Monthly Archives: March 2021

Just like ABM (Account Based Marketing), 2021 is going to see the rise of Intent data.

The force behind the surge of intent data is the accurate and dependable insights that it can provide to b2b marketers. It can help create more upsell opportunities and increase the number of conversions too.

As per Statista, here are some numbers based on use cases that show how b2b technology vendors use Intent Data-

The above infographic shows that intent data is indeed crucial for not one but several b2b sales and marketing activities. It sure is an integral part of every b2b plan.

We partner with Bombora, the leader in intent data, find out more 

So how does intent data help b2b?

In a b2c scenario which isn’t as complex as b2b, the easier part is getting the customer insights. It can happen through an email, through an interaction or following the digital footprints of the customer.

You get to know what the prospect was searching for, understand the needs and even get hold of the sentimental value that the prospect has towards the product.

Now you can simply customize the solution or offer the perfect and suitable product to the customer and win a sale, because most probably the only decision maker is the customer.

Given the same situation in a b2b scenario, things actually work differently.

In the b2b realm there is not one, not two but many decision makers and sometimes across cross functional teams. There are decision makers in every tier of management and then there are the financial stake holders and so on. This can cause delay in decision making and ultimately in the sales cycle too.

B2B vendors have to identify the prospect through multiple levels of search and analysis. They may have to comb through the website visitors, social media visitors, the organization etc. to arrive at a conclusion.

This makes it difficult for b2b vendors to zero-in on one particular prospect who could possibly and ultimately make the buying decision.

Also, there are instances when b2b marketers are faced with the challenge of gauging the intent of buying through random searches done by visitors. It is also very challenging to differentiate between this kind of search and genuine, methodical search that can tell a tale.

So to resolve this problem and address the challenges, one needs a systematic and more accurate analysis and data that can lead to a more streamlined b2b reach.

Intent data has been an emerging trend amid b2b in the past few years. It has all the components of online activity and details of content-consumption done by visitors. This information is then shared cooperatively by data providers with b2b vendors.

Intent data is the lean-on pillar of b2b. It collects data from every single activity conducted by online users, visitors, prospects. It tracks activities that involve content consumption done through downloadable content assets, webinars attended, reviews, online sessions, time spent on social media etc.

Here are some factors that intent data takes into account to produce reliable results-

• Type of content consumed
• Amount of content consumed
• Number of employees consuming content
• Amount of time spent looking up for specific data
• Place and time zones from where the content was consumed or looked up

So what does the future hold for intent data and b2b sales?

Let us first understand how intent data is used in different ways by b2b marketers-

• Reach businesses that have shown keen interest either in the product or service
• To create robust lead scoring models based on the data sought through intent
• To get accurate insights about companies and prospects who are researching the solutions or products
• Identify upsell opportunities or retarget customers

Intent data is indeed the top contender when it comes to b2b research and tools. So when we think of the future and the use of intent data, it is going to be the go-to solution in most cases in b2b.

It is and will be the most reliable source that can help to reduce the time lag between understanding the needs of the prospect, contacting the prospect and catering to his needs with specific solutions.

Intent data signals will help marketers to not just be quick, but more accurate in choosing the right strategy from case to case.

It can even give a more accurate description for creating buyer personas, further narrowing down targeting for better results.

Conclusion-

Just like ABM, Intent data is the undisputable and most preferred tool to be used by b2b vendors in 2021 and also in the future. B2B marketers can reduce the challenges by getting closer to knowing the prospect and thus creating higher chances of converting leads.

Take a look at our recent blog- how to use Intent data to augment b2b sales that discusses some of the goals and challenges of Intent data and the effective ways to optimize Intent data.

Every adversity has some opportunity hidden in it. Owing to continued market fluctuations, unpredictable trends and customer behavior, today the market is still uncertain in terms of sales and marketing performance. A lot needs to be still recovered in terms of ROI. But this can also be a unique opportunity to make things better and focus more on that which is working with the help of some powerful tools.

Intent data can bring much relief from the challenges faced by b2b marketers by leveraging and unleashing its true power.

This blog discusses the various goals and challenges of Intent data and how marketers can optimize its potential to get more business growth.

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Goals and Challenges-

The real value of intent data is in how you optimize it to elevate your overall sales, marketing performance and ROI too.

So what are the primary goals of using Intent Data?

The primary goals of intent data are to facilitate effective b2b marketing!

So around 64% marketers give weightage to quality of data and around 43% give importance to the ease of implementation. Only 36% say that the source of data is critical for Intent data to be effective and to be able to bring in the desired results. (resource Ascend2)

We partner with Bombora, the leader in intent data, find out more 

Intent data can come with some challenges too. Marketers can identify and combat these challenges and can win them over through a proper strategy-

Here are some challenges and apprehensions regarding effective use of Intent Data

One can easily channelize the immense potential of Intent Data by leveraging and accelerating ABM pipeline too. Targeting those accounts with highest level of potential with Intent data can help marketers get good ROI.

Being Specific-

Traditionally marketers often rely on firmographics, demographics and other data that can bring the results but cannot always promise success.

Becoming more specific or focusing more on the demand rather than just leads can help companies to reduce the sales cycle.

