The best sales tools for sales intelligence compared

Sales Intelligence Definition: What is Sales Intelligence and why is a Sales Intelligence software needed?

The term Sales Intelligence is often used synonymously with Sales Intelligence software. Basically, Sales Intelligence refers to the process of finding, collecting, and analyzing data on (potential) customers using various technologies. As part of Sales Intelligence, contact details, financial figures, facts about a company's history, employee contacts and practically all other publicly accessible information on the net that are relevant in any way for optimally achieving sales or marketing goals are collected and further processed. With the help of this data, companies can very accurately serve and persuade their market, their target group and their desired customers. This, of course, means a lot of work. This is where Sales Intelligence tools come into play. They capture specific information largely autonomously and evaluate it. Manual processing would be not only absolutely inefficient but also almost impossible to the extent that Sales Intelligence software performs it. The result is a lot of differentiated and excellently prepared data, with the help of which companies can usually secure significant competitive advantages over their competition. Without a suitable Sales Intelligence platform, things are becoming increasingly difficult in more and more markets.

How do Sales Intelligence software work?

Sales Intelligence software typically performs its data collection and evaluation processes based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These technologies make the typically highly automated processes possible in solutions of this kind. The intelligent systems are trained using many data and metrics. Ideally, they continually learn and deliver better facts over time. The search and capture of information is done using specific crawler technologies. These are used to search the web for information relevant to the respective context that is publicly available, or to "crawl" it. The system stores the data and can evaluate or output it in different ways, or pass it on to other applications that can benefit from the facts. A good Sales Intelligence tool can practically capture and process anything that the respective target customers have ever published online. Sales Intelligence tools can be precisely aligned in their analysis and processing processes to what a company wants to know. For example, current sales signals can be considered, it is possible to see whether new, perhaps innovative, products are appearing or whether there is a change in management at the competition. Sales Intelligence can actually do much more than just gather contact data.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Sales Intelligence software?

Various advantages of Sales Intelligence software have already become clear in the last few paragraphs. The following summarizes the most central benefits once again.

• Optimal understanding of target group and market: Most companies already know their customers and their top competitors very well. With the help of a Sales Intelligence software, corresponding insights can, however, be greatly expanded again. Many companies or their responsible parties are surprised by the large potentials that open up when using such a tool.
• Improved data quality: Of course, all data is not equal. For real benefits to be drawn from them, they must concern exactly your own target group and cover the optimal facts for your own purposes. With the help of artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence in Sales software, you can reliably get exactly the data that are actually helpful. This leads, among other things, to sales representatives speaking only with the most relevant companies or (potential) customers and proactively addressing all relevant pain points with them.
• Speed and efficiency boost: This advantage is actually logical, but because of its great relevance, it needs to be emphasized again. Sales Intelligence software naturally takes a lot of work off companies, which would be very labor-intensive if done manually or not feasible at all. Those responsible save a lot of time and at the same time get particularly purposeful data, which can be forwarded to other relevant tools if necessary and bring additional advantages there.
• Large potential for personalization: Sales, marketing and especially advertising are still quickly equated with annoying, off-the-shelf pitches or standard phrases in many places. Such a negative perception of such measures can be prevented by the use of Sales Intelligence software. Because through these, the relevant departments, teams and employees in the company get up-to-date and very precise data, on the basis of which they can identify acute needs of the target group and process them. The detailed consideration of the pains and needs of the target customers in sales, marketing or even advertising can lead to an unprecedented degree of personalization, whereby the respective measures ideally hardly feel like sales or customer acquisition or retention to their recipients anymore.

Are there any disadvantages at all given these many clear advantages? The short answer is: few. At least when the Sales Intelligence software has been chosen to fit perfectly and is used correctly, companies should not have to fear any deficiencies. A specific problem, however, can become an issue even under otherwise very good conditions - namely inaccurate data.

• Inaccurate data: Even though Sales Intelligence greatly simplifies or even largely automates the work of collecting, organizing, and evaluating data, the responsibility for setting things up correctly still lies with the users. If the data focus is misaligned, even the best tool cannot deliver ideal results. Users have no influence on the general state of information in their line of business on the net. If there is little data or only little meaningful data, the use of a Sales Intelligence tool is severely limited. However, such conditions exist in very few industries.

How to choose the right Sales Intelligence software or what should you pay special attention to?

The optimal choice of Sales Intelligence tool depends centrally on what goals are being pursued with it. The market offers differently specialized applications - and interested parties should of course first look at these according to their needs. The following options are generally available.

