Monthly Archives: April 2022

It’s common knowledge today in the b2b domain that intent data is a potential tool for b2b marketers and it is helping companies to enhance lead generation and conversions. However, a lot still needs to be explored in terms of using intent data and actually implementing it for real-time results.   

This blog will take you through the current state of intent data in the market and what marketers can learn from it to accelerate business growth.

B2B marketers today, need data that can bring tangible results in terms of sales and ROI! Lack of data isn’t really the problem today. However it’s important to know which data is really useful for your business. Maybe the data that you already have has a missing piece! And maybe that missing piece is the relevance factor or its actual usefulness in enhancing sales.

Intent data can solve your data challenges making it more actionable to help you get real-time results.

Intent data works on the principles of predictive intelligence providing marketers with invaluable insights that can help them to decide their next strategy or move. It can help them to stay prepared, know which prospect to talk to and when.

Sales is all about timing and in this tough competitive world, if you aren’t in front of your target prospect at the right time, they will simply move on to someone else.

This is exactly where intent data can empower your business strategies and provide the necessary fuel to capture and convert leads into sales.

As per research conducted by Ascend2, here is how marketers perceive the success of intent data in achieving their marketing objectives-

• 69% marketers found intent data somewhat successful
• 20% found it very successful
• 11% found it unsuccessful

All in all, a vast majority of marketers actually found intent data successful!

Here are some more research based statistics that reflect the change in the effectiveness of intent data observed by marketers over the past 12 months

So what is the present situation of intent data in the market? Before you decide to implement it in your strategy, know how marketers are already feeling about intent data-those marketers who have implemented intent data in their strategy already or are currently utilizing it in the process—

Here are some results from the research conducted by Ascend2 about what marketers feel about intent data-

• Nearly 78?el positively about intent helping them to achieve their marketing goals
• Nearly 38?scribe their feeling as confident
• While 40?el hopeful about intent data
• Against these, interestingly there’s only 1% of marketers who feel doubtful about intent data being useful to them

The overall results from these surveys and research findings look positive and point in only one direction— more and more marketers are feeling confident about intent data and many are finding it useful.

Here are some actionable uses of intent data –

Conclusion-

The knowledge around intent data is certainly increasing, however, marketers need to first assess their real need of intent data and then align their business objectives around intent data. For those of you who are serious about intent data, its best that you partner or work with a vendor for outstanding business outcomes. Since many companies are still warming up to the idea of intent data and are trying to find best ways to implement it; outsourcing it to an expert would be a wise business decision to make.

Intellitech Solutions partners with Bombora, the leader in intent data that collects B2B intent, demographic and firmographic data at scale! To know more, please call us at +1 617-669-4209

If you are experiencing low lead conversion rates than expected, it may not be always about the strategy. It most probably has to do with the quality of the MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) in your funnel. Lead conversion is a technique and without the good leads or MQLs in your funnel, none of the other elements in your strategy can work in your favor. So how does one overcome the challenges of lead conversion?

This blog analyzes what a lead is, what are MQLs and their importance in lead generation and conversion.

What is a lead?

Before we dive into understanding how MQLs can impact lead conversion, we need to first truly understand what a lead is all about! So who is a lead? A lead is of course a prospect and certain attributes and features of every lead can help marketers identify these leads as good or bad leads!

A lead is someone who is typically facing some business challenges such as low sales, low revenue, poor strategy, incompetent resources etc. These leads are usually looking for insights or knowledge about a subject so that they can find solutions to their challenges. They also look for content assets that have a take-away and insights for them. All they need is a good b2b vendor who can guide them, truly understand their pain-points and provide the right strategic solutions to help grow their business.

Lead generation is nothing but identifying these leads with specific traits and attributes and analyzing their need for a solution. This is also where BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Time) comes into picture. Determining the needs of a lead depending upon factors such as Budget, Authority, Need and Time is a skill-set in itself, as it can help decide the success of lead conversion for b2b companies.

