The right heat map, when generated in eSpatial, can be a critical element of better business decisions for you and your sales team. Here are a few quick examples:
1. Identifying clusters of your customers & getting an overview of your marketplace
This is a great application for sales and marketing departments. In the map below, you can see a sales organization in Kansas has used our heat map generator to map their potential customers (state population) against their office locations.
2. Refining distribution networks
Using heat maps to identify customer density can also be crucial when planning and analyzing your distribution or service network.
Based on your findings, you can look at your heat maps and identify where to best locate each center so it's accessible to as many customers in a given area as possible. You can quickly see if a distribution center is too far away or would provide more efficient service if it was moved closer to big clusters of customers.
3. Analyzing third-party data to identify ZIP codes for marketing campaigns
Many marketing teams use heat maps to analyze third-party data and determine where to run effective marketing campaigns.
For example, say a fashion retailer in Texas is planning to run a campaign that involves putting up eye-catching billboards. Using a regional heat map of demographic data, the company's marketing department can quickly see which Texas ZIP codes contain the majority of their target audience.
This allows the marketing team to effectively use their budget and resources by planning and executing their campaigns in the high-value areas they found on the map.
4.Identify areas for franchise expansion
Franchises that are in search of areas to expand their brand can also put regional heat maps to good use.
In the situation illustrated below, an organization has mapped its existing locations (shown as stars) in comparison with the number of customer inquiries (represented by the heat markers). Any area where the franchise gets a high volume of inquiries that isn't particularly close to a store location will be an ideal spot for the next franchisee.
5.Quickly spot customer trends or areas for further investigation
We mentioned earlier how regional heat maps are useful for location-based comparisons. The sample below shows a regional heat map of customer satisfaction rates nationwide: Green indicates a high level of customer satisfaction, while red represents the opposite. This quickly highlights which territories have the most dissatisfied clients, so management can immediately start making whatever changes are necessary to improve the situation and avoid any serious loss of business.
6. Where are our profits being generated?
It's crucial for any company to understand where it is generating the most profit. Heat maps are a powerful tool for determining where your profitable customers are based, and examining how these locations compare with one another.
Product A sales
Product B sales
7. Where do we need more sales coverage?
Similarly, you could ask, "Where are our customers coming from?" These questions are opposite sides of the same coin. Understanding where your customer inquiries are coming from and matching that to current sales coverage is very common in heat mapping for sales. As you can see below, this helps to easily visualize what the team's addressable market currently looks like.
With this information, you can quickly decide where current levels of sales coverage are appropriate. Then, you can work to eliminate any gaps and address overlap so that your team and its resources are always allocated as efficiently as possible.
8.Where do I start field selling?
A common challenge for any field salesperson is choosing the best place to begin. Heat maps can help sales reps find pockets of opportunity so they can use them as a starting point.
9. How can I tell how my sales teams are performing, and where they need to develop?
Last but hardly least, you can also use regional heat maps to compare the performances of specific reps. While it's tempting to look closely at raw revenue, evaluating salespeople purely on one metric won't give you the complete picture you need as a manager.
Heat map data allows you to judge your salespeople while understanding the market realities they face: competitors, excessive drive time and other factors. To read more details about the examples we talked about briefly above, be sure to check out these posts on the eSpatial blog:
1. Upload your point data
You first have to add data to your map – it will form the basis for all of your analysis and be displayed as points on your map. This could be sales data, service data, demographic information and other KPIs, with one row for each unique address.
Click the Add Data option from the control panel. Then click Upload new data and follow the instructions.
2. Choose your regional boundary
The boundaries of your regional heat map will define which groups your data points will be included in. This is often done by state or three-digit ZIP code. You can select various types of boundary data from our extensive data library.
To add your boundary, simply select Add Data and then Add from Library. Choose the eSpatial data store tab and then pick your boundary. In this example, we’ve chosen US states. (For more boundary options, visit our data set library.)
3. Start your regional analysis
From the Control Panel on the left side of your screen, select Analyze from below your dataset. From the options, select Regional Heat Map.
4. Combine your points and boundary datasets
Next, select the points and boundary data sets. In this case, the points data is Client Accounts, and the region data is US states. Then, click Complete to generate your regional heat map.
5. View your generated regional heat map
Below, the regional heat map you created shows the states with the most client accounts. You can see what each color represents by checking the legend on the right side of the workspace.
The default color range is from yellow to red, but this can be changed in the styling options.
1. Upload your point value data
Upload a data set (such as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file) that contains one unique address per row as well as any other value fields you want to add to the map. In your new Workspace, select the Add Data option from the control panel. Then click Upload new data and follow the instructions.
2. Choose the heat map styling options
If you wish to see the originally mapped data expressed as pins on top of your heat map, tick Overlay Pins from the bottom of the menu. Color Snapping removes the noise around the edge of your heat map.
3. Additional heat mapping options
Exit the Style Panel to view the map you have created using our heat map generator. The legend in the top right of the screen will highlight the color range from low to high data density.
4. View your completed map
You've now created your own hot spot heat map.
Hard to read density data
Easy to read density data
Color order hard to follow
Color order easy to follow
Single state-level figure
Distributed state figures