100+ Sales Statistics to Drive Your Strategy

Today, a majority of consumers are experiencing a number of issues in the work space, such as a lack of leads and sales, how to write an impressive sales e-mail, how they can prove to the C-suite why and how their sales strategy can be improved, etc. With these factors in mind, we have compiled a list of 100 sales statistics that can help you solve the aforementioned issues, and more.

Lead Generation Sales Statistics

1. Only 8% of salespeople state that the leads generated for them by their marketing teams are of high quality.
2. The best-performing sales representatives use LinkedIn at least 6 hours a week for prospecting and connecting with their peers.
3. 94% of prospects are active on social media…
4. …And yet, only 5% of B2B sales teams consider social media to be an effective lead generation tool.
5. Less than 50% of initial prospects turn out to be a good fit. 
6. More than ¾ of companies are providing more than ¼ of their sales representatives’ leads.
7. It’s 6 to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.
8. The average company loses 10 to 30% of its customers annually. 
9. 55% of B2B buyers search for information on social media.

Writing Sales E-mails Sales Statistics

10. Using a CTA button in place of a link increased click-throughs by 28%. 
11. Less is more – one study found that click-through rates increased by 42% when the number of CTAs in an e-mail decreased from four to just one.
12. 47% of e-mails are opened or discarded based solely on their subject line. 
13. As of 2016, 55% of e-mails were opened on mobile devices. 
14. Using words like “account,” “campaign,” and “next” in the subject line of sales e-mails has been proven to increase open rates. 
15. Three of the most ineffective words to include in subject lines are “invite,” “join,” and “confirm.”  
16. Writing your subject line entirely in upper case significantly reduces response rates.
17. Subject lines consisting of three or four words resulted in the highest response rate.  
18. Personalizing subject lines can increase open rates by 50%.  
19. Offering recipients a way out doubles the chance of them saying yes.  
20. Including questions in e-mails increases response rates by 50%.  
21. Writing at a third-grade reading level increases response rate by 36%.  
22. The ideal length of a sales e-mail is between 50 and 125 words.  

Sending Sales E-mails Sales Statistics

23. The best time to send an e-mail is between 8AM to 10AM, and 3PM to 4PM.
24. The best day to send an e-mail is Tuesday.  
25. 8 out of 10 prospects want to talk to sales representatives via e-mail, over any other medium.
26. The average person spends 4 hours a week opening, reading and responding to e-mails.  
27. B2C sales e-mails typically see higher open rates than B2B sales e-mails. Specifically, B2B open rates average at around 30% and B2C, between 30.5% and 34.9%.
28. 89% of marketers say that e-mail is their primary channel for lead generation.
29. E-mail marketing yields an average ROI at 4,300%.  
30. E-mail is nearly 40x more effective at new customer acquisition than Facebook or Twitter.
31. 70% of salespeople give up if they don’t receive a reply to their first e-mail.  
32. The average cold e-mail campaign gets less than a 1% response rate.  
33. Follow up e-mails often receive a better response rate than the initial e-mail. One study found an 18% response rate to the first e-mail, 13% to the 4^th, and 27% to the 6^th. Another study saw a 30% response rate to the first e-mail, and 14% to the 4^th. Even the 10^th email in the sequence received a 7% response rate.
34. Open rates vary depending on industry, but the average open rate for e-mails across all industries is 37%.

Picking Up the Phone Statistics

35. 92% of all customer interactions take place over the phone.
36. 75% of prospects in the C-suite are happy to take sales calls (compared to 64% of directors and 59% of managers).
37. You’re 46% more likely to successfully connect with a director when dialing a direct dial number …
38. … and you’re 147% more likely to successfully connect when calling a VP’s direct line.
39. 80% of phone calls go straight to voicemail, and 90% of first-time voicemails are ignored.  
40. Despite this, the average sales rep spends 25 hours a month just leaving voicemail messages.  
41. The ideal length of a voicemail message is between 8 and 14 seconds.  
42. It takes an average of 18 calls to connect with a buyer.  
43. Just 2% of cold calls result in an appointment.  
44. 85% of prospects are dissatisfied with their experiences of talking to sales representatives on the phone.
45. Sales calls lasting between 6 to 10 minutes convert at a higher rate (29%) than calls over 10 minutes (22%).

Referrals Statistics

46. Peer recommendations affect more than 90% of purchasing decisions. 
47. Although 91% of customers state they would willingly give a referral, just 11% of sales representatives ask for them.  
48. Sales representatives who actively seek out referrals typically earn 4 to 5 times as much as those who do not.  
49. 80% of calls with a referred prospect result in a meeting.
50. The average lifetime value of a referred customer is 16% higher than that of a non-referred customer.
51. Prospects referred by a friend are 4 times more likely to make a purchase.