So once you recognize these aspects, it becomes easier for you to define the lead and its quality. This will help you select the high potential leads and thus create better MQLs and pass it on to the next stage of the funnel. Once you attract and capture the best MQLs, half of your job as a lead generation expert is done. You have made lead conversion easy by passing on only the best leads to the sales team. By doing so, you are also shortening the sales cycle and increasing the chances of lead conversion and ROI.

Check your MQLs

If you aren’t able to convert leads into business, the first thing you must check is the quality of MQLs you have. You must analyze whether your MQLs are low quality or if they are inactive. If yes, then that is the root cause of delayed or unsuccessful lead conversion. How can leads that have less value or potential convert into business? They simply cannot!

So let us understand the MQL behavior- Yes, they have traits that make them an MQL and marketers need to focus on the behavior and thereby focus on how to convert these MQLs into sales. A typical behavior of MQL could be that it may not be yet ready to engage with a vendor but has shown an inclination towards their services. This process of identifying a high potential MQL and taking further action on it is the exact turning point where most marketers fail and thus it impacts the lead conversion results negatively.

The top-of the funnel leads are the marketing qualified leads and these need to be nurtured with relevant and insightful content assets even before they are passed on to sales, why? Because this is where their decision making is most likely to happen! This is the golden opportunity of every b2b marketer to change the mind of the lead or warm up to them and encourage the leads into make the buying decision. And then, the rest is sales!

Conclusion-

While marketers can get busy with big campaigns and other activities that can bring more sales and revenue, they must not forget the importance of MQLs in lead conversion. In fact, this is where they can fine-tune their lead generation and conversion skills by identifying the MQLs and nurturing them well.

The topmost challenge faced by the b2b lead generation industry today is identifying and targeting prospects; the other challenges being lead volumes, lead quality and specifically having to identify and target high potential prospects that have maximum chances of converting into business! As a marketer or a business owner facing and tackling these challenges means having to pay a price in terms of time, efforts and even missed opportunities eventually leading to a decline in sales and revenue generation.

To reduce these challenges, marketers need to focus on intent data, predictive intelligence through data, demand generation and shifting their focus from top of the funnel to all stages of the sales funnel. In this blog we discuss some challenges and its solutions to make b2b lead generation easy for you.

The Challenge- Data

A lot is already being said about data and its importance. Capturing data of potential prospects is a big challenge today. But having just about any data is not enough to scale lead generation. Data obtained through traditional means like a forms or downloads may not be enough to directly impact lead conversion. Having the right, relevant and verified data that has value in it is important for ROI. Again, even if you have valuable data with you, optimizing data is another challenge faced by companies seeking quick conversions and higher sales.

The solution-

Intent data might be the right solution for this major challenge faced by marketers! It provides marketers with verified and useful data that can guarantee success! It also provides predictive intelligence which no ordinary data can provide.

This is the power that marketers need to tap into when adopting data solutions. Data is no longer only about basic contact details, firmographics, demographics etc. It is intelligent data that can provide deep insights into the prospect and his buying preferences or simply knowing his digital footprints and predicting his next buying inclination. Intent data enables you to understand your prospect way beyond the basic insights that you get from ordinary data.

The Challenge- MQLs

Generating or capturing good and high potential MQLs is often a big challenge for b2b marketers. Quality leads are equally important to any b2b marketer as much as quality leads are. Handing over the best MQLs to the sales team often becomes an uphill struggle for the marketing team in any lead generation company. There is an urgent need to find the right balance between quality leads and quantity leads, because it is the quality leads that can create the best MQLs.

The solution-

High potential MQLs are vital for revenue generation and sales. Again, data determines the quality of MQLs that marketers need to bring into their funnel. Intent data can bridge the gap between sales objectives and actually getting high potential leads that can fulfill those objectives. High quality intent data provided by a b2b vendor can always help you to find the right MQLs and thus get faster conversions. Partnering with the right vendor probably is the best solution if you want to find the right MQLs.

Working or partnering with a credible intent data partner or a lead generation partner who can facilitate the best intent data solutions is essential to create those desired MQLs. Generating MQLs becomes easier with the predictive intelligence that intent data provides and marketers can benefit from vendors who have solid experience and expertise to create the right strategy.

