In regions where data are less complete, like Latin America, a descriptive approach offers a very cost-effective way to reveal what the size of the prospective market might be. In fact, such an approach may be the only feasible approach depending on fill rates in the database.

Once identified, this population of prospective sites or look-alikes can then be pulled from the database, matched with a contact database or passed to a call center for verification of firmagraphics, contact details and technology usage.

TUDLA’s Latin America database

As we discussed in a previous post, TUDLA maintains a database of over 1 million business sites in Latin America and the Caribbean. The data include basic firmagraphics (company name, address, URL) and expanded firmagraphics where available (employee counts, industry and revenue). Also, indicators of what technology may be used at these business site are available.

TUDLA also offers free access to the data through interactive Tableau dashboards. This allows users to explore the data at an aggregate level and get a sense of TUDLA’s coverage. It also allows users to perform their own descriptive look-alike analysis.

Descriptive look-alike analysis

As a simple example, suppose I am SAP and I want to know how many prospective customers there might be for an SAP branded ERP offering in Brazil. (Alternatively, I could be an SAP ERP competitor and I am looking for possible SAP customer sites for a competitive kill campaign). Consider the following screenshot from TUDLA’s interactive Tableau dashboard.

TUDLA’s database shows (lower left-hand corner) that there are 2,828 sites in Brazil that are known to have SAP ERP. And the charts show the characteristics of these sites (i.e. the employee, revenue and industry distributions).

Also in the left-hand corner is shown that there are 424,693 sites in Brazil that share the same characteristics (employee count, revenue size and industry) as these 2,828 sites known to have SAP ERP (i.e. these are SAP’s look-alikes). So, this is the size of the prospective market for SAP in Brazil.

Further refinement to a specific firmagraphic, say, revenue size, will more narrowly focus the prospective market. For example, suppose SAP is only interested in sites with enterprise revenue greater than $50m. In this case, the prospective market size is reduced to 19,144 sites, nearly 50% of which are in the manufacturing industry (see below).

Interactive visualization

Interactive visualization is an excellent way to get a comprehensive view of exactly what is in your database. Lack of coverage in firmagraphics, geographies and other business attributes, such as technology presence, can quickly become apparent.

Moreover, it can be used, as in the case of TUDLA, to examine your look-alike market. You can quickly and cost-effectively (don’t need to pay to have a predictive model built) see the size of your prospective market based on the characteristics of your current customers.

Are your sales territories aligned as they should be?  With just a few clicks, an interactive visualization can provide the answer.

For more information on providing an interactive visualization for your data, give us a shout.

KDD Analytics is providing analytical services to TUDLA.

The post Finding B2B “Look-Alikes” in Latin America appeared first on KDD Analytics.

TUDLA

Since 1999, TUDLA (Technology User Database Latin America) has maintained a 70,000+ phone verified panel of business locations across LATAM and the Caribbean. The data from this panel include firmagraphics, contacts with direct phone numbers and opt-in email addresses and full technology profiles with hardware, software, and telecom information. Using an in-region call center, TUDLA regularly interviews IT Decision-Makers across the region to collect, update, and validate the information in the database.

But as is often the case in B2B marketing, numbers matter.  So TUDLA has partnered with other data providers to expand its database beyond the 70,000 phone-verified panel.  Today, the full database covers over 1 million business sites across the LATAM region.  These expanded data include basic firmagraphics (company name, address, URL) and expanded firmagraphics where available (employee counts, industry and revenue).  Also, indicators of what technology may be used at these business sites are available.

Tableau dashboard access to data

TUDLA is offering free “access” to their data so users can see what’s available. This access is through interactive Tableau dashboards embedded in TUDLA’s website.  Users can view and interact with data aggregations (but are not able to download any data) to get a sense of TUDLA’s coverage.

So, check it out and let TUDLA know what you think.

KDD Analytics is providing analytical services to TUDLA.

The post B2B Marketing in Latin America with TUDLA appeared first on KDD Analytics.

ZIP Pointe Market Sizer offers a quick and comprehensive way for B2B marketers to estimate the relative potential size of US private sector markets.  Offered as Tableau dashboards, ZIP Pointe Market Sizer is based on the most current US Census data from over 7 million private sector employers.  Users can determine the potential size of B2B markets starting at the state level and then drill down into metropolitan areas and their constituent 5-digit ZIP Codes.

Current measures of market potential are payroll, revenue and revenue from e-commerce.  Industry detail is available at both the 2 and 3-digit NAICS level.  Nine employee size ranges further refine market potential estimates.  Trend data on employees, sites and $ metrics cover the most recent 3 years.

