In business, the term “intent data” is used to describe information that reflects a person’s current state of mind. This data can be collected in several ways but is most commonly gathered through online interactions such as website visits, search engine queries, and social media engagement.
While intent data has been around for quite some time, its value has only recently begun to be fully understood and exploited by businesses.
Data is crucial for the success of B2B sales and marketing. However, using the data alone to connect with your prospects is insufficient. Every effective marketer and salesperson is aware of the potential value of B2B Intent data and how it can be used to advance broad corporate goals. In addition to giving you a competitive edge, a thorough grasp of customer needs combined with data insights will enable you to create a reliable and robust pipeline for the sales team to manage. However, to fully benefit from the wide array of customer insights it gives, very few marketers and sales professionals are knowledgeable about how to use the data intelligently. Additionally, one of the most crucial pieces of data for boosting sales and marketing insights is Intent Data
What is Intent Data?
In recent years, a new term has emerged in the world of marketing and business: intent data. Intent data is information that reflects a person’s digital interactions and can be used to predict their future behavior. Businesses can use this data to better understand their customers and personalize their marketing efforts. In this blog, we will explore what intent data is, how it can be used, and some of the benefits it can offer your business.
Simply put, intent data is a collection of behavioral signals that reveals your prospects’ intentions concerning buying goods or services. Your potential customers are out there, looking for a fix for an issue you might be able to solve. They perform searches online, read articles, look for solutions, and discover ways to cope with their needs or woes. According to surveys, an average B2B prospect is 67% on the way through the purchasing journey before engaging with a salesperson. Combining buyer intent data with prospect signals gives businesses a sharper aerial perspective to better use customer insights. Prospects usually have the intent to purchase some goods or services, so a sales representative must concentrate on closing the remaining 33% of the deal.
What are the benefits of using Intent Data?
Intent data is becoming increasingly popular as a way to understand what customers want and need. By tracking the online behavior of users, businesses can get a better idea of what content to produce and how to target their marketing efforts. Here are three benefits of using intent data:
1. Improved customer targeting: Intent data can help businesses better understand their customer base and target them more effectively. By understanding what customers are searching for online, businesses can tailor their marketing messages accordingly.
2. Greater insight into customer behavior: Tracking customer behavior over time can provide valuable insights into trends and patterns. This information can be used to improve the overall customer experience by offering content that is more relevant and targeted.
3. Increased ROI: When used correctly, intent data can help businesses increase their return on investment (ROI) by ensuring that marketing resources are being used effectively.
How is Intent Data collected?
Intent data is collected through a variety of methods, including online surveys, website visits, social media interactions, and purchase behavior. This data is then analyzed to identify patterns and trends that can be used to predict future behavior.
One of the most common ways to collect intent data is through online surveys. These surveys can ask questions about what products or services someone is interested in, why they are interested in them, and how likely they are to purchase them. Website visits can also be tracked and analyzed to see what products or services people are looking for and how long they spend on each page. Social media interactions can provide insight into what people are saying about a product or service, and whether they are considering purchasing it. Finally, purchase behavior can be monitored to see what people actually buy and how often they buy it.
There are three sources to collect Intent Data:
- Independent Websites or Portals: Independent websites or portals gather user data and disseminate it to third parties. They are more than capable of managing their users’ opt-in and authorization to share their data, even though they cannot acquire large volumes of data.
- Bidstream: Bidstream Ad pixel data tracks user behavior and is disseminated through ad exchanges known as bidstream data. On a public website that hosts content, the data source will place an advertisement. Then, without the knowledge of the website owner or visitors, they use the advertisement to scrape the keywords and visitor data on that site.
- Publisher Co-Ops: A publisher cooperative is a collection of publications and websites that pool their data so that everyone involved can benefit from a larger data set. Each newspaper or website additionally requests the agreement of its users at the initial encounter.
How can Intent Data be used in business?
Intent data can be used in business in several ways. For example, it can be used to target potential customers with ads and content that are relevant to their interests. Additionally, intent data can be used to segment customers and prospects so that businesses can better understand who they are trying to reach.
Intent data can also be used to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and to understand what kinds of content and messages are resonating with potential customers. By understanding how customers interact with their websites and what kind of content they are engaging with, businesses can make more informed decisions about where to allocate their marketing resources.
In short, intent data is a valuable tool for businesses that want to better understand their customers and prospects and create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns. When used correctly, it can help businesses improve their bottom line by driving more qualified leads and conversions.
Here, we’ll explain how to use intent data to your advantage for your marketing. The utilization of consumer intent data is becoming increasingly crucial to staying competitive. It can have a significant effect in a variety of areas. The main ways of using intent data are listed below:
1. Recognizing opportunities early
Reaching out to prospects earlier in the purchasing process is the most obvious application of intent data. Getting in touch with prospects before other salespeople do is one of the finest methods to gain an advantage over the competition. According to research, organizations prefer a salesperson who contacts them first when making an offer in 70% of cases.
One audience segment may not be at the right purchase phase to connect with your content when you reach out to prospects through marketing efforts. You are either approaching them too late or doing so concurrently with the rest of your competitors. Because of this, B2B marketers are starting to see the benefits of using intent data to increase the effectiveness of marketing activities.
