Every good sales manager knows that an effective sales team needs a sales territory map. Sales territory mapping is a form of location intelligence that makes it possible to visualize where your customers and prospects are located, how they’re spread out across your target territories, and how those territories have been allotted to your team.

In this way, you can target viable prospects and prevent reps from overlapping and encroaching on each other’s sales. When used correctly, sales territory maps can empower your sales reps and improve your sales.

There are several different ways to create a map, from using a pen and printed map to utilizing a service like Maptive. Regardless of how you choose to make your map, it’s how you use the map that will determine your success. What follows is a step-by-step guide for how to maximize your use of a sales territory map.

Step 1: Assess your Market Data

Before you can strategize for the future, you need to access your past. Evaluating your market data will help you to base your territories on data-driven insights. Begin by uploading your current data to a mapping program and then look at things like what regions are under or over-performing, the industries you’re serving, your competitors’ locations, etc. From this information, you can decide what territories to target, where new opportunities lie, and how you’ll divvy up the workload.

Step 2: Group your Customers and Prospects into Segments

By creating customer segments, you can divide up opportunities evenly throughout your sales reps’ territories. You should partition your customers into segments according to geographic location, business size, industry, target demographic, or need for your product/service. Depending on your business’s needs, use one segment or a combination of segments to effectively split up your sales territories.

Step 3: Consider your Sales Goals and Objectives

When mapping out your territories, it’s essential to consider your business’s sales goals and objectives. Start by determining the sales numbers and revenue required to meet your goals and then consider your sales team’s typical conversion rate. Based on this information, you can estimate the number of customers that need to be visited in each territory to meet your sales goals.

Step 4: Evaluate Demographic Information

A sales territory map can show you the demographic information of the prospects in a specific territory. In doing so, you can decide what sales rep is most suited to targeting that territory. For example, suppose you have a large concentration of college-educated prospects in a region. In that case, you might decide to give that area to a sales rep with a proven track record of selling your product/service to this demographic. You could also use this information to create targeted advertising for specific zones and demographics.

Step 5: Search for Opportunities

Mapping can show you opportunities for future growth. It can show you which areas are being under-served and where there are untapped markets. It can also demonstrate whether certain areas have a growing demand for specific products or services and display where there is more or less competition.

Step 6: Designate and Assign Sales Territories

Once you’ve input all your data, segmented your customers, established your goals, evaluated your prospect demographics, and looked into opportunities for growth, it’s time to map your territories and assign them to sales reps. When mapping these territories, you want to make sure that the segregation is balanced and that your team is set up for success by considering the following:

• Are the number of prospects in each territory divided up as equally as possible?
• Is the number of prospects in each territory manageable for the sales rep?
• Does each territory have enough prospects for reps to meet their goals?
• Is it possible for reps to generate new sales leads in these territories?

Choosing your Mapping Tool

It’s possible to map by hand or use a free tool like Google Maps, but you should use a sales territory mapping software to get the most of your map. Using mapping software will decrease the chance of human error, better enable you to make data-driven decisions, assign prospects and territories evenly, and save you and your reps valuable time. These programs make it easy to create and distribute sales territories based on market data. As a result, you’ll optimize efficiency and improve sales productivity.