Better Business by 2012: Fresh Data is an Absolute Must

Jessica Clifton, Product Manager, Billian's HealthDATA
October 10, 2011

In an effort to help healthcare vendors' sales and marketing teams prepare for 2012, Billian's HealthDATA has created the 'Better Business by 2012' blog series. The first installment offers tips on data resource review, and insight into the benefits "good" data can bring to the sales cycle.

Fall is finally here, bringing with it the fourth-quarter corporate rituals of year-end quota pursuit, retrospective analysis and planning for the figurative 'reset' that is the suddenly looming new year.

What worked to secure business during the past year? Where were the weak spots? Are there resource needs to consider for next year?

As end-of-year evaluations and agendas are made, it's important not to overlook a company's core asset - up-to-date data. Housed within CRMs, digital marketing platforms and the brains of sales reps across America is the business manna of prospect and buyer information. Used daily to prioritize follow-up calls, determine what nurture campaigns prospects are added to, and build tailored business proposals - insight into buyer demographics, behaviors and history impacts the 'next steps' in the business tango every step of the way.

The Burden of Bad Data
With so many business triggers built upon the cornerstone of prospect/buyer information, maintaining fresh, quality data is a prerequisite to sales success. Consider sales performance in the following areas:

Scope: What percent of a target market is ACTUALLY being reached?
Depth: How much detail is available on each individual prospect account?
Accuracy: When was prospect information last added or updated?

Over time, the pile-up of outdated data slows down sales and hurts marketing bounce rates, making it worth taking the time to purge bad data. CRMs typically serve as the crux for company information exchange, and a lack of quality data is one of the top causes of failure. Companies that offer CRM and Sales Force Automation assistance, such as Business Development Advisors, which specializes in the healthcare industry, can assist with data implementation and workflow automation strategies that help maintain and leverage healthy prospect databases.

Chance Favors the Prepared Mind
Data sets that are limited in scope and/or depth leave sales reps little to work with by way of pre-call-planning, often resulting in more time spent researching prospects than engaging them. Likewise, marketers with limited data parameters to segment by produce less relevant marketing touch points.

Sales teams can round out market penetration by:

procuring fresh prospect lists,
focusing on data acquisition arrangements that offer additional buyer demographic data points that can be used to pre-qualify prospects;
identifying reputable, third-party sources that offer the most lead potential in target markets; and
evaluate missing data elements that could potentially be used to sell more effectively.

Are follow-ups prioritized with prospect financial indicators in mind? Are there alternate decision-makers or new markets that should be considered? Has the sales potential related to affiliate ties among your established client base been assessed?

Several of the third-party data companies that businesses turn to for lead enrichment also offer CRM integration tools designed to simplify the process of bringing outside information in and keeping it up-to-date, including the Salesforce.com Integration features available to Billian's HealthDATA Portal subscribers.

Next: Understanding Your Ideal Buyer
Bringing these additional layers of buyer data into view creates a foundation of prospect knowledge that paves the way for more proactive selling, more effective marketing and better insight into business patterns and trends. The next blog in this series focuses on how the broad spectrum of healthcare prospect data currently available can be used to identify commonalities across key accounts to establish an 'ideal buyer' model to help target new sales potentials. Tune in to the next edition of the Healthcare Intelligence Hub to learn more.

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