Every business wants to be ahead of its competitors. It's why sales teams spend millions investing in new technologies and software looking for innovative data-driven solutions.
Revenue intelligence is a way for sales teams to gather, analyze, and interpret data. Revenue intelligence software helps you make better-informed decisions about crucial aspects of business. Salespeople often have to rely on their instincts when following leads, but with actual money on the line why leave it to chance?
In this guide, we'll cover what revenue intelligence is, why it's important, and why you should implement it in your business.
What is revenue intelligence?
Revenue intelligence is a data-driven sales method. It's a way of analyzing information on leads, prospects and current customers with the help of AI. It uses technology to identify trends and metrics. This can help to produce actionable insights that can boost sales and conversion leading to maximized revenue.
AI provides predictive analytics that go beyond simple data capturing. It provides advanced insights into buying signals, targeting data, and forecasts. This helps sales reps prioritize their leads and gain useful insight into a prospect's needs and buying context. With this information, they can target their communications specifically to a customer's needs and take the next step towards improving business success.
How does revenue intelligence help businesses?
Sales teams work hard, so you want to ensure that their effort is channeled efficiently. Revenue intelligence helps businesses align their teams so that this hard work isn't wasted on unprofitable leads.
Revenue intelligence requires three parts to work successfully. These are:
- Artificial intelligence
- 360-degree data
- Actionable insights.
Let's explore how these elements work in more detail.
Artificial intelligence
Revenue intelligence relies on cutting-edge technology, specifically, AI. Artificial intelligence has found itself being used in mainstream business operations and is transforming businesses across the world.
AI can analyze hundreds of thousands of data points quickly and easily. It can then run this data through predictive models to identify trends and connections that would be difficult for a human analyst to spot.
360-degree data metrics
Both sales and marketing professionals work with large volumes of data. Much of this is usually held and managed by a CRM. However, this information is usually entered manually which takes time, and without regular maintenance, this data can become cluttered.
Solely relying on manual data management means you could miss out on some key information that provides valuable insight. AI, however, can look beyond surface trends and provide other data sources like web analytics, campaign stats, and behavioral analytics.
Revenue intelligence combines data sources. The customer journey is rarely a neat transaction. It requires input from various teams like sales, marketing and customer support. Integrating this data provides a full view of the customer experience helping you to better understand their needs.
Actionable insights
A large amount of data isn't much use unless it provides clear and actionable insights. Revenue intelligence informs your sales decisions in real time helping youtailor and target your approach.
These insights help your sales team to:
- Monitor the health of your sales pipeline
- Guide sales reps
- Prioritize prospects and workload
- Drive revenue and growth
- Identify ideal communication cadence.
How does revenue intelligence work?
Not every revenue intelligence platform works the same way. They each use different algorithms that weigh data points differently. These specifics will often change and evolve over time, but to be effective every revenue intelligence platform needs to follow a basic structure.
Step one: Collect data
Capturing data effectively is an ongoing process meaning you'll have to refine your technique as you go along. This will improve the overall quality of your intelligence.
The better your intelligence, the better your results will be, but don't let this hold you back from getting started. Some data is definitely better than none. The type of data you choose may vary depending on what you see most value in. You could utilize:
- Buyer intent
- Email opens and clicks
- Bounce rate
- Deal progression
- Product usage
- Conversion intelligence
- Keyword usage.
This isn't an exhaustive list, but it should give you an idea of the data you can utilize. It takes some trial and error to identify which data provides you with the best insights.
Step two: Analyze and create intelligence
Once you have your data, it's time for your revenue intelligence platform to leverage this. Your AI should provide predictive analytics and surface actionable insights. The specifics of these are endless - this only limitation is your database.
Tailor your specifics to address business needs or problems that your sales team is currently facing. Your AI platform should be able to answer a few common questions including:
- How can we speed up our sales cycle?
- Where should sales reps focus their efforts?
- What opportunities is our team missing out on and how much revenue is this costing us?
Credible answers to these questions can help you direct and improve your efforts. The main value of revenue intelligence is its ability to answer more obscure and specific questions, so ensure to tailor your data accordingly.
Step three: Provide actionable insights for future outreach
Collating data isn't useful unless you utilize it. You need to examine the main issues that your data is showing and create an action plan to improve your business output.
These will differ depending on your business needs and industry, so it's important to assess what areas need most focus.
Common actionable plans include:
- Creating custom content to target specific audiences and demographics.
- Provide training to sales reps on how to manage leads through a data-driven approach
- Determine areas increase sales efforts
- Take advantage of untapped revenue generation opportunities.
What problems does AI revenue intelligence solve?
Businesses are understanding the real benefit of revenue intelligence. In 2019, the revenue intelligence market was valued at 2.2 billion, but this number is rising. The market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 10.5% until the year 2027. Venture capitalists are taking notice of the growing industry and between 2020 and 2021 funding jumped from $321 million to $952 million.
So why are businesses so interested? Well, because revenue intelligence helps solve a lot of common business problems. It can boost sales and give sales reps the insight they need to target clients effectively.
Let's explore the main problems that revenue intelligence solves.
Missed revenue opportunities
No one likes missing out - especially on revenue. Sales opportunities are everywhere but identifying them can be tricky, especially with a small team.
