Transform your B2B sales by Leveraging the Power of Predictive analytics and Big Data

Predictive analytics have been playing a dominant role in the modern B2B sales by delivering significant reforms in the accelerated IT landscape and providing a massive scale for growth, efficiency, and targeted online marketing. More and more B2B companies are leveraging Big Data and predictive analytics to provide value to their customers and tread ahead of the competition.

Big Data & Predictive analytics can reform your business identity by focusing on the commercialization, cost-efficiency, capacity, and coverage of your sales initiatives. Predictive Analytics in business, allows you to automate certain market responses in a given customer scenario. And Big Data enables you to assess the interaction level with your customers at an exceptionally intimate and minute level. Using the two you can map your customers' journey, identify prospect customers, and garner more leads.

So, how have you been leading your B2B sales initiative?

Data is Zeros and Ones - Ergo, Pave it Accordingly to Start Pitch-Perfect Customer Journey

When Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware said - "Data is the new science. Big Data holds the answer," he simply corroborated companies' dependency on Big data. In case of sampling a subject of interest, the more samples one has; the better is the result. Even the predictive analytics on large data is more accurate and help discover patterns. Hence, Big data and analytics connote competitive advantage.

However, how B2B marketers make use of big data is the impending question. And how Big data can transform B2B sales and in what way? Here are a few insights for the growing fixation with realities of Big Data for B2B -

1. Data Asymmetry

   Since the astute observation by Gordon Moore, also hypothesized as Moore's law, the storage device capacity has been increasing every year. It is getting cheaper as well. Thus, accumulating the data is not important, but what will marketers do with all this data?

   "What gets measured, gets managed," - true. However, only 24% of the customers feel that their companies know them. There is a serious gap between what they want and what the B2B sales provide. Some of the looming questions for all the B2B professionals to answer are -

   • How to switch digital from a destination to an insight and leverage Big data during the process?
   • How to cut or remove the combative animosity between marketing and technology to give best to the customers?
   • And how to leverage big data to drive marketing strategy?

   You should, not only work as per the demands of your customers, but also know what they will need in the future. A Big yes to the Big data. And with the right collation of data, you can also decide on the levels of engagement with your customers and understand who they are (personas), and what they want (sales pitch).

2. Predictive Marketing Analytics using Big Data

   The future of every industry lingers around data. And Big data and business analytics are expected to see an annual surge of 11.7%, which will cross the $200 billion mark by the year 2020. You too can transform your B2B sales by leveraging the power of predictive analytics and Big Data. Here is how -

   • Leveraging Data, Algorithms, & Machine Learning

     Data - collated and accurate, is today's gold. Big data helps in the collation and predictive analytics aids in improving the accuracy of the collated data. Thus, boosting the overall B2B sales' efficiency. A few things that you can achieve by the trio - Data, Algorithms, & Machine Learning are -

     • Improve the accuracy of lead generation and automate presales processes
     • Generate a comprehensive portfolio of your customer by combining the internal data sources, which includes customers' previous history and external data - social-media, etc.
     • Segregate the leads in terms of importance
     • Identify more opportunities and convert them by intelligence automation through machine learning tools
     • Rely on AI-enabled agents that utilize natural-language processing (NLP) to automate initial lead-generation activities, including managing basic questions, offering free trials, and automating initial presales questions

     Remember that data play an important role in transforming a business. Beneath that, you can find something that works in disguise, i.e., Predictive analytics. That is why Predictive analytics & B2B sales is a match made in heaven.

     So, what is predictive analytics and why does it matter? - "Predictive analytics is, simply leveraging the data, statistical algorithms and machine learning to categorize, and recognize the probability of future outcomes." It can help you understand the forthcoming trends, market drifts, and your buyers' moods if you know how to analyze the data. That is why experts from all sectors are pushing for inculcating predictive analytics for B2B sales.

   • Adopting Best-in-class Technologies & Cloud-based Services

     Big data and predictive analytics have opened the floodgates to innovative technologies and cloud-based services. It helps to -

     • Maximize the data management strategies
     • Adopt strong data governance policies
     • Have better data representations
     • Provide easy and guided data systems
     • Restrict data from unauthorized access, and many more

     According to a study by the International Data Group, 69% of businesses have adopted the cloud technology in one capacity or another, and 18% are planning to implement cloud-computing solutions in the future. And if you leverage the cloud systems & tools, your sales staff can conveniently access the information whenever and wherever they need.