2. Lead scoring
Buyer Intent Data can assist in separating those who are actively investigating a pain point from those who are only reading about it with no intention of making a purchase. Prioritization is facilitated by this information, which underlines whether a lead fits your desired customer profile or not. It takes time, effort, and brainstorming to create a lead-scoring model. As a result, setting up, maintaining, and improving the process typically takes a lot of time. Here is where the buyer intent data from Demandify Media can be useful. Based on intent topics that have been thoroughly investigated by businesses, Demandify Media helps you identify the purchase signals that your prospects are exhibiting. You can find out what your potential customers are interested in before you contact them thanks to the approximately 7,000 Intent themes that are routinely observed. Depending on how interested a user is in a certain theme, each account is given a live score. The more relevant material the account has ingested for the Intent topic you chose, the higher the grade. Because lead scoring is an automated process, the methodology is more straightforward. You can choose accounts with the highest conversion potential by filtering the subjects pertinent to the goods and services.
Depending on how interested a user is in a certain theme, each account is given a live score. The more relevant material the account has ingested for the Intent topic you chose, the higher the grade. Because lead scoring is an automated process, the methodology is more straightforward. You can choose accounts with the highest conversion potential by filtering the subjects pertinent to the goods and services.
3 . Account-Based Marketing
In account-based marketing, connections are everything. When it comes to connecting with the right prospects and fostering connections, intent data may end up being the most crucial factor. Although ABM frequently needs technographic and firmographic data, you must take advantage of every opportunity to gather more details about your prospects that will help you adopt a laser-focused strategy. Intent Data gives you information that you might not be able to gather on your own in addition to assisting you in broadening your reach. This information enables you to better target your ABM campaigns with tailored messages, identify more in-market customers, and score leads with more accuracy.
According to research, 10% of consumers are actively purchasing or desire to purchase at any given time. 10 out of 100 accounts on your target list indicate right away profitable chances. What number of those 10? In this situation, intent data is useful. If you know what a corporation is actively seeking, you may reasonably predict what they want to buy. Intent data precisely offers that. Thousands of topics about various goods and services are continuously monitored to determine which businesses are interested in particular topics. A prospect is more likely to purchase in that category the more they research the subject.
4. Developing a better content strategy
You can develop a content strategy that is aligned with the interests of your ideal customers with the aid of intent data. While you may use a variety of SEO tools to uncover the most popular search terms and hot subjects, adding Intent Data will give you access to a whole new level of data that will help you improve your content marketing approach.
5. Personalized marketing
By utilizing buyer intent data to target leads that exhibit specific indications, you can make your marketing campaigns even more targeted. By doing this, you can avoid wasting any of your advertising budget on potential customers who aren’t serious about purchasing your goods. You can start sharing particular material that will help your B2B buyers achieve their goals and create an opportunity for you once you can make the connection between what they require and their buying signals.
6. Fill the pipeline with sales
There is more to driving business results than merely adhering to a comprehensive plan. You must do more in your marketing funnel than just discover and engage demand. Innovative lead-generating campaigns are no longer sufficient. You must research your target audience, comprehend their behavior, and target them with original material. Personalizing your marketing strategy now extends beyond target audience firmographic and demographic information.
Innovative lead-generating campaigns are no longer sufficient. You must research your target audience, comprehend their behavior, and target them with original material. Personalizing your marketing strategy now extends beyond target audience’s firmographic and demographic information. In a world where sales must accomplish more with fewer resources like time, money, and attention, intent data offers guidance on how and where to focus effort. You should concentrate on intent data if you want to increase your sales pipeline. B2B marketers leverage intent data to develop successful, individualized campaigns.
7. Sending powerful direct emails
Direct mail is just one element of your prospect marketing that can and should be influenced by intent data. You may increase the impact and engagement of your brand by using tactile marketing automation to apply that intelligence to direct mail. The most effective channel for involving members of the C-Suite is integrated, branded, and personalized direct mail, which performs better than traditional direct mail.
If you can use your integrations to determine whether the visitor fits your desired customer profile, intent data opens up a world of possibilities for automating tailored brand interactions (ICP).
You can start sharing particular material that will help your B2B buyers achieve their goals and create an opportunity for you once you can make the connection between what they require and their buying signals.
Why Intent Data will shape B2B marketing & sales in the future
Any marketer or salesperson who wants to increase success rates or who is continually seeking strategies to advance must comprehend the intentions of buyers. Businesses can better understand prospects’ buying patterns and triggers by becoming more aware of their behaviour. With this information, marketing and sales teams can target a particular profile and adopt a customized strategy for them on demand to maximize the possibility that a purchase decision will be made.
Businesses may identify “ready to buy” prospects and adjust their ads in accordance with the help of multiple aggregated intent signals. Intent Data can be utilized for prospecting in the future because they highlight particular trends and aid in influencing prospects’ purchasing decisions along the buyer’s journey. Given that, it’s critical for you to be aware that, if your opponent isn’t already utilizing the Intent Data, they very well may do so shortly. According to the study, 35% of B2B companies are prepared to employ intent data within a year, and 25% of B2B companies are presently using it.
The bottom line is, incorporating Intent Data into your Business Strategy actually means getting “data that captures what someone is trying to do.” This information can be used to help a business understand what its customers are trying to accomplish, and how to serve them best.
Intent data can be gathered in some ways, including through online search behavior, social media interactions, and even physical interactions with products or services. This data can then be used to create more targeted marketing campaigns and sales strategies.
For businesses that are looking to incorporate intent data into their strategy, The Bottom Line recommends working with a data partner that can provide high-quality intent data. This data can be used to improve customer experience, drive conversions, and ultimately grow revenue.
Summary:
In business, the term “intent data” refers to information that tells you what your prospects or customers are trying to do. This could be anything from researching a product online to visiting a competitor’s website.
You can use intent data to improve your marketing and sales efforts in several ways. For example, you can use it to create more targeted content, identify new leads, and speed up the sales cycle. If you’re not already using intent data, now is the time to start.
