useful for new businesses. When you launch a new line of products, it’s imperative to gauge their performance on their market. In doing so, you’ll know whether to boost production or to discontinue the product altogether.

From this data, you can also tweak your inventory control and adapt it to the demand hence generate more leads. If possible, you can find where you can sell off the inventory of the underperforming products.

2. Sales Generated From New Customers and Customers Retained

Nothing shows good performance by the marketing department than a new set of customers. That said, you still need your current customers because they are what keep your business afloat.

You may be surprised that you may have more new customers than the regulars. If such is the case, then you must do something to address the dwindling number of regular customers.

The same applies to the number of new customers. Remember, to keep up with the competition, your business must grow steadily. It can only achieve such growth by getting new customers from new regions.

From the data you acquire, you can then take the necessary steps to address the sales issues. If you don’t see new customer sales, then it’s time to get your sales team on the ground or improve your inbound marketing strategy.

3. Sales Generated From Each Location

When you breach new customer frontiers, you’re never sure of the outcome. Some products perform well, while others don’t. The sales most likely also vary from location to location.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be physically present at each location to know the sales. This sales data will show you how each product performs in each region.

With this sales data, you can pull out or intensify operations in particular regions. When you boost your operations in a thriving region, you can expand your horizons even further and attract more clients from the same or neighboring regions.

What’s more, your POS terminals generate this data in real-time as the sales happen. The next time you have your meeting, you have up-to-date data to discuss.

4. Sales Per Given Time Frame

You can have data on the number of sales made by the year, month, week, day, and even hour. There’s nothing much to this data, especially for established businesses. Surely, most of them are familiar with yearly or quarterly sales,

Take a seminar or a pop-up shop, for instance. You can get useful hourly sales information so you can know when to kick things up a notch and also avoid the embarrassment of your products going out of stock on site.

If things are moving slow, you can have a live broadcast on social media to get the word around fast.

5. Sales Per Employee

Your employees are the backbone of your company. Unfortunately, not all employees do their job as expected.

You can get how much sales each employee makes. In doing so, you can promote performing employees and warn the under-performers accordingly.

Sales Data is the Key to Generating Sales Leads

You don’t have to mobilize entire groups of employees to generate sales leads. Let computers, the internet, and smart devices get sales leads for you through sales data.

However, it is important to have staff who understand and analyze this data effectively for the greatest effect.

Contact us today and leverage sales data to generate new sales leads and drive up your sales.

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by admin

How Buying Leads Saves You Time and Money - Sales Data Pro

Marketing budgets are bigger than ever. Last year, for instance, businesses were set to spend $240 billion on their digital and traditional marketing endeavors. That’s serious money.

The common thread behind those sky-high budgets? Two words: Lead generation.

That’s right- businesses fork out a fortune in order to drive a steady stream of leads to their doors. After all, no business can last long without a ready supply of prospective customers. Investing in lead generation helps companies ensure they’re never short on sales.

But we think there’s a better way. Buying leads is one particular lead generation strategy that can save you serious time, effort, and money. Want to find out how?

Read on to discover 7 incentives to buy leads for your business.

1. There’s a Continuous Supply

Traditional lead generation is a never-ending process.

After all, you can never have enough people expressing their interest in your products/services! Achieving a steady supply of quality leads is key to helping the sales team do their job and generate revenue.

If the flow of leads dries up, then there’s nobody to convert; the business will soon be in financial trouble. As such, companies must be tireless with their marketing efforts. They can’t afford to fall behind or fail.

Buying leads is a quick-fix for this issue. You can purchase a long list of leads to work your way through. Then, as you approach the end of it, you can simply purchase another set!

2. They’re Available Instantaneously

Attracting leads isn’t easy.

In fact, the reality of generating leads for your sales team can be long and hard. It’s a matter of constant outreach, ceaseless content production, ongoing ad campaigns, and rigorous testing and analysis.

You have to hone in on the strategies that work best. And, at the end of it all, there’s still no saying that your leads will convert.

Aside from the money involved in the lead-gen process, it takes forever to do!

But not when you buy them instead.

Suddenly, ‘attracting’ leads is a matter of paying for another individual or organization to provide them. You’re able to access leads instantaneously, saving yourself a headache in the process.

3. Less Pressure on Marketing Teams

Marketers are under constant pressure to perform.