3. Combination of Data Sets - Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

   If one has several data sets, the predictions will be more accurate. And knowing how and where to blend in and break the data, divulges critical behavioral insights.

   Some instinctual examples -

   • If you try and understand the predictive analytics through the example of the travel industry, you will see that they set flight paths and leverage predictive analytics to offer the best ticket rates as per the season
   • Or, in the case of the banking sector, they utilize Big data and predictive analytics to manage risk and detect fraud
   • One recent example is the data breach controversy related to the much adored and respected organization - Facebook. The data collected by the Cambridge Analytica were used for psychographic analysis to influence voters in the USA's presidential election campaign

   As a B2B marketer, the Big data analytics tell a lot about your customers' behavior. You can offer them an idea about your services or products that would complement their existing solutions.

Predictive Analytics in B2B Sales - The Right Data Management Strategy

With economy sharing, globalization, and other technology reforms in the data analytics field, the stretch of predictive analytics is limitless. Some of the right B2B sales strategies would be -

1. Utilizing Predictive Analytics in eCommerce for B2B Sales
In the coming years, human intervention will be minimal, that means, if you do not adopt automated tools and digitize your web-store, you will be left behind. Predictive analytics can accurately tell which customers to contact, their buying behavior, and which other domains to tread.
  According to a report by BusinessWire, 90% of B2B merchants expect e-commerce sales to increase by the end of 2018. Thus, you should also use the predictive analytics tools or collaborate with an expert who can build you one. A few benefits are -

• You can successfully know in advance what your customers are most likely to buy and hence provide prescriptive products and place your content likewise
• You can, to a great extent, determine the highest price a customer will agree to pay
• You can initiate target recommendations, promotions, and plan a better price management strategy
• You can improve your supply chain management, warehouse management, and logistics

2. Artificial Intelligence to Boost B2B Sales
Given its potential for marketing and sales, Artificial intelligence has transformed the way customers interact with brands and leverage their services. And to successfully achieve that, B2B' ecosystem space must be filled with concentrated efforts towards getting insights on their customers.
 Users leave individual marks when they browse through the web, communicate with brands using different channels, and take part in the research. Thus, these data can be constructively used to analyze their mindsets, demographics, personas and buying behavior.
 But, the prime question, if you lack the expertise, is how to make a precise interpretation of all the data that you collect?
 The answer is collaborating with an expert who can bring together the best of Big Data, Predictive Artificial, and Artificial Intelligence.
  Artificial Intelligence, inherently surpasses the human ability to accurately emulate the space around which it is leveraged. Coupled with the AI-enabled computing system and predictive analytics, it can harvest and process the data and reinvent your B2B sales process. You can rely on data visualization tools, like Tableau, Clearbit, etc., for transforming the way you consolidate and present your data.

3. Customized Dashboard for Your Niche Requirements
If you have a customized dashboard according to your business requirements, you will have an upper hand in managing your data. Predictive analytics tools like RapidMiner Studio, SAP Predictive Analytics, etc. can give you the power to manage your data seamlessly. The power of visual representation is unmatchable, and you do not have to sit with excel sheets and try to understand the hordes of numbers. These tools can consolidate and present the data in the manner you deem fit and you can share the data in a way that is easy to understand by everyone. A win-win for all.

Today, most of the organizations, irrespective of their areas of expertise, are more and more relying on predictive B2B sales analytics to create value out of sales data. Thus, empowering your sales team critical to driving the best digital strategy to woo your customers. And customers do not come easily, you have to express your business's visions in the way your customers want. It does not mean you need to change your business's value propositions rather adopt methods, technologies and tools to express it better - by using Big data and predictive analytics.

Partner with Flatworld Solutions - The Best Data Science Services Provider

Flatworld Solutions is one of the leading data science providers and can tailor the delivery of your online experience. We can build a personalized dashboard, customized homepage, and B2B predictive marketing analytics platforms by leveraging Big data and predictive analytics to accelerate your B2B sales. With us, you can have a deeper understanding of your customers with Big data and can use the data to analyze your target audience and boost your engagement. We can help integrate data from your CRM and leverage it to build models which help you achieve your desired ROI.

And, it is never too late to start, therefore, even if you haven't invested in managing your data, you can start now. Collaborate with us for a free assessment and know what exactly the need of your B2B sales is.