Any B2B marketing strategy performs better when it is driven by reliable buyer data. While traditional customer data is broader in context and insight, intent data is buyer-focused. With traditional customer data, marketers gain insight into general trends. With intent based data, marketers get to grasp b2b buyers’ intent and their readiness to buy as they travel through various touch points.
Intent-oriented data is integral to B2B demand generation given its increasing significance in driving revenue and growth. A study by Demand Gen Report highlights the growth of data showing intent, as a key contributor to an organization’s robust pipeline.
This article delves into the use of b2b buyer data showing intent, in generating demand, and how organizations can reap benefits from this powerful strategy.
This article delves into the use of b2b buyer data showing intent, in generating demand, and how organizations can reap benefits from this powerful strategy.
Online search is a prime channel for b2b buyers to discover relevant products or services. Research shows that 90% of B2B buyers research their purchases using search when online. Also, B2B buyers conduct an average of 12 searches before engaging with a brand through its website.
This search behaviour leaves back some trails or data that convey buyers’ intent to marketers. These trails, referred to as “intent signals” are also generated when prospects engage with a brand’s website, social media pages, and its sales and marketing systems.
All such activities, behaviors, and interactions, are analyzed to understand if the prospect is interested in a brand’s offering.
Data can be garnered in many ways to gauge intent. From online searches to brand interactions through websites and social media, every interaction platform can source intent data. Information from such data can be general, giving an outlook of evolving industry patterns, or pointed, indicating a specific trend. No matter the source, intent-based data must have high-quality signals to facilitate use, analysis, and action.
This type of data is gleaned from your company’s websites, online properties, and internal systems such as CRM. Website visits, blog subscriptions, and content downloads are some first-party intent sources.
Data signalling intent can be obtained by getting visitors to complete a form. Such data can also be captured in the background through cookies. Data from first-party sources delivers specific actionable signals. It is limited in volume as a visitor has to first visit your website for the data to be aggregated.
Third-party sources can be intent data providers or providers of intent-based solutions. These vendors gather intent-signaling data from third party properties online. Some sources that these vendors use to gather data, include:
Intent data is usually sourced from more than one destination. This strategy tends to offer information that is general in scope but nuanced in intent, and hence holistic. Targeting becomes more efficient with such multi-sourced data.
About 67% of a B2B buyer’s journey happens digitally. 57% of this journey gets completed before the buyer’s first interaction with your sales team (Via Lead Generation Institute). Monitoring this journey is crucial to reach your customers in time so that they make a sales decision in your favor. In-depth insights into your prospects are key to creating a winning strategy that leads prospects to your pipeline.
Intent data is an important tool to gain in-depth prospect understanding. It helps analyze prospect challenges and their current needs. These key insights enable marketers to tailor their outreach campaigns for maximum impact. With intent-based data, marketers reach their prospects at the right time with the right message, which ups the chances of conversions manifold. It is then no surprise that data signalling intent is key to modern marketing strategies.
Demand marketing ranked top as an area of use for intent data with 47% of respondents in a survey responding in favor. Such data is useful across your sales funnel and demand generation channels to drive leads, conversions and sales. The same survey reveals the different areas where intent-signalling data delivered substantial results:
These powerful statistics establish the significance of intent-based data in generating demand across the sales funnel for companies of any size. With intent signal analysis, demand generation strategies can be optimized effectively and returns maximized.
Specific b2b demand generation areas where intent delivery creates substantial benefits include:
Monitoring intent footprints gives real-time insights into a b2b buyer’s interest in your solutions in general, or around any specific product or service. With this information, you can craft personalized communications and engage prospects in time so that they benefit from your solutions. This early reach gives you an advantage over your competitors.
Prospects exhibiting strong intent signals can be prioritized for engagement. A b2b marketing strategy focused on personalized outreach to these prioritized accounts increases conversions.
Intent data analysis reveals B2B buyers’ pain points and needs, which makes it easier to craft personalized engagement strategies. By drafting content that hits the right note, you grab eyeballs. But more importantly, you retain your prospects’ interest for further mobilization along the sales funnel.
Content personalization driven by intent signals is to the purpose, which improves lead engagement. There is no guesswork involved on the part of the brand or the lead. With all parties well-informed, time taken for conversion is minimized.
With clear insights into prospect intent, it becomes easier to segregate leads. High-level prospects lead the way while mid- and low-level leads can be retargeted for further engagement. Strategies such as lead nurturing fall into place with clear segmentation. Resources are also effectively utilized without wastage.
Analyses of intent signals generated at multiple sources give a sharp understanding of the type of personalized engagement key to conversions. Marketers get to engage prospects primed for purchase. A targeted outreach using high-value content gives the much-needed nudge, advancing leads to the SQL segment faster.
Intent data is useful for B2B demand generation. But what makes intent-based data powerful is the way you make it work. The obvious approach is to target B2B buyers that display the strongest intent signals.
Obtaining contacts of decision-makers at these organizations and developing a connection is the next step. Contacts key to an organization’s growth are usually targeted given the reason that they are most likely the consumers of your content. Some contacts that experienced marketers aim for, include senior decision-makers, including the C-Suite, and job roles involving sales or marketing responsibilities.
The challenge with contact data lies not only in acquisition but also in data cleansing. Data enrichment is key to obtaining high-precision actionable contact information. This is a complex process as it includes different stages including data standardization and normalization, and demands resources and time.
Once contacts are obtained, you can launch personalized outreach campaigns using email or platforms such as LinkedIn.
There are intent monitoring platforms that provide intent data and target contacts as well, for a cost. Alternatively, you can hire a demand generation solutions company that provides intent intelligence and contact information for relatively lesser costs. These firms, in addition, reduce your b2b lead generation stress by managing entire outreach campaigns themselves.
Despite the enormous benefits of intent-based data, only one-fourth of B2B businesses leverage such data. Only 35% of B2B businesses plan to leverage intent intelligence in the future.
Lack of intent data know-how and the appropriate tech stack to glean, cleanse, and leverage such data can be formidable challenges for businesses.
At FinalFunnel, we take care of your b2b demand generation programs end-to-end. With our proprietary data store of over 40 million records, and our publishing platform, we can power your demand generation campaigns with high-precision data.
Our data enrichment strategies deduplicate records and eliminate fraud risk while feeding only high-value knowledge to your campaigns. Our ABM campaigns realize over 95% account-based lists by employing a combination of high-precision intent intelligence, opt-in data, hyper-personalized content, and automation. Our in-house data filters, the best in the industry, channel only high-intent conversion-ready sales leads to your pipeline.
Get in touch with us to discover how our data-driven solutions can boost your demand-generation campaigns.