How to Use Intent Data to Achieve Your Sales Goals: 5 Practical Ways

 

Use intent data with account-based marketing (ABM) to accelerate the sales cycle, improve conversion rates and fine-tune marketing efforts.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is one of the most effective ways to improve the bottom line, as it allows you to laser-focus your B2B marketing and sales efforts on high-value accounts. But what if you could take your ABM efforts to the next level and seize opportunities you didn’t even know existed? Intent data helps with just that.

With businesses needing a real-time insider view into what their target accounts are actually interested in, intent data has become every B2B marketer’s go-to toolkit. Intent data signals a prospect’s interest in product or service, helping marketers focus on the ABM strategy, shorten the sales cycles and close more leads.

Software providers who want to boost conversions and reduce churn can combine ABM with buyer intent data to create a robust system for identifying and targeting potential customers. In this blog, we discuss five ways to use intent data throughout your sales funnel to improve the bottom line.

1. Expand your list of prospects
To make the most of your marketing and sales efforts, focus on building prospect lists with companies that match your ideal customer profile (ICP). Use customer relationship management (CRM) software to track and score high-intent leads from intent sources, including your website and marketing campaigns.

Leverage B2B intent data to build an ICP-based list of companies to target, expand your coverage and reach new buyers, as well as discover contacts that are most interested in your product or service. This will allow you to focus your marketing and sales efforts where they’ll have the most impact and increase the speed and accuracy of your outreach.

2. Convert high-quality leads
Now that you’ve got the hang of finding and targeting prospects, it’s time to convert them into high-quality leads using intent data. By understanding what content prospects are viewing and engaging with, you can score leads, tailor your outreach and improve conversions.

Analyzing behavioral data can help you identify microconversions that might not have been on your radar. For example, if a lead from a target account downloads a specific white paper or attends a webinar, it’s a strong intent signal that they’re interested in learning more about your product. You can also use this information to better segment your leads.

3. Create competitive plays
Like most companies, you must have a few key competitors. And if you want to win, it’s crucial to understand what your competitors are up to. Use intent data to scale your acquisition and expansion strategies. Also, execute sales plays using competitive intelligence (CI) to target customers actively researching your competitors’ products or services.

By tracking your competitors’ online activity, you can quickly identify their most popular content, what topics they’re focusing on and where they’re investing their resources. This will give you a good idea of what’s working well for them and where you might be able to gain an edge.

4. Flag customers at risk for churn
Even if you’re doing a great job at acquiring new customers using ABM and intent data, keeping an eye on potential customer churn is crucial. Intent data can help you identify customers at risk for attrition and take steps to prevent it. Look for telltale signs of disinterest, such as decreased web traffic from the customer account or low content consumption.

Once you identify a customer at risk for churn, reach out and check what’s going on. It could be that the customer is having problems with your product or they are considering switching to another provider. Either way, addressing the issue head-on is the best way to retain a customer.

5. Find upsell and cross-sell opportunities
Once you have a customer, it’s important to nurture that relationship and look for opportunities to upsell or cross-sell. Intent data helps you identify customers who might be interested in additional products or services.

Look for signals that indicate a customer is researching a new product or service, such as an increase in web traffic from their account or engagement with your content. If you see that a customer is interested in a new product, reach out and see if they have any questions. This is a great opportunity to introduce them to your other offerings and find upsell opportunities.

Make intent data your go-to sourcea
Intent data should be the go-to source for planning your marketing and sales activities. Find a reputable intent data provider that can give you the intent insights you need to make better decisions, engage your best-fit prospects with buyer discovery and drive better results for your business. Then you’ll be able to focus on what you do best — running and scaling your business.

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This article is written by Gartner and originally published here.

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