Categorizing the data on the internet, with the wide variety that is available and further using it for specific business targets can be a complex process. It can be very difficult to accurately score a lead if we are considering traditional data when a specific lead is considered. However, B2B marketers can exactly determine the lead and optimize the engagement strategy with up-to-date intent data. It can be done both according to time and the types of approach.
Intent data is becoming a key B2B marketing tool for getting better results due to the increase in social listening technologies and the increasing possibilities of data gathering. Therefore, knowing how you can use intent data for the B2B market to its fullest potential and to generate more leads is an essential thing.
Data that reveals the information about the likelihood of a buyer's persona to take a certain action is intent data. Basically, in simpler words, intent data is to know the intention of a buyer for a particular industry. Specifically, it is to know what topic, services, or products a buyer is interested in within B2B markets.
Content Creation and The Use of Intent Data in B2B
Buyers are consistently researching and accessing online services and products. The purchase intention of buyers can be indicated by the visits on your organization's website. The type and the webpage that they are looking for and the frequency with which a person is searching can talk a lot about their intentions. You can buy intent data from first-party or third-party data providers as they use a content-rich business media site to collect the data. This data tends to be more focused and the parameters that are necessary are covered well in it.
Speaking in more technical terms, the actual data is gathered through the metadata that is tagged along with the content describing the contents of the topic. The intent database is used to make from the buyers' interaction with the content. The first-party data is obtained largely from content-driven websites since it has a great number of specific topic tags that are mentioned as compared to the third-party data.
Improved Segmentation
A more comprehensive picture of the need of your buyers, interests, and pain points, through intent data can define the ideal customer persona. While creating a B2B marketing campaign the intent data could be used to support targeting more efficiently. That’s the reason why B2B marketing data should be acquired from multiple data sources.
Optimized Content
To increase engagement, content can be personalized by knowing more about the characteristics of the lead and their interests. The personalization in the content can go beyond just a company name and buyer's interests. This is especially effective in the marketing campaigns for lead nurturing, content marketing, and increasing sales.
Alignment in Marketing and Sales
The use of intent data in B2B is to increase the sales and to take the prospect down the funnel. So you can say that intent data acts as a common language between sales and marketing to facilitate the function.
Automation in Marketing
The use of intent data in B2B could largely be for implementing marketing automation technology that saves time that is wasted on database entry and the analysis.
Personalized Landing Pages
Each component in the landing page is optimized to the fullest so that it could meet the buyer's needs. The use of intent data in B2B is to employ the data and adjust different pages to understand the user needs with varying demands of the buyers in different stages.
Search Engine Optimization
To obtain a higher rank, searching only for keywords is not enough. You need to search for the intent of your buyer persona too. The use of intent data in B2B is done efficiently only when your service or product meets the buyers' pain points that have been analyzed through the intent database.
Audience Targeting
Why intent data is important in B2B marketing is because intent data helps marketers to deliver product-specific emails to prospects at the internet-research phase. The internet research phase is the very first phase in the buying journey of the customers. Intent data can give information about what keyword has been used more than usual and who has landed on the company website with which keyword. This leads to the list of potential customers for the organization. This also gives stats about the surge in interest at this early stage. It indicates that the organization will be in the market soon for the product it is researching.
Company A, for example, sells cloud-based disaster recovery solutions. With an intent signal campaign, they can choose the type of organizations that might want to buy the product and that could be targeted. Then company A will have the list of the companies that have landed on their service page that provides information about Cloud-based disaster recovery products. It may receive the information either via direct integration or in an Excel spreadsheet format.
If no integration has been done, then a prebuilt email campaign will be triggered automatically dedicated to the cloud-based disaster recovery. The emails will be sent to potential contacts at the target organization from the prospect database of the company.
For Company A, this use of intent data means that whenever individuals at a target, organization begin their buying journey by conducting Internet research, all relevant titles within Company A’s marketing database will receive marketing messages that speak directly to their interest.
Intent data can be also used to target display advertising campaigns. There are a few vendors who offer account-based internet display advertising that allows B2B marketers to have mail campaigns and CTAs of the banner advertising. This will tell prospect companies about when they are visiting the websites that are the parts of the vendor's network under the web-based advertising exchanges.
Company B, for example, has cloud-based recovery products and can create intent data campaigns for cloud-based disaster recovery. The company can choose the type of organization that it wants to target with the campaign that has been set for the same. Either, now uploading the list of the companies or by defining the target companies.
Company B will alert by the companies surging in the interest, allowing company B to display the banner ads to those companies. This process is more efficient and more sustainable for advertising display.
