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Using Heatmaps to Uncover Sales Trends and Pinpoint High-demand Regions

11 Nov 2024

By AroundDeal

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Sales goals have been challenging to achieve in recent years, with 40% of companies failing to meet them in 2020. As of 2024, field or face-to-face sales teams comprise 71.2% of the sales force. The quota attained by 65% of external account executives is 10% higher than internal ones. 

Businesses can use heatmaps to analyze their current data and find intensity areas that might show where most customers work or live, areas that need a boost, ones that have gone cold, or places at risk of market saturation. 

It’s important to choose an intuitive mapping tool that only requires you to upload your data from a spreadsheet or database and view your business on the map. The program then generates a heatmap that reveals the data and regions entered.

Geographical approaches to using heat maps 

If you’re using mapping software for sales and want to know the ZIP codes where sales volume is highest, you would use an area-based map. The most popular business views are ZIP code views. ZIP codes provide data such as income and population. These factors help sales reps plan their territories and marketing teams create effective campaigns.

County-based

It’s helpful to analyze heatmaps by county if the company has customers throughout the state. A heatmap will show which counties have the highest sales volume or greatest population density. It can help the team visualize urban and rural areas, too, which can support the company’s business strategies.

State-based

If your company does business nationwide, the best business analytics practice is assessing your sales, marketing efforts, or operations. Breaking down data by state makes it possible to understand which states yield the most revenue, the most effective marketing campaigns, or the greatest number of clients. Heat mapping color codes show which states have the most significant potential of going from an inactive or less active state to a more lucrative one. Such views are a good place to start if you want to establish territory assignments.

Heatmap goals 

Heatmaps can show which areas are more or less responsive to marketing campaigns, thus improving response rates. Marketing is the source of 44% of the inside sales pipeline, but the latest data shows that internal sales average dials have dropped by 20% compared to the previous year. Lack of lead nurturing is the main reason potential customers don’t convert. In fact, 79% of marketing leads do not convert into sales. The quality of just a quarter of marketing-generated leads is high enough to translate to sales immediately. More dismally, only 5% of salespersons say they get high-quality leads from marketing. 

Heatmaps can help businesses tap into underserved markets by showing “cold” and “hot” spots—salespersons close deals by relying on filling up the pipeline with opportunities and leads. By establishing potentially high-demand regions, sales teams can boost sales activity and customer engagement that would otherwise have been lost. 

Heatmaps assist businesses in developing and assigning sales territories by evaluating where sales volumes are highest. They can create targeted customer segments by assessing where most customers reside and evaluating regional demographics. 

Businesses can also optimize product lineups by seeing which products are selling in which regions and capitalizing on seasonal trends. 

The benefits of using heatmaps

Heatmaps are a great way to divide designated territories for companies with a large external sales force. They help companies deepen their understanding of factors like urban and rural divides and opportunities so their representatives can divide areas evenly and fairly. Sales teams use heatmaps to update territory boundaries as the business environment changes.

Finally, heatmaps use visual representations to convey changes in time. Companies can see how their sales have improved or worsened over time and in which areas and tailor their marketing and sales efforts accordingly. This is important as up to 90% of the buying journey is complete before a buyer even interacts with a sales representative.

#sales, #marketing

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