What Is Sales Intelligence? The Ultimate Business Guide

Artificial intelligence impacts many business processes. The sales process is one of the latest to get an IQ boost. AI-driven sales intelligence helps sales departments go deeper inside their sales funnels and customer profiles.

The result: stronger customer profiles that will help you build better, more timely connections!

When you know more about your audience, you’ll have a better chance of positioning your products or services to them in the right way at the right time.

Here’s how artificial intelligence for sales works and why it deserves a place in your sales strategy.

Table of Contents:

• What Is Sales Intelligence?

• Why Artificial Intelligence in Sales Matters

• What Are the Benefits of Sales Intelligence?

• What Can Sales Intelligence Data Tell Us?

• Meltwaters Artificial Intelligence in Sales and Marketing

Tip: Learn how to use chatbots to improve your sales

What Is Sales Intelligence?

Sales intelligence (sometimes called B2B sales intelligence or predictive sales intelligence) refers to the process of gathering and analyzing real-time data to support sales efforts.

Organizations use sales intelligence to:

• Identify trends
• Understand customer behavior
• Target new prospects

Sales leaders turn to intelligence data to develop better customer profiles to improve sales targeting.

Sales intelligence tools like the Meltwater Sales Intelligence solution can provide valuable insights that help salespeople close more deals and boost their productivity. By understanding what sales intelligence is and how it can be used, businesses can gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Why Artificial Intelligence in Sales Matters

The value of artificial intelligence lies in scaling and improving processes that have historically been done by hand.

Sales representatives use AI to automate repetitive tasks, such as prospecting and lead nurturing. Sales reps can focus on more important things, like closing deals.

AI also provides data-driven insights. For example, AI can analyze a customer’s purchase history and suggest products that they might be interested in. This helps sales reps sell more effectively and efficiently.

Overall, it’s all about working smarter, not harder.

What Are the Benefits of Sales Intelligence?

Sales intelligence software collects and analyzes data from a variety of sources, breaking it down into actionable insights to make better business decisions.

This benefits your organization in a number of ways:

1. Get More Trustworthy Data
   Sales software is constantly updating, giving you fresh insights into your customers, sales, trends, and market conditions. This data comes from a variety of sources, including first-party and third-party data, to create comprehensive profiles.
2. Speed Up Prospecting
   Sales data and intelligence make it easy to pick out your best customers, create lookalike profiles, and target customers based on intent and behaviors. This can significantly streamline the prospecting phase so you’re not wasting time on cold leads. Streamlined prospecting leads to revenue growth and achievable quotas.
3. Visualize Your Data
   Sales intelligence tools often include features such as CRM integration, lead management, and data visualization. These features can help sales teams track their progress, understand their customers, and make better decisions.
4. Automate Hands-on Tasks
   Sales intelligence can also help organizations save time and money by automating tasks, such as generating reports and analyzing data. This lets salespeople focus on selling and closing deals.

What Can Sales Intelligence Data Tell Us?

B2B sales intelligence data reveals details about your customers. This might be basic contact information, such as names, addresses, emails, job titles, and similar data.

Ideally, your sales and marketing intelligence will also give you real-time insights into hot prospects. For example, you might track a lead’s journey across your website to see if they’re seeking information (such as reading blog articles) or might be ready to buy (such as viewing pricing pages or demo forms).

Learning more about your leads’ intentions can help you allocate your time wisely. Those with low intent might need more marketing material to help them learn more about your brand and the problems you solve. Those with high intent may benefit from more sales-focused conversations.

Overall, this intent data helps your sales team become more efficient with their time. They can generate lists of people to call, email, or connect with via LinkedIn InMail.

Marketing teams can also benefit from real-time sales intelligence data and analytics. Comprehensive customer profiles allow marketers to create more impactful content, meet customers wherever they are, and improve their messaging.

Meltwaters Artificial Intelligence in Sales and Marketing

Infusing artificial intelligence in sales is easier with the right platform. Meltwater is purpose-built for the job, giving you an easy-to-use, scalable solution to empower and grow your sales data.

Meltwater technology scours the web to deliver real-time insights about your customers and lookalike prospects. Set real-time alerts, track and monitor competitors, identify market trends and shifts, and get insights at a glance, all from a central location.

Our platform helps your sales team become even more powerful by streamlining prospecting and conducting outreach based on data, not guesswork. Learn more when you schedule a demo!