They’re the ones responsible for driving interest to your business’ door. If they fail, then so does the business. In worst cases, that pressure can backfire and hinder performance, perpetuating the struggle.

Buying leads takes the pressure off.

It would be a bit like a busy chef having customers’ orders pre-cooked and ready to go.

With a supply of leads taken care of, marketers can breathe a sigh of relief. It enables them to turn their attention to other things, or further lead generation.

4. Quality and Quantity Taken Care Of

There’s a misconception that leads you purchase are of a lower quality to those you earn.

If that was true, then the benefits of buying leads would be negligible. It would be akin to somebody purchasing followers on social media, only to find they’re all bots and fake profiles.

Obviously, it’s no good having somebody’s contact details if they’re never going to make a purchase. That’s a recipe for wasting everyone’s time.

The reality of buying leads is somewhat different.

Sure, some lower-level companies may have databases populated with low-quality leads. Higher quality providers, though, offer enormous databases full of the leads you need.

You’ll be supplied with the contact details of qualified individuals with an interest in your business. It's top-quality leads on tap.

5. Worthwhile ROI

You never get something for nothing; buying quality leads definitely isn’t free.

But you can see it as an investment. For one thing, you provide your sales team with a solid opportunity to clean up, driving revenue your way.

Even better, you can enjoy far greater margins in the process. After all, you’ve no longer got a team full of marketers focused on lead-generation; your sales team gets to wave goodbye to time-consuming and expensive cold calls.

Instant access to quality leads that convert with ease equates to higher profits. And that, of course, is what it’s all about. Indeed, almost 30% of new start-ups fail due to a lack of capital.

You’re more likely to avoid that eventuality by avoiding wasted expenditure on ineffective marketing and pursuing cold leads.

6. Better Customer Service

With the leads covered, you’ll have more time on your hands as well.

This allows you to re-invest it into key areas of the business, such as customer service. You now have the resources available to ensure current customers receive a quality experience with the business.

Rates of customer retention are likely to go up as a result.

That’s good news. After all, it’s no good losing existing customers (at the hands of things like poor service/experience) as quickly as you acquire new ones. It turns into a turnstile- one in one out isn’t the way to grow a business!

Buy leads, gain resources, and improve the customer experience. You’ll see your company grow exponentially faster.

7. Higher Rates of Conversion

What does your conversion rate look like at the moment?

We’re guessing it could be better.

One of the surest ways to see the figures improve is to focus your attempts around qualified leads. These guys and gals have a pre-identified interest in your product/service. That, of course, makes the sales process far more straightforward.

The rate of conversion boosts accordingly.

As we noted above, quality lead providers deliver the leads you need. You’ll see your conversion rates spike as a result.

Time to Start Buying Leads

Businesses are spending more on their marketing than ever before.

After all, traditional lead generation strategies and approaches aren’t cheap. They take time, effort and expertise to do well. Thankfully, there’s an alternative! As we’ve seen, buying leads offers a more convenient way to do it. Hopefully, this post has highlighted why that’s the case.

Ready to get your hands on the leads you need?

Contact us today to see how we can help.

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by admin

Back to Basics: What is an Internet Lead And Why Does it Matter - Sales Data Pro

In marketing, a lead refers to a prospective customer or consumer of a service or product to whom a business shows interest and provides information. Different companies define the term “lead” differently.

Some organizations, for example, consider a “lead” as an individual already determined to be a potential customer, while other businesses consider a “lead” to be any sales contact.

All the definitions agree on one thing- a lead will possibly become a future customer. For these reasons, generating leads is one of the most critical responsibilities for converting your target audience to buying clients.

An internet lead or a web lead is generated by an individual that has submitted information on a web form. This confirms them consenting to be contacted. Check out how you can land a targeted lead generation through online efforts and why it matters.

Why an Internet Lead Matters

Online lead generation is essential for both sales and marketing teams. A lead is the initiation of user interest or inquiry into services or products of a company.

Lead generation is a powerful tool with tons of benefits that can help your business acquire new clients and make more money. Below are the most important benefits for companies.

Generate the Right Leads

Google has simplified the process of connecting to suppliers and consumers. This helps businesses showcase their products. It also lets the potential buyers know what separates their products or services from their competitors.

Potential clients can search and find what they want online. Your chances of converting them when your website is attractive increases. How prepared they are to buy also helps to indicate whether or not they are a high-quality lead.