Intelligent use of data can often lead to better ROI. Intent data can create better clarity, thus leveraging the efforts and right use of time for better outcomes.

Marketers should remember the following while coupling intent data with other marketing initiatives-

• Relevance
• Purpose
• Precision
• Personalization

What do the signals say?

You may have crafted appropriate strategies, have created great campaigns based on data and all is set to roll out. But what is most critical for success in b2b along with other factors is the need for perfect timing!

One of the most significant things about intent data is the signaling part. Intent data can help guide and tell b2b marketers when to launch a campaign, when to get that email marketing campaign started and when to nurture those leads.

Intent data pave way to the right timing and direction and can be one of the most reliable guides for b2b marketers.

So what are the benefits of Intent Data and how can it be used to leverage and empower b2b sales and marketing-

Uses of Intent Data-

• Personalization
• Email Marketing
• Targeted Ad content
• Crafting relevant content
• Enhancing ABM
• Leveraging Landing Page capabilities

Conclusion-

Marketers can be very hopeful about intent data to ultimately accelerate ROI, but one can only achieve it when one uses efforts to optimize intent data.

Intent data can empower b2b marketing while minimizing efforts and saving time and resources too.

Intent Data is the future as much as personalization is and it can certainly bring more focus and better results if used the right way.

As an experienced b2b marketer you may have been using some lead generation tactics for a long time, yet is it possible that they may not have been fully optimized yet? Sometimes all you need to do is dig deeper into some of the existing techniques and tap into their full potential and you can even tweak some of the existing practices as per the response of the leads.  

So, how do leads usually respond? They either show interest or engage further or they go cold. But each lead is different and so the tactics to be used to lure those leads also have to be unique.

This blog discusses 5 clever lead generation ideas you may not have tried or may have tried but not with a unique approach.

Diverse marketing mix-

There is no sure shot way to success when it comes to lead generation and there isn’t a single channel approach that can bring success either. 

When the audience is diverse and is so heavily distributed, marketers must not leave any potential untapped. Adopting a marketing mix such as combining organic and paid campaigns can add up to the chances of getting leads converted. Using content syndication, email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing are the various different ways to make sure all avenues are explored for best results.

Even if you are generating demand, you need to establish brand visibility and offer valuable content assets with an omni-channel presence.

Enhancing the probability of generating or attracting leads is the best possible strategy for b2b lead generation.

Conversations with sales team-

This may seem like the ‘not so significant’ factor involved in lead generation, but cross-functional communication is critical to lead generation success.

Sales team is the one who is in direct contact with the prospects. They know first-hand about the prospect, about the pain-points, challenges and so they know the prospect fully well and about their needs too.

Hence the feedback of sales team is instrumental in shaping current as well as future strategies. This can be a decisive factor, as lot of lead nurturing activities can be shaped as per the feedback from the sales team.

A one-on-one conversation can lead to a lot of more revelations, experience-sharing and insightful discussions that can lead to even creating valuable content assets. All this can support lead generation efforts to maximise the ROI.

Generate demand-

How about investing in generating demand rather than investing time and efforts in traditional methods that make you run behind the leads with no guarantee of returns?

Talk about focused approach and investing in prospects you already know. Think ABM!

Account Based Marketing is therefore one of the most popular ways for converting leads. Focusing on ABM allows you the freedom to not rely too much on getting that email ID, or waiting for that form to be filled.

Simply focus on what you know, on the account and start from there. Design and deliver the best ways and solutions to the focused audience or company and reap the benefits in less time.

Grab your Free E-book for more techniques on lead generation 

Let your website work for leads-

Website is not just a decorative platform; in fact, today it goes even beyond attracting leads. It helps to even convert leads and encourage the visitors to fill in that form you so want them to.

So how do you let your website work for you? Start by making your website less complicated and more self-navigating to direct the users toward engaging more.

Come up with incredible CTAs placed strategically on your webpages. Simply limit the exit options so that your visitors don’t get lost within your website. Keep it simple to help them with quick decision making.

Minimize the exit points on your website by an integrated design and CTAs at each level to keep them engaged and to convert them too.

Make data the lean-on pillar-

Make lead generation more scientific! Using proven methods such as data can be helpful to guarantee results.

Maximise the use of cleansed data for better returns. Channelizing this valuable data can also give you the ROI on data.

Data can used to analyse buyers’ journey. This could give more scope to you to analyse and even up your game each time you decide a strategy to contact your prospect.

Conclusion-

Lead generation needs clever and innovative approaches to help get results. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time, you can simply go back to what you have been doing so far, analyse it and tweak and fine-tune the current ways of implementing the strategies.

In the ever challenging journey of generating and converting leads, did you ever regret losing a lead thinking it was too weak a lead to pursue? Or there may have been times when you thought that a dynamic lead scoring model could have saved you from failing to convert those leads? We all go through these phases and experiences. But what matters is that we learn and implement some practices that stop us from failing again.

Grab those leads and turn them around for success. Here’s a blog that shows you just to how to do that

Know more about our lead generation services

Turn around the weak leads-

So what are weak leads? If strong leads or good leads are the ones that have shown interest in buying your services or products, weak leads are the ones that aren’t so keen on buying from you.