Revenue intelligence helps you spot opportunities before they slip through the cracks, whether it's an untapped demographic or a gap in the market. By integrating data from multiple sources you can have a better all-round view of potential deals.
Unutilized data
Manual data entry is the most common way that sales organizations keep track of their customer information. But it takes time. Time that reps should be using to chase leads and develop strategies and pitches.
Entering data manually also leaves you with an incomplete picture of your target market. Even the most trained eye is unable to pick up every significant detail in a data source, AI, however, can spot patterns quickly and easily creating a much more complete picture.
Identify buying signals
Not all buying signals are explicit. Many salespeople rely on social cues, body language, and other subconscious signals to identify a potential sale. Traditional sales analytics rely on clear buying signals, like a demo request, but there are hundreds of other cues that can only be tracked via technology.
Revenue intelligence can spot these subtle cues with AI analysis. These collected insights can help sales reps to better personalize their communications and strategies leading to improved revenue.
Revenue leakage
The best way to stop lost revenue is to assess how and why it happens. If you don't know then you simply can't address the issue.
AI can pinpoint these issues as well as predict potential areas of future loss. You can use this information to identify ways to reduce and prevent future losses.
Misaligned teams
Businesses work best when all teams are aligned towards a goal. Productivity and overall success are improved when teams like sales and marketing work together towards a shared goal.
Alignment needs to begin at a basic level, if every rep is approaching work differently then it can be hard to streamline your processes.
Revenue intelligence can identify where you're doing well and what needs to improve.
This can help you to align your team across the business and hit shared goals. Additionally, revenue intelligence provides actionable insights to monitor pipeline health, guiding sales reps when pursuing a sale.
Lack of coaching
Businesses commonly confuse coaching with training. While one focuses on teaching specific skills, the other is an ongoing process to help sales reps develop and progress.
AI analyzes a sales rep's day-to-day work. If reps are repeatedly losing sales at a specific point of the customer journey, then you need to find out why. That way you can identifyareas of improvement. Investing in your team's development, including implementing an efficient workflow, is one of the best ways to ensure business success.
Unpredictable pipelines and forecasting
Predictability is crucial when it comes to business planning and development and an unstable pipeline can wreak havoc. 68% of companies miss their forecast by 11% or more. That may seem relatively small, but year on year this equates to a lot of lost revenue.
Analyzing previous sales data can improve business predictions with clear data-driven forecasting. Identifying repeatable actions and sales cues can help businesses improve conversion rates and revenue growth.
Ineffective decision making
Sales decisions shouldn't be made on instinct. No matter how much experience a sales rep may have, without detailed insight into prospect and account activities, you could make the wrong choice and lose an opportunity.
Revenue intelligence can forecast trends, analyze previous transactions, and provide actionable insights. This takes the guesswork out of sales-related decision-making, so you know that you've always made the right choice.
Assessing product performance
Every business has a standout product. But without clear insight, it's hard to know which products have the most impact on a company's bottom line.
With revenue intelligence, you can make clear connections between products and profit. This can help teams to realign their focus and spend more time on profitable money makers and less on underperforming items.
Slow revenue growth
Growth is the goal of every business organization. But to grow, businesses need to increase revenue. If you're noticing a loss of revenue, then it's important to address it as quickly as possible.
AI toosl can quickly identify the main drops in revenue and find ways to fix them so you can focus on prospects. This way, you can maximize your efforts and make the most of your team and their skills.
Integrating a revenue intelligence platform with a CRM
Lead conversion
When selecting a revenue intelligence platform there are a few things you need to consider. This includes your specific needs, common business issues, and how well it integrates with crucial software such as your CRM.
It's important to invest in a platform that's future-proof. Your business needs will change as your organization grows and develops. So plan ahead and find a revenue intelligence platform that can help you solve future business challenges.
When searching for the right software, consider the following:
- Integration capabilities: Find a revenue intelligence platform that offers seamless integration with your CRM. This helps data to flow smoothly between the two systems, allowing for accurate and relevant information.
- Compatibility: Not all revenue intelligence platforms are compatible with other software. Different platforms may have different integration requirements, so it's important to choose one that works well with your CRM.
- Features and functionality: Evaluate the features and functionality offered by each platform. You need to selecta software that has all the necessary requirements to meet your business needs. Look for features such as automated activity capture, account and opportunity management, and data analytics.
- Accessibility: Consider how easy the platform is to use. It should have a user-friendly interface that allows your team to easily navigate and utilize the platform. As well as an onboarding process complete with training sessions to help you get started.
- Customer reviews and case studies: Read customer reviews and success stories to get insights into the experiences of other businesses. Find ones with business models similar to yours and suit your industry. This can give you an idea of the platform's effectiveness and its ability to integrate well with CRM systems.
Considering all of these will help you choose a revenue intelligence platform that works for your business. Enabling them to gain valuable insights and drive revenue growth.
Final thoughts
Revenue intelligence is a game-changer for businesses. Artificial intelligence is helping businesses gain comprehensive insights into their sales and marketing strategies.
Not only does it address challenges but also contributes to business growth by enhancing CRM and improving sales performance. While technology alone can't fix all your sales issues, it can provide necessary data to help you make informed decisions and plan for the future.
By implementing revenue intelligence in your business, you can truly boost your business performance and stay ahead of the competition. Click here to learn more about Capsule CRM and access a 14-day free trial and see how revenue intelligence can level up your sales.