Lead Nurturing Sales Statistics

52. Companies that excel at lead nurturing have 9% more sales representatives making quota.  
53. 78% of decision-makers report having arranged an appointment or attending an event as a result of a cold e-mail or call.
54. Lead nurturing e-mails have an average CTR of 8% compared to general e-mails, which have a CTR of 3%.
55. Nurtured leads tend to result in an additional 20% more sales opportunities.
56. Businesses that use marketing automation to help nurture prospects witness a 451% increase in qualified leads.  
57. Nurtured leads spend 47% more than non-nurtured leads.
58. High-growth organizations report an average of 16 touch points per prospectwithin a 2 to 4 week span.
59. 63% of prospects who request information today will not buy for at least 3 months. 20% of them will take more than 12 months to buy.
60. The average cost of a call to a potential customer is just $33.11. The average cost of going out and visiting them is $276.48.  
61. 58% of buyers state that sales meetings aren’t valuable, and that there should be a greater focus on the value you can deliver them.
62. 69% of buyers state that providing primary research data that’s relevant to their business is the best way for representatives to add value.
63. According to buyers, the three most important elements of a positive sales experience are a sales representative who 1) listens to their needs, 2) isn’t pushy, and 3) provides relevant information.
64. 58% of buyers want to discuss pricing in the first sales call, but only 23% of representatives want to discuss it with them.
65. 54% of buyers want a product demo on the first call.
66. 82% of B2B buyers think sales representatives are unprepared.  
67. Only 19% of buyers want to connect with sales representatives during the awareness stage of the sales cycle; 60% of them want to wait until they reach consideration stage.
68. 95% of customers choose to buy from providers that offer relevant content at every stage of the buying process. 
69. The best-performing sales representatives use collaborative words like “we” or “us” instead of words like “I” or “me.”
70. Following a presentation, 63% of prospects remember stories, but just 5% remember statistics.
71. 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on their purchasing decisions.
72. 68% of B2B customers are lost because of indifference or perceived apathy, not because of mistakes.

Closing the Sale

73. Between 30-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first.  
74. 38% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is becoming increasingly more difficult.
75. 35% of sales representatives say the same about closing a sale.
76. 92% of salespeople give up after four “no’s,” but 80% of prospects say “no” four times before they say yes.  
77. Jason Zook, founder of the now-dissolved IWearYourShirt, generated about 75% of successful deals from follow-up e-mails. 
78. 73% of sales representatives that leverage social selling exceed their quota 23% more often than their counterparts.
79. Just 8% of sales representatives are making 80% of the sales.  
80. 36% of sales representatives say closing the sale is the most challenging part of their job.
81. Using the word “discount” decreases the odds of successfully closing a sale by 17%.
82. 55% of sales representatives say budget is the most common reason a promising deal falls through.

And the Rest

83. 61% of sales representatives believe selling is harder than it was 10 years ago.
84. The average company spends 10-$15K hiring a sales representative, but just $2K a year training them.  
85. The best-performing sales organizations are twice as likely to perform ongoing training than low-performing ones.
86. It takes at least 10 months for a new sales representative to reach their full potential.
87. Without ongoing learning, 84% of sales training is forgotten within 90 days.
88. 18% of sales representatives don’t know what a CRM is.
89. 40% of sales representatives still use tools like Outlook or Excel to store customer and lead data.
90. 32% of sales representatives are spending an hour or more on data entry every day.
91. 45% of sales teams state excessive administration tasks hinder their productivity.
92. Data decays at about 2% a month. This means that 20% of your data will be unusable within a year.
93. 25% of the data in a typical sales database is inaccurate.  
94. The average company loses 12% of its revenue as a result of inaccurate data.
95. High-performing companies are twice as likely as underperforming companies to describe their sales processes as automated.  
96. While 50% of sales representatives state they avoid being pushy when approaching buyers, 84% of buyers felt this wasn’t the case.  
97. 40% of sales representatives say that prospecting is the most challenging part of their job.
98. Firms with between 100-500 employees will have, on average, just 7 members of staff involved in purchasing decisions.  
99. Just 13% of prospects believe a sales representative can understand their needs.
100. Sales representatives that use a third channel of communication in addition to phone and e-mail have 28% higher MQL-to-SQL rates.
101. Prospects open only 24% of sales e-mails.
102. E-mail marketing has a 4,400% return on investment.

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• Author Details

Author Details

Ishan Jetley

Ishan Jetley is the founder and managing director of Go Business Plans. Ishan has helped fund more than 400 businesses. He has helped businesses raise $150 million in business working capital, inventory and commercial property loans.

angeline@edeska.com