Weak leads may not have landed on the landing page; they may not have filled in that form or downloaded any content asset. However, while you nurture and purse good leads, at the same time, you cannot entirely give up on weak leads. You can or need to warm up to them to help them develop an emotional connection with your brand.

Prioritize weak leads and generate demand that matches with the needs of these leads. This way you will enhance the chances of converting these weak leads into strong ones.

Keep up with the purchase cycle-

You have to keep up with the pace of the purchase cycle. Without this you may lose track and eventually lose the grip on knowing your customer and his journey.

Today’s age is dynamic and digital too and this gives ample amount of choice to customers to make up their minds and change their minds often too.

All this has created a very unpredictable environment when it comes to purchasing and predicting customer behaviour and preferences.

These purchase cycles and its patterns provide invaluable data to you about your customers and prospects. This is a gold-mine for every b2b sales and marketing professional as this can lead to generating demand and driving good leads to you.

Therefore, keeping up with the purchase cycle can help a lot in converting leads.
 

Dynamic lead scoring structure-

It’s very important that your lead scoring models match your business objectives. Lead scoring can be very helpful when it comes to focusing on certain leads including the weak leads. A dynamic lead scoring model also allows you to know if you are putting the right efforts in the right direction that can save a lot of your time and costs too.

Conclusion-

Goals mean nothing if they exist without a string strategy. Unless they are backed up with relevant and wise practices to make them work, they will not get you the desired results. Lead generation is such a stream that it needs constant innovative practices to match up with the changing market landscape and business objectives too.

Data is one of the most valuable assets of b2b organizations. If the quality and timely availability of data is undermined, it can hamper the lead generation process and thus impact the ROI. Such is the importance of data!

Data can be the internal decision maker for any b2b organization that is involved in lead generation and demand generation services.

Data, if it’s a limited resource within the organization it definitely needs scrutiny, filtering and polishing and it becomes all the more important to leverage and optimize this valuable resource that can impact sales and leads.

So what can one do to ensure that data quality is optimized? Take a look at these parameters of data that can literally decide the fate of your leads!

Here are some decision making factors that one cannot ignore when it comes to data-

• Accurate data- Data that is validated and filtered can bring in good results
• Data aligned with business goals- If you have quality data but it is not aligned with business goals and objectives it cannot get the desired results
• Relevance of data- Relevance of data can determine whom you are going to communicate with and what. This factor can save a lot of time and effort
• Trustworthiness- Data that is trustworthy or reliable is the real valuable data that can actually optimize your other efforts to elevate ROI

So before we move ahead to discuss the 3 most important practices to optimize data, let us see how one can get the best out of data-

• Define data well to know if you have what it takes to nurture those leads
• Get your business goals well defined too, because this is how you will know whether the data you are using is relevant and useful
• Get the data processes and systems in place as this can affect  data cleansing, filtering, treatment and data-readiness before you use it
• Check the results of your previous campaigns that used particular data sets. The metrics of these results can tell you a lot about whether you are using the right data or not
• Last but not the least; create a data ambience in the organization. Let each function and all cross functional teams know the value of data before you optimize it

When everyone in the organization understands the importance of data and there is a proper ambience that exists to validate, guard and utilize data for the right audience, strategies and practices of data can further help in optimizing data-

Who governs data?

Some of the unobvious questions such as who governs the data in your organization can be the first step in creating good data solutions. Data governance is an equally important aspect as data cleansing.

Data governance says a lot about who is responsible for data maintenance, data cleansing and data relevancy and if all these factors are set to come under data governance in your organization.

A lot can come under data governance. Data policies if any or being accountable for all data solutions and outcomes, data transparency, relevance and other protocols need to be set for maximizing data efficiency.

The process of optimizing data starts with analysis and ownership.

Which parameters decide the quality of data?

So does each one involved with data know about the parameters on which the quality of data is going to get decided? It’s very important that both sales and marketing teams are on the same page when it comes to knowing and deciding certain quality parameters when it comes to data.

Each customer is unique and so is his business. Thus, data that is unique to that particular business can also be counted as quality data. Data cleansing, filtering and treating data for checking its relevance in time and in terms of target audience are important parameters to determine the quality of data.

Quantity data without quality cannot serve the purpose of your business objectives. Quality of data therefore is extremely important when it comes to any campaign that is being planned for lead generation or email marketing etc.

How does Data cleansing determine data success?

Data is often lying around in files, documents, database systems etc. sometimes for years. Everyone might think there is a lot of data available but all data is not useful data.

Data that is scrutinized, cleansed, filtered, treated to validate its relevance. It can help understand whether the people with the corresponding data are still with the respective organizations or are they still the decision makers etc. and more factors determine the real value of data.

Hence data cleansing is one of the most critical parameters or practices that can determine the quality of data.

Conclusion:

Data is a solution today and it cannot be ignored, taken for granted or left untreated. It has huge impact over the overall business and ROI of any b2b or any other organization for that matter. Trained personnel, creating an ambience of data matching, quality and quantity management are the other practices that can help optimize data solutions.