As markets expand, generic B2B sales pitches are becoming less effective. According to McKinsey research, 76% of consumers are frustrated by cookie-cutter interactions, and 71% expect personalized outreach. Today’s buyers expect messages that resonate with their specific needs and experiences.
The secret to effective personalization lies in understanding your prospects’ unique skills and abilities. By understanding the tools, traits, and technical qualifications that your ideal customers have in common, your team can ensure you’re delivering the right message to the right people.
Unlike traditional demographic data, skills data offers a deeper level of insight into what drives your prospects’ decisions, showing you where and how professionals have worked and what skills they’re mastered along the way. Sales strategies that use skills data are proven to be effective–our customers have generated up to 85% more leads using them.
In this piece, we’ll define what skills data is and how sales teams can use it to boost their team’s effectiveness from the first touchpoint to the last.
Understanding Skill Data
Skill data is information about the capabilities, qualifications, and expertise that professionals develop throughout their careers. It goes beyond basic resume information to provide a deeper understanding of what buyers do, how they’ve proven their professional expertise, and how they fit particular industry or role requirements.
Categorized into hard skills and soft skills, this data provides a nuanced view of a prospect or customer’s strengths.
- Hard Skills: Technical, job-specific abilities such as programming in Ruby on Rails, mastering Computer-Aided Design (CAD), or excelling in financial modeling.
- Soft Skills: Nontechnical, adaptable attributes like emotional intelligence, leadership ability, and communication that are essential across various roles and industries.
When it comes to skill data, quality matters. To create a single skills profile, Rhetorik’s AI models analyze more than 20,000 factors related to a professional’s career, including their educational experiences, certifications, and patents.
How To Use Skill Data
Like traditional behavioral data (such as purchase history, email engagement, and website activity), skill data can be leveraged in each stage of the sales cycle. By offering greater precision than typical behavioral data, skill data can transform your team’s operations across these key areas:
- Lead Generation: Targeting prospects by their specific qualifications and skills allows you to increase your close rate and shorten sales cycles with more personalized and efficient outreach.
- Buyer Persona Creation: By analyzing the skills commonly held by members of your target market, you can create detailed and precise buyer personas that drive effectiveness across sales and marketing campaigns.
- Lead Qualification: Skill data helps teams automate lead scoring and segmentation to prioritize high-intent buyers who are capable of benefiting from your offering.
- Market Sizing: Understanding the skills required to use your product or service at scale can improve the accuracy of market sizing metrics like Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM).
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Skill data can bolster your ABM efforts by helping you identify the right individuals within target accounts to build highly personalized, incredibly effective campaigns.
In conclusion, incorporating skill data into your sales strategy can transform how your team identifies and engages potential customers. By focusing on the specific skills that matter most within your industry or sector, you can uncover high-quality leads, create more effective buyer personas, and drive better results for your business.
Ready to take your sales program to the next level? Talk with a data specialist to learn more about how skill data can fuel your success.