Google AdWords also offers the same feature to identify the prospect at the internet research phase. And prices this demonstration with the power of this information. Google AdWords works a cost-per-click strategy for a typical B2B market but still, there is no assurance whatsoever that the company will receive any information as a result of a click.
Paying for a click is nothing more than a prospect landing on the landing page itself. As it is as good as paying a company for enticing the prospect to fill out the form on that page.
If the assumed prospect is not part of the targeted organization, the company needs to pay the whole price for the click without receiving any benefits.
Since companies are sure about the fact that the given individual was exploring the topic on the internet, they are willing to participate in high-risk willingly. Using different models, intent data can provide this kind of intelligence as well. And perhaps, it would be more cost-effective.
Intent signals are collected on a company-wide basis which allows users to collect on-going data about specific keywords and topic areas depending upon the interest levels of companies. These companies could be anyone like high-priority potential organizations, current customers, or even might be the competitors.
But this is the best method to target the audience and make the most use of the intent data.
Audience Targeting
Audience targeting mainly and very essentially requires a strong marketing and demand strategy. With a planned strategy for audience targeting and marketing of the product and/or services, the demand generation strategy is also equally important for being part of the scenario.
Build a Strong Marketing and Demand Strategy
There is a two-stage approach that has been recommended widely while facing the challenges of the traffic volatility and risk of churn-
- Identify prospective buyers with high purchase intent using the intent data.
- Craft marketing strategies that promote retention and growth by leveraging the buyers' data insights.
It is important to make sure that time is being spent correctly on searching the prospect who are actively searching for solutions in the market. Along with that, you should be able to identify the prospect who looks great only on paper but demonstrates high probability behavior of filling out a form and converting it into a lead.
This is important within the current climate because the market is rich with prospects who need software to help their businesses during COVID-19. Simply put, software providers that aren’t using intent data to spot buyers who are able to convert will lose sales to providers that are.
Lead Prioritization
Lead prioritization is as important as customer retention. As they say, a penny saved is a penny earned. Customer retention is working with old customers but may on some extended service provided, which could be counted as the new consumer for another service. Lead prioritization also helps in intent-based branding. The use of intent data and monitoring tool with solid strategy will help generate more leads for B2B businesses.
Use Intent Data to Prioritize the Customer Retention
According to a survey by Gartner Digital Markets Digital Transformation of April 2020, Leaders of more than 500 small businesses have customer retention of nearly 43% over 45 days. This is more than any other priority to be mattered, including the increased cash flow, cutting costs, and financial assistance security.
Customer retention is such a critical priority because it is much harder and more costly to secure new customers than it is to retain the existing ones. Especially in the pandemic situation that we are facing worldwide where stakes gave been raised to another extent. And so reducing churn and customer retention is more essential.
Software providers can identify the intent of the actions taken by customers before they are leaving. That could help marketers implement the messaging and incentives to head customers off before they jump. For instance, if any other alternative is searched by your customers before leaving, a software provider could show them the content that shows the services offered by your company promoting that specific content, which will help your client.
Identifying the features that customers search for before leaving could help in customer retention with the use of B2B intent data. Prioritizing and developing such features with the help of the product team can achieve this, otherwise, the software may lack.
Advance Lead Prioritization
First-party intent data allows you to rank leads into several different tiers supporting their match potential for specific products and services. By using intent data this way, B2B marketers and sales reps can easily distinguish between low-potential leads and prospective clients.
Intent Advertising
Customers don't have patience for unnecessary information because there are several content options available. Research shows that content marketing gets more results in terms of leads than that of the paid search advertising. Customers are so used to personalization that they will immediately click away from search results and websites that don't meet their needs or demands.
Demographics with purpose have seen to have more traffic than the usually traditional-structured sites. The key here is the ability to deliver the right content with the right content strategy. Each aspect of your plan will be informed by the intent data, including
- Customer’s Persona
- Customer’s Journey Map
- Theme
- CTA, Content Format
- Content Strategy and Keywords strategy
Along with increased sales and conversion rates a strong content strategy will always help acquire more leads.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you use Intent Data?
Intent data is commonly used for the following reasons:
- To identify early opportunities.
- To generate and score the leads.
- Account-Based Marketing
- Refine and redevelop the content strategy
- Targeted Advertising
How is intent data collected?
First-party intent data is collected from your website or through your social presence.
How do you use intent data?
You can use intent data to achieve more from the business, like:
- You can personalize the content of your website for new visitors.
- You can use intent data to personalize the inbound leads based on the engagement.
- You can nurture your own leads by personalizing the emails.
- You can identify the potential customers who are not yet your audience.