Much has been discussed over the past few years concerning the issue of privacy and the Internet causing a lot of discourse and controversy.
Whether it be related to social media or national security, it’s a common belief that we have lost complete anonymity with regards to who we are, what we are about, and what our preferences are.
But what about privacy at an even more granular level? Like how long it took you to read and understand a page of a contract.
Does that matter?
Why document analytics are good?
1. Track when a document has been opened
Who wouldn’t want a leg up when competing for business?
With software like PandaDoc, you are able to track when a recipient opens your document (receiving an instant notification that they’ve done so), how many times they’ve viewed the document, and how much time they’ve spent on each page.
When sending a proposal as an attachment to an email there is no guarantee of knowing that the recipient opened it. And you may not even get a response back from them. Receiving a notification that your proposal was opened allows you to quickly follow up with a prospective client. No more wondering!
2. Find out what matters most to the client
Let’s say you didn’t win this past deal. Sure it’s a bummer, but what’s next?
With PandaDoc you actually still win! Believe it or not, you’ve gained some valuable insights from the unsuccessful deal and can learn a lot to make sure you win next time with the prospective client. PandaDoc analytics enable you to see what mattered most to the recipient of your documents so you know what and where they spent the most time on in the document. Now you know what “Customer X” deems most important!
This next quarter is yours!
3. Presentation matters
Let’s say, for instance, the prospective client opened your proposal and closed it after quickly perusing it, never contacting you or returning any attempts you’ve made to reach out to them. Even though you didn’t win, you still gained valuable information thanks to analytics.
If you know your bid was competitive and that your products or services are comparable, what could be another reason the client didn’t spend any significant time reviewing your proposal? Clearly you weren’t standing out in the crowd. At the very least the presentation of your proposal could probably use some work and maybe even better organization or structure as well.
PandaDoc allows for creating custom themes and backgrounds for your documents. Even input your own CSS code so you can tailor and personalize them. Make proposals fun and exciting again while maintaining a professional look! Maybe your prospective client is originally from San Francisco, but is now doing business in the EU. Add a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge into your proposal to let them know that you care about what matters to them and that the proposal was tailored specifically for them.
Are document analytics bad?
If you are on the receiving end of a business contract and the sender can see that you opened it three times in the past week, will that really hurt you? Maybe you lose the upper hand a little bit…but only so very slightly.
In the grand scheme of things have you really lost? No! You know for certain that a hungry salesperson will be contacting you soon about the proposal and will likely be very willing to bend a little here and there to close the deal. As the buyer you win!
And guess what? You got exactly what you needed or wanted and a major business deal just got done a lot faster than anticipated. Less hesitation, less time wasted, and less people in limbo. Everyone is happy!
What have we learned?
If business deals are closed faster because of document analytics, allowing more people to go to work or even have work because of it, is there any loss? Certainly much has been gained and learned from, to the benefit of both the buyer and seller.
Document analytics not only help to increase commercial activity, they help facilitate it…faster…with everyone coming out on the winning end!
Let us know how document analytics have helped you!