Assess Relative Market Potential

The best use case for ZIP Pointe Market Sizer is directional and relational guidance as to which markets may hold the highest potential for B2B offerings.  Rank sorting markets can provide insight into whether, for example, sales territories are aligned with where potential opportunity resides.

ZIP Pointe Market Sizer allows users to filter their analysis by employee size, industry and $ metric (revenue, payroll and e-commerce revenue) as well as by geography.  Trends can be filtered to show CAGR over the last 1 to 2 years.

The free version of ZIP Pointe Market Sizer is fully functional and allows users to fully interact with data spanning the entire US Census business ZIP Code file.

KDD Analytics also offers an enhanced version of ZIP Pointe Market Sizer which includes additional measures of market potential (e.g. spending on information technology), additional years of data and access to the underlying, ZIP Code level data.  We can also customize ZIP Pointe Market Sizer to include measures based on user-supplied sales as well as user-requested functionality.  Please contact us for further information.

Ready to try?  Give it spin and let us know what you think.  Access ZIP Pointe Market Sizer here.

The post Free Access to ZIP Pointe Market Sizer appeared first on KDD Analytics.

Wow!

Why are buyers shying away from salespeople?  According to this same article, salespeople “tend to prioritize a sales agenda over solving a customer’s problem.”

To avoid becoming replaced by self-service solutions, salespeople need to be more than order takers.  They need to be problem solvers.

In other words, they need to be consultative sellers.

The state of B2B information technology data

This really is nothing new.  We have seen it time and time again in the B2B information technology (IT), data vendor space.

Data vendors start out with a unique data source or process for obtaining data.  Then they run into trouble.

Originally these data are sold to companies looking to get a leg up on who are their best prospects for new customers.   Eventually, other data vendors join in and these data become a commodity.  (The commoditization process has sped up in recent years with advances in computing power and source coding.)

So now what?  To survive, do data vendors need to enhance the value of their data to their customers?  Rather than just selling customers access to their data, do vendors need to provide additional value?

Some data vendors hope for a quick sale of their business or extend their lives via channel marketing.  Others double down on the data and are able to expand into other vertical markets or find new unique data.

Still others take the route of Mintigo and Domo and provide self-service online tools that let customers “slice and dice” using data visualization platforms.  But, again, the arms race is on, and these self-service/data visualization platforms are proliferating.

Back to consultative sales

There will always be companies that consume data and have the in-house expertise to process and make sense of it.  And there will always be companies that only want marketing lists and are happy to get them through a self-service portal.

But what about mid-market companies?

They do not have in-house analytics.  But they do need help in making decisions; understanding who are their existing customers; in what market segments they play and the size of their markets; solving vexing marketing and sales issues; and finding the right prospective customers.

This is where consultative sales is needed.

A consultative seller is one who starts with the customer’s need.  And works through with the customer on what could meet that need.  Ending up with what the seller can offer to…meet that need.  Rather than starting with a canned data set/solution or platform.

A challenge faced by many data vendors is that they do not have such expertise in-house.  Not only would they need sales people with such a mind- and skill-set.  But they would also need to provide marketing analytics backup, in the form of reports, case-studies, training and real-time sales support and analysis.

Alternatively, data vendors can outsource this function and partner with companies that specialize in consultative marketing analytics.  Such partners would play the role of consultative sales support and be an integral part of the data vendor’s sales and product support processes.

Technology to the rescue?

But can’t a sophisticated self-service platform play this role?  One that, for example, allows the user to input their customer data, provides a customer profile and then scores a prospective list of new customers?  Enter your credit card number here…thank you very much!

Not really.

It has been our experience that, at the very least, customer data are messy!   Moreover, mid-market customers need help in asking the correct question; using the tool to correctly answer their question; making course corrections in their analysis; and taking the tool to the next level to address new questions and market opportunities.

This requires some level of consultative support, whether in-house or outsourced.  Not only to protect against GIGO syndrome (“garbage in, garbage out”) but to provide maximum value to the customer from use of the data vendor’s data and platform/application (if applicable).

Consultative sales and marketing analytics…a key to product differentiation

Forrester predicts that 1 million B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service e-commerce by 2020 if some sort of consultative sales model is not adopted.

But we would take this further and argue that self-service e-commerce itself is in danger of becoming a commodity.  And that data vendors can use consultative sales, backed by marketing analytics, to differentiate and enhance their product offering.

The post B2B Consultative Sales appeared first on KDD Analytics.