Intellitech Solutions partners with Bombora, the leader in intent data that collects B2B intent, demographic and firmographic data at scale! 

Conclusion-

Other than the above two major challenges faced by marketers and the solution being found in intent data, there’s the ultimate challenge of revenue generation. One can reduce the challenges related to ROI and sales by having the right lead generation strategy that is built on the firm foundation of incredible data insights. Partner with the right b2b vendor and then easily scale your lead generation and demand generation.

Buyers no longer want to experience traditional forms of sales and marketing. Personalized email marketing is now popular amid customers. Today, customers prefer personalized communication and one that is data-infused. Naturally, the popularity of the email marketing has increased tremendously as b2b marketers want to focus on unique email marketing techniques that can help them reach a wider audience and with more promising results.

If you are struggling to create effective email marketing strategies, you should consider talking to an expert who can not only guide you, but also bring more good leads and convert them easily into business.

Check out our email marketing services to get a better response from your customers and increase your sales 

Why is email marketing mainstream b2b sales and marketing activity?

Emails are the most professional digital communication channels for businesses of all types. Naturally, B2B sales and marketing activities greatly rely on email marketing.

Here are some advantages of email marketing in B2B-

• A cost-effective way to reach and communicate with potential B2B leads
• You can build trust and create more brand awareness
• Enhance content development for personalized messaging
• Work on customer retention to develop strong customer relationships

Email marketing is indeed an effective way to reach out to a wider audience and connect better for more conversations and conversions. Email marketing is cost-effective; its results are measurable and can help build long term business relationships with clients.  With so many benefits, one must optimize or make the right use of email marketing to actually increase their business ROI!

This blog discusses 5 email marketing techniques that can help you reach more customers for better business growth!

Focusing on relevance:

Relevance plays a vital role in the overall results of your campaign. As an email marketer, you must focus on relevance, the target audience and get to know the buyer personas well! Here are some hacks you can implement for better response-

• Create engaging email subject lines
• Segment the email lists for different recipients
• Include intelligent call-to-action links
• Decide the right date & time to send emails

If you fail to maintain relevance, you might lose out on possible conversions.

Studying your target audience:

Studying your target audience can help you to create relevant content for your e-mailers. Target audience is the only way to create meaningful customer conversions with email marketing.

Here are a few tips on how to study your target audience profiles-

• Define the ideal customer profiles  
• Track previous email engagements such as open rates, click rates, bounce rates, etc.
• Send out feedback links and take surveys
• Look at the geographic locations with higher engagement rates
• Identify the average customer's open rate and click rates

Creating buyer personas:

A buyer persona is based on the basic characteristics of a buyer, his buying inclinations, intentions, preferences and many other similar parameters. This helps B2B marketers create custom email marketing campaigns.

Here are a few tips for creating effective buyer personas–

• Understand the B2B business's current demographics to target the right audience
• Build the profile depending upon the customer's age, gender, family details, geographic location and other similar parameters
• Understand the past purchase history of the customer and find out which competitors have they made their purchases from and why

Make a list of common customer concerns to develop appropriate buyer personas.

Personalization of messaging:

Email personalization is a process of creating custom content and messaging to build stronger relationships with the customer.

Here are a few tips for effective personalization-

• Create eye-catchy subject lines to draw the reader's immediate attention
• Make the content body visually appealing with images as required
• Avoid jargon to increase the text readability and simplicity of the message
• Use short paragraphs and the right keywords
• Create relevant CTAs

The objective is to make your subscribers feel valued with personalized email content. 

Measuring results of campaigns:

Make your email marketing campaigns successful by measuring the following attributes:

• Open rate
• Click-through rate
• Bounce rate
• Unsubscribe rate
• Conversion rate
• Forward or share rate

Measuring all the above attributes helps B2B businesses predict email campaign ROI results.

Conclusion

Before you craft those killer email marketing campaigns, do thorough research to understand customer behavior. Make use of the above email marketing hacks to improve B2B sales. With minimal spend, create custom email marketing campaigns and increase your brand’s ROI.