It’s one thing to drive traffic to your site, but it’s a completely different thing to turn that interest into sales. This is where intent data comes in.
When you understand which prospects have the most intention to buy, you know who to target. You can also start to pattern the behaviors that indicate a high-intention buyer so you know where to channel your sales efforts.
But how? Let’s explore the best ways to use intent data to drive B2B lead acquisition and convert those leads into sales.
What’s intent data?
Intent data reveals online behaviors that indicate who’s actively considering purchasing your goods or services. It shows those who have the intent to buy and how those people behave. For example, a prospect might visit one of your website’s product pages, signaling potential interest.
You access this data from first- and third-party sources.
You can collect first-party intent data like website visits, content downloads, form submissions and email clicks directly from your audience. Third-party data comes from external sources.
There’s no doubt that intent data unlocks valuable insights. But for B2B marketers, the key is turning those insights into conversions. Enterprise customer data platforms (CDPs) bridge the gap since these platforms consolidate data from various sources, including:
- Mobile applications
- CRM systems
- websites
This unified view lets you personalize marketing messages and target outreach efforts to have maximum impact and boost B2B lead conversion.
How is intent data helpful to B2B companies?
Intent data is invaluable to B2B companies. It helps you get more leads and improves the quality of these leads.
According to DemandScience, 90% of businesses say intent data increases the amount of leads they source, with the overwhelming majority agreeing that it helps them generate high-quality leads.
With more leads and higher-quality prospects, you can better focus your marketing and sales efforts to drive more revenue. In fact, 57% of companies say that when a lead comes from intent data, the conversion rate significantly improves, per that DemandScience report.
6 ways to use intent data
If you’re looking to enhance lead generation and concentrate your conversion efforts, B2B buyer intent data helps you refine your marketing strategy to reach the relevant audience.
Here are six ways you can harness intent data to generate more leads and convert them.
1. Improve lead scoring
Per a report from Foundry, 91% of marketers use intent data to prioritize leads. This is because intent data helps sales teams determine which leads are most promising based on engagement patterns.
When you analyze prospect behavior, it’s easier to identify which leads are most likely to buy, allowing you to direct your resources accordingly. This helps you focus your efforts on leads with the highest potential for conversion.
It’s a far more efficient and effective way of driving sales than simply guessing which potential customers are likely to buy.
2. Refine buyer personas
While you might think you know your ideal target audience, intent data goes a long way to showing you exactly who’s interested in your offerings.
This is why 48% of businesses, per a DemandGen report, aim to use intent data to highlight new opportunities. Analyzing the digital footprint of target companies can provide deeper insight into prospective buyers.
You don’t just get a better understanding of their interests, preferences, and pain points. You’ll also start to see new groups emerge that you may not have considered before.
With a clear view of these patterns, you can better refine your buyer personas to match those with true buying intent rather than those you imagine would be interested.
3. Personalize outreach
Personalization isn’t optional. A McKinsey & Company report shows that 71% of customers expect personalized experiences from companies, making it key to effective sales and marketing efforts.
Intent data plays a crucial role in improving personalization. It helps you understand the interests and preferences of potential B2B customers and shows you how they like to experience your brand during the buying journey. This helps you tailor your messaging and content to resonate with your specific target audience.
While intent data offers a powerful tool for personalized messaging, it’s crucial to remember that data security is paramount. Demonstrating a commitment to data security is a key way to build trust with potential clients, especially for B2B companies.
Implement robust security measures and strategies, such as AWS backup solutions offering secure, off-site storage for your B2B lead data, to mitigate the risk of data loss from hardware failures, natural disasters or cyberattacks.
Or consider investing in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), a tool that helps you monitor your cloud setup to prevent security mishaps. This tool protects your lead data, making your lead conversion efforts more secure and trustworthy. With CSPM, you can focus more on converting leads and less on worrying about data leaks.
4. Target ad campaigns
Intent data helps you see how you should target your ad campaigns. With data-driven insights into customer interests, you can refine your marketing messages so they reach the most relevant prospects.
When you understand intent signals like search behavior and content engagement, it’s easier to identify opportunities when you can deliver targeted ads to prospects who are actively researching these types of solutions.
In response, you’d create ads that target high-volume, low-difficulty keywords. And this doesn’t just increase engagement.
It also maximizes your advertising return on investment, as you’re only serving ads to those most likely to convert.
But don’t stop there. Ensuring the clarity and professionalism of your ads becomes essential. This is where proofreading services can help ensure your messages hit the mark.
For instance, expert proofreaders can polish your content to match your audience’s needs and interests. This fine-tuning boosts the chances of turning leads into sales.
Why? Their attention to detail ensures that every communication speaks directly to the target audience, ultimately increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.
5. Tailor content campaigns
Educational content is a vital part of the B2B digital customer journey. When businesses research solutions, they’re looking to learn what they need, why they need it and what best remedies their pain points.
Intent data shows you what B2B buyers want to learn and how they like to receive those lessons. This helps you tailor your campaigns so you’re delivering compelling content that better meets your audience’s needs.
As Intentsify’s David Crane tells MarTech: “Done right, [you] can quickly supply buyers with the information they want (e.g., content, creative assets, talk tracks) when they need it.”
By looking at intent signals like content downloads and engagement metrics, you can identify the pieces of content that resonate most with your buyers and create more of the content assets that lead to conversion.
For example, you might notice that more buyers attend live-streamed webinars than watch your Business Instagram Reels. So, you decide to invest in Flutter video SDK rather than a social media manager.
6. Optimize your sales funnel
Intent data provides insights into prospect behavior at each stage of the buying process.
By analyzing these intent signals, sales teams can identify potential opportunities and bottlenecks in the sales pipeline. Based on this data, you can tailor your sales approaches to more efficiently target those most likely to buy while improving the buying journey based on how those prospects like to move through the funnel.
“Because sales sit so close to revenue, intent data can galvanize action and increase sales productivity,” Bombora co-founder Mike Burton tells MarTech.
Turn intent into revenue
Conversions come quicker and easier when buyers have the serious intention to purchase. It’s your job to figure out which buyers are serious.
Use this information to pinpoint those most likely to convert and refine your sales and marketing strategies to reflect those buyer personas. By doing this, you not only convert those interested now, but you also actively target the types of customers who are most likely to buy.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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