In business-to-business (B2B) marketing, it’s easy to know who is downloading your content and doing research on your products, and the buyer knows that fact perhaps better than anyone. They’ve learned, in fact, that in order to avoid activity that might lead to even the slightest commitment (such as filling out a contact form) they better do their research on an independent site.
That’s one area where intent data comes in. When you invest in intent data, you learn key insights about the activities of B2B buyers across the Internet, gathering informative data surrounding a variety of behaviors:
- Website visits
- Downloads of content, such as white papers, case studies or tech publications
- Length of time on a website for industry topics
- Views of infographics
- Product reviews
- Webinar attendance
- Spike in consumption on related topics
Intent data is valuable, but its potency is magnified when it is paired with the concept of fit, improving the accuracy and value of the data. Fit helps determine the identity and intentions of stakeholders. It also helps prioritize leads based on how closely they match your best client criteria. Fit allows your company to bridge the gap between marketing and sales with a reliable lead qualification process.
For instance, your company markets a scheduling software app. Your best target audience is focused on clinics with five or more doctors that are located on the east coast. While intend data can help identify organizations who demonstrated interest in scheduling software it may not tell the full story. Intent does not offer individual names (decision-makers and influencers), and it does not guarantee that these organizations meet your best client criteria either. Fit, the secondary process of qualification is how you’ll be able to determine which leads match your ideal customer’s profile. Using this example, intent data simply is not enough. When qualifying leads you generated for fit you may reveal that an organization is:
- Looking into a scheduling app, but the company is an air conditioning service company and not a doctor clinic.
- Or the company is a clinic already using a scheduling software, but they are looking for a new service provider to support their system.
- Or they are exploring a scheduling software, in fact, they demonstrate a great deal of interest in your software, but that organization has two doctors in a small clinic in rural Kansas.
All three examples are a demonstration that intent (interest) is just not enough. You have to implement a qualification process to determine if a lead fits (matches) your best client criteria and is worthy of your sales team’s time.
While companies are increasingly exploring the potential of intent data and fit for increasing the effectiveness of their lead qualification process, there are four reasons why this trend is set to expand in 2019:
- Sales teams are more data-enabled. While lagging in relation to marketing’s embrace of data-centered technology, sales teams are adopting new ways to engage with cold calls and the pursuit of leads. While inbound leads are still the golden ticket, sales teams are beginning to welcome data-empowered leads that are more likely to convert.
- Multi-channel marketing is becoming a reality. Companies are tightening up their abilities to gain data insights and deliver the right content through the right channels, coordinating efforts across a variety of channels. As this technology improves alongside the introduction of intent data and fit, companies will see conversion rates increase.
- Companies prioritize practical results. Far from the days of counting Facebook likes as a marketing metric, companies are gaining important insights into the behaviors that result in long-term success versus a short-term gain. Intent data and fit will pair with in-house marketing data to produce better targeting and higher-quality, long-term relationships with buyers.
- Systems are more streamlined. Companies are investing in data storage and management, streamlining access to relevant data analysis and insights. When paired with intent data and fit, these systems can ensure data is timelier and more accurate.
Blue Valley Marketing takes intent data and utilizes human interaction through personal contact to determine the fit. Agents work carefully to identify stakeholders that fit your ideal customer profile, while building a personal relationship with the contact from the first moment the conversation begins. This service helps increase the accuracy of intent data and helps your sales team prioritize their leads. Ultimately, Blue Valley Marketing works to eliminate the challenges in intent data and uses human interaction to identify the right fit.
Throughout the qualification fit process, our representatives can find out if a decision will be made by one decision maker, or if it is more likely to be made by a team. Our reps can identify other stakeholders (influencers and decision-makers) as part of the process giving you a much greater opportunity to promote your business solutions and successfully sell your products or services.
Instead of your sales team simply making up target numbers and then calling everyone on a list to try to make a sale, we use intent data and human interactions to assess fit. This allows you to accurately size up the market and most importantly zero in on prospects that have real interest in your brand and products,? said Ronen Ben-Dror, Director, Client Relationship Development, of Blue Valley Marketing.
For more information about how intent data and fit could impact your conversion rates, contact us at Blue Valley Marketing.
Last Updated on September 14, 2023 by Ronen Ben-Dror