Increased Sales and Profit Ratio

Companies that use lead generation programs are more likely to have increased leads, which means a greater potential for sales. This may also boost the profit margins of your business.

As a marketing technique, lead generation helps to increase Return on Investment (ROI). This is mostly due to the fact that you only pay for leads received. This gives a better chance of multiplying your ROI by lowering CPL (cost-per-lead).

Generate Awareness

Brand awareness is a good measure of how well your company is known within its markets. This is when clients think of you first before purchasing within the category of your products.

The more your brand is known, the stronger your fame, the higher your profit potential, and the entire brand value is. Targeted Lead generation informs and educates individuals in your target market about your business’s features.

Gathering Important Information on Each Lead

Internet lead generation is centered on collecting pertinent information about prospects. This eases the process of identifying quality leads and provides relevant profiling information that you can use to create more tailored lead-generating content.

Targeted lead generation combined with marketing automation, will offer sales professionals, and marketers insight into each prospect. The insights help determine the conversion approach to use.

Cheaper Than Most Ads

For your business to succeed, you need to advertise it using the most suitable marketing strategy. One that won’t hurt your pocket, but produces better results, and targeted lead generation is one of the ideal options.

How to Generate Internet Leads

Many marketers get frustrated because they have one of the most challenging jobs—generating leads. Lots of sales professionals know that they need to create more leads. Yet most of them don’t understand much when it comes to implementing particular strategies.

Here are lead generation tactics to implement.

Own a Website

A website helps establish a solid presence online and draw in targeted leads via organic traffic sources. Through a website, you can provide useful information to your prospects, which helps ensure that your target audience has a reason to return.

Make Contact Information Visible

As you develop your website, keep in mind the need to make it easy to navigate. Your leads should reach you via a method that’s convenient for them.

Displaying your contact information in an easily findable position is an excellent way to start. You can either place a contact form or a live chat feature on the website.

Optimize Your Site’s Landing Pages

The success of your lead generation strategy is primarily determined by how well you optimize your landing page. This is a crucial component since it’s where you acquire leads by collecting their contact details. It ensures your targeted lead generation campaign flies high.

The ideal landing page should be unsophisticated, with a clear message that attracts attention, showcases the worth of what you offer, and inspires the lead to take action.

Write Blogs

A blog is a crucial element of an all-inclusive targeted lead generation campaign because it’s useful in several marketing strategies. If your blog is filled with valuable content, for example, you can obtain direct leads using both SEO as well as position your business as an authority in a particular field.

The right content pulls in prospects by providing the knowledge they seek. Content also allows potential clients to know more about you. Once you establish trust with your audience, it becomes easier to convert prospects to buyers.

Provide Freebies

The fact is that not all website visitors have the patience to read the content. But they may be up for a free product or free trial to establish how your offers work.

Consider giving prospects freebies like trial periods and downloadables. Use an opt-in form to capture the email addresses of those interested in the incentive.

Looking to Increase Your Targeted Lead Generation?

Nowadays, a lot of companies use online channels to find clients, grow their business viewership, and increase profits.

While targeted lead generation remains one of the most preferred methods to achieve this, you need to test and use new tactics to determine those that work for your business. Also trying the mentioned strategies is a great way to start.

For help with getting quality leads generated for your business, feel free to contact us today.

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by admin

How to Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation - Sales Data Pro

Companies are expected to spend a whopping $118 billion on digital marketing next year.

Why?

Because everybody’s eyes are online these days.

More time is being spent on computers, tablets, and smartphones than ever before. Billboards and leaflets are no longer viable. To get a product/service in front of an audience, then, marketers must take an increasingly digital route.

Such serious sums of marketing money require an adequate return on investment though. To make it worth their financial while, businesses must succeed in generating high numbers of internet leads.

Needless to say, failing to generate leads makes converting something of a challenge! And from there it’s a one-way ticket to trouble.

Looking for ways to avoid that eventuality and make your website a winning lead generator?

We can help. Keep reading to discover 7 website optimization tips to generate more leads.

1. Start a Blog (& Master SEO)

Blogs are nothing new.

Indeed, it’s got to a point where 4 million blog posts are published every single day. Clearly, every man and his dog has a blog, using the content to rank in google and drive traffic to their site.

