In the dynamic business world, it's easy to get caught up in the pursuit of new leads and the latest marketing trends. However, some of the most powerful insights for future growth lie hidden in plain sight: within your past sales data. For SMEs, particularly, understanding their sales history isn't just about reviewing numbers; it's about uncovering a roadmap to more effective marketing and sustained success.
At Better Connected, we believe in a work-smarter, not just harder, approach to outsourced marketing and brand services. That's why we champion the essential practice of reviewing your past sales. It’s not about dwelling on what's done but strategically informing what's next. Here are five compelling reasons why diving into your sales history is crucial for your next 12-month marketing strategy:
1. Pinpoint your most effective lead sources
Imagine knowing precisely which channels consistently deliver your best customers. You gain invaluable clarity by analysing where your past sales originated, whether through organic search, direct referrals, social media, or paid advertising.
This insight allows you to allocate your marketing budget strategically, investing more in the channels that yield the highest return and optimising those that underperform. It’s about working smarter, not just harder, to attract the right kind of attention.
2. Refine your core message and uncover hidden needs
Are your customers buying your product for a reason you hadn't fully articulated in your marketing? Your sales data can reveal unexpected customer needs and pain points that your offerings genuinely solve. Perhaps you’re heavily promoting feature ‘A’, but past sales show customers consistently valued ‘B’ and ‘C’. By identifying these latent demands, you can realign your messaging to resonate more powerfully with what buyers genuinely seek, ensuring your marketing speaks directly to their most pressing concerns.
3. Articulate your unique value proposition with confidence
Every business claims to be unique, but your past customers are the ultimate arbiters of your true differentiators. By understanding why previous buyers chose your business over competitors, you can gather compelling evidence for your unique selling points. Was it your exceptional customer service, a specific product feature, your industry expertise, or perhaps your pricing model? Highlighting these validated strengths in your marketing materials – through testimonials, case studies, and clear value statements – builds trust and attracts more customers who value the same things.
4. Streamline and automate your sales process
Repetitive tasks can bog down even the most efficient sales teams. A thorough review of your sales history can expose common patterns and recurring steps in your sales cycle. Identifying these allows you to create standardised templates for proposals, develop checklists for qualifying leads, and even automate follow-up communications. This increases efficiency and ensures a consistent, high-quality experience for every prospective customer, freeing up your team to focus on relationship building and closing deals.
5. Close the Gaps in Your Sales and Marketing Pipeline
The journey from a lead to a paying customer can have roadblocks. By analysing where potential sales fell through in the past, you can identify critical information gaps or process breakdowns in your sales and marketing pipeline. Maybe leads aren't being nurtured effectively, or sales collateral is missing a key piece of information at a crucial stage. Pinpointing these weaknesses enables you to address them head-on, plugging the gaps and converting more "nearly-sales" into actual revenue.
Get to know your customers.
Reviewing sales is part of getting to know your customers. It isn’t just a retrospective exercise; it's a proactive step towards building a more robust and effective future for your business, whether that is your marketing or product development.
As Josh Godin says: Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers. You can only do this when you clearly understand their needs and are flexible enough to react and try new things.
Do you need to try new things? Let Better Connected help you unlock insights and translate them into marketing priorities to facilitate growth. Get in touch today to chat about your company’s sales and discover how you could benefit from our on-demand marketing and brand services.
