It’s Time to Build a More Data-Driven Sales Operation

by Kimberly Vaz | Last Updated: February 11, 2021 | 1 min read

How AI can help fine-tune your sales planning and go to market strategies

For life sciences companies looking to gain a competitive advantage when it comes to sales and marketing operations, now is the perfect time to adopt a more robust, data-driven approach. Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have made it possible to bring vast amounts of data from disconnected sources into laser-like focus. The result being, enterprise-level business intelligence that helps sales and marketing operations make better decisions about customers, prospects and the overall competitive landscape without the burdens of complex manual processes.

With the right tools, sales and marketing teams can become more informed, and better aligned. The result being, sales performance that is unmatched. If this sounds like something your sales team can benefit from, then it’s time to create a more data-driven approach. Here are some simple steps to help get you started.

Invest in a robust data hub

Data is the foundation for driving better sales, and its strength comes from good data management. Without the right tools to help manage and process it, the best data in the world can easily be rendered meaningless. That’s why step one on the journey to building a data-driven sales operation is a commitment to good data management.

Tools like Data360 can help power your organization through the complexities of good data management, putting your data-driven initiatives on a solid foundation. With a good data management system as a hub, your organization will be in a better position to more efficiently utilize all the data at its disposal. Data is key to making technologies like machine learning and AI work as effectively, and efficiently as possible. This is important because the next step to becoming data-driven is the implementation of a system that helps identify meaningful patterns within your data.

Choose an AI platform build for sales and marketing enablement

A growing number of life sciences companies are tapping into AI’s limitless potential to take sales and marketing performance to the next level. One of the most notable ways AI is making an impact is by enhancing decision-making with complex, data-driven insights.

AI helps sales teams gain a deeper understanding of customer profiles, attitudes, and behaviors in ways never before thought possible. The in-depth knowledge of healthcare provider (HCP) personas and profiles that AI generates improves segmentation and targeting, helping companies to develop customized marketing strategies much more easily. Thanks to AI, sales and marketing departments can succinctly target specific physicians based on patient types, geography, and prescribing behavior without the need for focus groups, surveys, and other market research methodologies.

The BirdzAI sales and marketing enablement platform is a good example of AI-powered sales and marketing enablement in action. Technologies like BirdzAI include advanced capabilities that enable real-time decision-making by providing deep insights derived from a wide variety of proprietary and tertiary datasets. Key features include sales forecasting, churn prediction, brand propensity analysis, next best action insights and more. This helps life sciences companies eliminate the guesswork often associated with sales operations, and enables insights that manual process cannot replicate.

For example, sales and marketing enablement platforms that include churn forecasting capabilities put predictive analytics directly in the hands of company representatives. Sales teams can see in real-time which brands a specific physician is prescribing, and which ones they might be stepping away from. These platforms also offer unique functionality for companies launching new drugs into the marketplace, with key features that include customer alignment, customer master data management, territory planning and sizing, call planning, incentive compensation strategy and payout, roster management and field and management reporting.

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Future proof your operations with data-driven sales

Even before the global pandemic, HCPs were already implementing some level of social distancing in terms of interacting with sales reps. In 2019, only 54%1 of practicing physicians said they were accepting in-person visits from pharma reps, down from 67 percent the previous year. There were also fewer opportunities for information-sharing in general, as the survey also found that 39% of physicians had not communicated with a single pharmaceutical sales repin the previous six months. This signals a potential deathblow to traditional sales…

So in a world where handshakes are no longer acceptable, and doctors are becoming increasingly stingy with their time, becoming data-driven is the only way sales teams will be able to survive and thrive in our new normal. By taking advantage of technologies like BirdzAI, sales teams will be able to maximize their time, make better decisions and help doctors with information that actually adds value to their day. Here’s how it works:

BirzAI helps segment and prioritize HCPs

There are over a million practicing physicians in the U.S., and well under 100,000 pharma reps. As such, a single pharmaceutical representative is typically tasked with checking in on more than a hundred doctors in their specific region or territory. Utilizing traditional methods, this is a very difficult thing for reps to manage. However, by implementing data-driven methodologies, this task becomes a breeze.

BirdzAI helps reps better understand which HCPs will be receptive to them, and whether it makes sense to invest the time and resources in engaging with them. The AI-powered sales and marketing enablement platform does this by profiling HCPs in various ways, including churn prediction, brand propensity analysis, next best action insights and more. This level of insight gives sales teams a clearer vision of the sales landscape and helps them decide where their time is best spent.

BirdzAI helps you better communicate with each HCP

With a list of well-qualified HCPs, sales teams can now work with marketing to matching the right content to the right doctor. BirdzAI helps everyone in the process better understanding what matters most to a specific HCP, and enables them to communicate accordingly. This means the difference between an unreturned phone call and an eventual prescription. BirdzAI helps power these types of decisions.

BirdzAI will help you know when and where to reach out

With a targeted list and a tailored message, the last thing to do is communicate at the most opportune time, utilizing the channel most likely to succeed. BirdzAI does this by integrating with existing outreach systems such as email, phone systems and more. There is even our BirdzAI ZING Communication Module, which integrates perfectly with BirdzAI, enabling sales teams to send compliant text messages to HCPs with ease.

For sales teams to be successful, there is no doubt that a data-driven approach is necessary. Technologies like BirdzAI are here to help by enabling sales teams to better manage their time, their prospects and communication. To learn more, visit P360.com.

About P360

Delivering a 360 view through the pharma, physician and patient ecosystem, P360 designs and deploys capabilities that ensure the highest efficiencies and returns on sales operations, data management, clinical trials, patient centricity, and IoT innovation. With expertise in supporting commercial operations for companies of all sizes, P360 has built an industry-leading platform that gives customers ownership of their data and the ability to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

Reference

1: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/physicians-increasingly-too-busy-to-see-pharma-sales-reps-report-finds

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