You should be doing the same thing! Don’t wait any longer to set one up and get your head around search engine optimization.

Blog posts have long been a foundation of content marketing.

Find the keywords your target audience is searching for online. Write a comprehensive, useful and engaging article that answers their questions and solves their problems. From there, earn some backlinks from high-authority sites and wait for your article to rank on Google.

Get to the top spot and you can send thousands of eyes to your site. Once there, you can use an offer to entice them into providing their email address.

2. Use Forms to Capture Leads

Traffic in and of itself means very little.

Sure, it’s nice to have tons of people visiting your site and reading your content. You can generate interest that way and expose your product/service to a wider audience.

You owe it to yourself to turn that traffic into leads!

You’ve done the hard work in getting them to your site. Don’t let them slip through your fingers. Include forms on each webpage (especially those with high traffic) to capture their details.

3. Keep Things Quick

Your website needs to be fast.

Too slow and it’s never going to fire on all lead-generating cylinders.

Our attention spans are diabolically short these days. Force someone to wait even a few seconds for a webpage to load and they’ll probably click away.

Only by getting someone onto your site do you have a chance to turn them into a lead. If you’ve earned the click, the last thing you want is for them to click away impatiently.

Speed your site up as much as possible. The quicker the better.

4. Ensure Lead Magnets Match Content

Lead magnets are used to convince somebody to part with their details.

They’re offers, giveaways, e-books, exclusive content, and so on, used by webmasters to encourage the trade. In essence: “we’ll give you X if you provide your email address”.

Remember the forms we talked about above?

Well, the chance of them working without some sort of lead magnet is minimal. People are wary of handing over their info for nothing in return. Compel them to deliver their details with an unmissable magnet.

However, make sure they’re relevant to the webpage or article they’re on.

If you’re reading an article about caring for a dog, then you’re unlikely to want our e-book on caring for a cat. Get it? Make sure the offer matches the content for your best chance of converting.

5. Include Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

CTAs are key to lead generation success.

People are a bit like sheep. They need shepherding down a particular pathway if they’re ever going to act in line with your needs.

Provide explicit instructions on your website, telling users what you want them to do; combine CTAs with your lead magnets and forms for maximum effect.

Examples include:

• ‘Click here to subscribe’,
• ‘Download Our E-book’,
• ‘Join Our Community’, or
• ‘Purchase Your Tickets’.

6. Offer Desirable Content Upgrades

Content upgrades are similar to lead magnets.

Both offer something of value in exchange for a user’s details. In other words, they’re used to incentivize and stimulate lead generation.

However, lead magnets are usually significant in nature.

They’re free E-books, courses, giveaways, and access opportunities. They’re of significant value, which is why they work so well in generating quality leads. But they also take serious time, energy, and occasionally money to put together.

Content upgrades are a step down in terms of both value and investment.

With minimal effort, you can create something of sufficient worth to get someone’s contact information. Each content upgrade relates to the specific piece of content in which they’re found.

They can be anything from a PDF download of the article to bonus pieces of advice. Include them in your popular articles and you can drive serious leads your way.

7. Test Everything All the Time

Successful marketing relies on effective and thorough testing.

Lead generation is no exception.

It’s of utmost importance to test every aspect of your endeavors. Set up A/B split tests to assess which copy, colors, content upgrades, landing pages work best.

Even slight alterations can have significant results. Minor changes to the word order and page layout can, for whatever reason, stimulate incredible gains.

The fact of the matter is that, without testing, you’ll never know if you’re reaching your lead generation potential. Set up your split tests and accrue the data that can skyrocket the effectiveness of your efforts.

Time to Generate More Internet Leads

Businesses are devoting increasing sums of money to their digital marketing.

And lead generation is at the heart of their endeavors. After all, gaining internet leads is the first step along the road to driving conversions and generating revenue.

As we’ve seen, used correctly, your website can be a mighty tool at your lead generation disposal.

Hopefully, the information in this article will help you set up your site for success.

Looking for more leads? Contact us today to see how we can be of service.

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by admin

5 Reasons People Opt for Remote Work - Sales Data Pro

Is physically going to work becoming a thing of the past?

While some jobs require people on-premise, many do not in this technological age. Statistics reveal that 4.3 million Americans work from home at least half of the time.

Why is remote work so popular?

5 Reasons People Opt for Remote Work

Are you considering a career you can manage from home? Keep reading to learn why a growing number of people choose remote jobs!