Sales Intelligence software for lead generation Generating suitable leads is one of the elemental tasks of sales and marketing. Sales Intelligence software for leads, commonly known as prospecting software, allows users to select their target group in a differentiated way and then go on lead hunting in a very targeted way. This is done through the use of different filter criteria, trigger events, WZ codes and keywords. In this way, the target persons or target companies can be precisely identified for whom the own offers are particularly relevant.

Sales Intelligence software to track, enrich and qualify leads Sales Intelligence tools can also support companies in finding out for which leads targeting is particularly worthwhile and which are less suitable. Such applications prioritize existing lead lists fully automatically based on preset parameters. Users can receive a lot of additional information here to generate very high-quality lead lists. "Lead qualification" is the keyword! After all, sales and marketing can better assess how much resources should be expended to activate individual leads and whether it is worthwhile at all. With some Sales Intelligence tools, it is also possible to track a team's performance in terms of lead management efficiency. This allows users and managers to see very clearly which processes and strategies to stick with and where there is potential for optimization. This offers the opportunity to improve sales and marketing processes sustainably.

Sales Intelligence tools for Sales Engagement and Enablement During Sales Enablement, the sales department is given optimized content, tools tailored specifically to their needs and other aids to increase the chances of closures and the predictability of sales, and to create overall workflows that are maximally purposeful. Sales Engagement, on the other hand, practically focuses on improving the relationship between sales and (potential) customers. Conversation times, email contact frequencies and other touchpoints are measured. Some Sales Intelligence tools are completely focused on optimizing these areas. They allow teams to understand which hardware and software equipment they work best with and how they should ideally use it internally and with customers for maximum sales success. This can also achieve significantly higher closure rates and of course more efficient processes.

Sales Intelligence software for data maintenance and enrichment Sales Intelligence software can also be used to optimize existing, but perhaps inadequate, data sets within a CRM system. Many such programs supplement missing contact data and other central information. The options are diverse - in some cases, additional details about the industry or financial facts can also be added. Teams and individual users no longer have to manually ensure that their data is optimally prepared by using a suitable Sales Intelligence software. They also tend to create more and need less time for it with such a tool. Last but not least, detailed and/or extensive analyses are possible that would be hardly or even not achievable manually!

In addition to these considerations regarding the basic alignment of a Sales Intelligence software, interested parties should know the typical functions of such applications and incorporate them into their research. The question here is: What is really needed to achieve the sales goals or marketing or advertising goals? The range of functions has a strong impact on the price and usability of the solution. The following features are typical and almost always need to be considered.

• Data capture: "Classic" Sales Intelligence software continuously indexes public company and prospect data to get the latest contact information and other insights important in the respective context, which in turn help in generating and nurturing customers.
• Lead Builder: With a Lead Builder tool, users can effortlessly compile a list of target individuals with increased closure potential and then specifically address them. With such a tool, sales professionals have the chance to effectively organize and filter (potential) customers as needed.
• Data enrichment: Sales Intelligence software usually provides data enrichment tools to ensure that all prospect information is correct and up-to-date.
• Lead Scoring: Lead scoring allows leads in a database to be rated according to configurable rules and ranked in order of highest purchase probability. Users of Sales Intelligence solutions can pass these classifications of leads on to sales teams to maximize the focus on the (possible) customers who are deeper in the sales funnel.
• Notifications and alerts: Sales Intelligence platforms often offer notification and alert functions that can be adapted to inform users about important events in their market.
• Filters: Receiving lots of information about (potential) customers is undoubtedly very useful, but the flood of data can also be overwhelming. If facts need to be manually checked, specifically applied or organized in some other way, these processes can be greatly facilitated with specific filter functions. The system then only displays the information that is really of interest in the respective context.
• Lead Management: The lead management process includes several factors, including nurturing existing leads and strategies for acquiring new leads. Sales Intelligence software sometimes contains specific tools to streamline the lead management process and improve the stability of the sales pipeline.

What is the cost of Sales Intelligence software?

Sales Intelligence software is usually billed based on a monthly subscription model per user. There are also free versions. However, these are relatively rare. After all, such software is normally associated with a great deal of technical effort. Purposeful Sales Intelligence processes sometimes required very complex technologies. Free programs usually cannot meet the typical requirements of companies due to greatly limited functionalities. The fee-based solutions start at around 40 euros per month and per user. Depending on the range of functions and also the number of data, leads, etc. to be considered, they increase in price to 300 euros per month and per user and beyond. For products that include a proprietary database, advanced search criteria or other additional features, prices start at about 80 euros per month per user. The costs of comprehensive enterprise solutions or suites are usually calculated on request and can be many times higher.