1. They Can

Up until recent years, the employed population needed to commute for work. They simply did not get the option to work from home.

As technology quickly advanced, this changed. Many jobs no longer require your physical presence.

Mobile phones and high-speed internet with data plans expanded the way we see an office. You can reach out to clients, create documents and spreadsheets, make and answer calls, and so much more, from the comfort of your own home. The further technology advances, the more it connects us from anywhere in the world.

2. Technology Added New Opportunities

Not only did technology make working from home possible. It also added jobs that people never dreamed of.

For instance, today's freelancers can build websites, write blogs, increase Search Engine Optimization (SEO), create databases, develop apps, etc. As people develop new technologies, sometimes from home, they create more opportunities for running lucrative businesses from home!

3. Changing Values

Where people saw value in working hard for the man over the past century or so, newer generations place more importance on creative entrepreneurial ventures that bring them freedom. These young adults see the importance of balance in life.

To understand why this change occurred, look to the trends of today. Exercising, yoga, eating balanced, traveling, and having fun all climbed into the top of people's priority list.

You see it everywhere. The way people dress in yoga pants, healthy restaurants grow in number, you see more adult venues with games, and so on.

Eating healthy and working out do not fit well into a busy office schedule. But, working from home allows you to fit them in better.

Maybe this change comes from the recent recognition of mental health. People now understand the toll of working more than playing and missing out on important social interactions and value happiness more than ever.

So, people opt out of that office life. They choose a workspace that keeps them feeling less anxious and saner.

This also may stem from social media influencing values. One person can post about their wonderful life working from home, and millions might see it, thousands may want it, and hundreds may choose it.

4. Flexibility

Another core American value worth mentioning is time. This did not recently come about, but the way we choose to spend it changed.

Working from home both gives you more time and allows you more options on how to allocate it. Here's how.

Leaving the house for work requires time to get ready, commute, get yourself situated at the office, and more. Working from home saves you this time, and allows more flexibility for when you want to work.

You can work around your doctor's appointment or yoga class. It also allows you to sleep in when you need it and work late into the night when you simply cannot rest.

We see more than 11 million single-parent families in America today. This makes leaving for work difficult, if not impossible for some.

Working from home allows parents to stay home with their children and spend more time with them. This also helps students, people working two or more jobs, and free spirits who simply need an open schedule.

5. It Saves Money

This set-up can save money for both the worker and the employer. Think about the costs of working elsewhere.

You spend money commuting, parking, eating out, hiring childcare, etc. Plus, you lose potential working hours during longer commutes.

Employers save on this too, which leaves them room to pay their workers more. They eliminate expenses like renting office space, purchasing office equipment, and more.

How to Work from Home

Do you want to work from home? Discover your strengths and then choose a career that works for you!

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)

Extroverts with a business mindset tend to soar in this type of platform. You pretty much aim to grow your team while selling the products and services your MLM provides.

This type of work gives you tons of flexibility and often keeps you working with family and friends. It also hands out tons of incentives like pay bonuses, free products or services, vacations, and other amazing perks.

If you can reach out to people you know, book meetings, present opportunities, train new team members, and continuously work on self-development, then you will rock in this business model. Note, you can, and should pursue other (non-MLM) streams of income at the same time.

Freelancing

Do you possess any special creative skills? Freelancing allows you to use your talent when and where you want, without a long-term commitment to any one company.

You can often pick up contracts while networking your MLM! Some awesome freelance jobs include writing, photography, graphic design, web design, search engine optimization, and bookkeeping.

Wellness Leaders

Capitalize on the nation's current interest in wellness. You can often manage this from home.

Get a degree or certificate for nutrition, personal training, instructing yoga, energy healing, or one of the other many available options that interest you. Again, any of these not only allow you to work an MLM, but also expand your reach for your MLM networking.

Educators

Most educators work from home even when they teach at school. Save yourself the hassle and start educating from home.

Many students opt for online classes because learning from home provides more convenience as well. You can also tutor out of your home for a less intensive and super rewarding experience.

Start Working from Home Today

Does this all sound appealing to you?

Many remote work positions do not require too much planning or setting up to begin. But, they change your life in numerous positive ways!

We want to help you venture out into the unknown and begin your new career at home. Contact us to find ways we can help you with your business.

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by admin