What is Intent-Based Marketing?

Data is so valuable nowadays that some call it the new gold or oil.

But just like a jet engine won’t run on gasoline, marketing and sales can’t run on just any type of data. For best performance, they need a specific type of data.

That’s where intent data comes in.

What is intent data?

Also known as buyer intent data, purchase intent data, or intent signals, intent data is information about the behavior of your target customers. 

Intent signals typically covers actions such as what your leads search for on the web, the pages they visit, and any content they download. It gives you extra insight that you can use to estimate their level of interest in your product and prioritize prospects with higher purchase intent.

Types of intent data

Intent data can be collected from external as well as your own internal sources.

There are three types of intent data:

• First-party intent data – This is information you collect from how leads engage with your company’s digital content, such as website visits, webinars watched, and purchase history. Common locations to pull first-party intent data include:
  • Your company’s website and/or blog
  • Opt-in forms on landing pages, such as booking a demo or downloading a guide
  • Your CRM (e.g. HubSpot, Salesforce)
• Second-party intent data – This is information you get from another organization’s first-party data. Second-party data providers are great sources for customer feedback, product comparisons, and competitor analysis. Common locations to pull second-party intent data include:
  • TrustRadius
  • Capterra
  • G2
• Third-party intent data – This is information collected by organizations that have no direct interaction with your potential customers. For instance, this can be online searches for competitors or conversations on social media. Common locations to pull third-party intent data include:
  • Databases (e.g. ZoomInfo, Apollo)
  • Google Analytics
  • Social media (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook)

With this data in hand, you can craft your sales engagement strategies and enable your company’s sales.

How does intent data improve sales?

Intent data helps you determine where your prospects are in their buying journey so you can tailor your sales strategy accordingly. 

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Here are the key advantages of intent data for sales:

Prioritize high-intent leads

Intent data gives you insights into a prospect’s readiness to buy so your sales and marketing teams can focus their efforts effectively. 

For example, if you know which leads are ready to buy, you can send your closers to seal the deal (especially if you’re coming close to month’s end and need to reach quota). This keeps money in your sales pipeline by preventing a competitor from snatching such leads away.

Similarly, you can send low-intent leads for further nurturing to help them build up an appetite. 

Accelerates sales cycles

Prioritizing leads who are ready to convert allows you to spend less time and resources on unqualified leads. 

You can also use intent data to personalize your engagement and send them content that’s actually interesting and relevant to them. As a result, you shorten the time needed to push them to the next stage of the cycle.

And by shortening your cycle, you can start building a competitive advantage against your competitors since you close more deals faster.

Craft more effective sales pitches

Intent data gives you insight into which pitches to fire at prospects and when for best effect. 

It also tells your closers which pain points to address, which solutions to emphasize, and which trigger words will hit home.

High-intent vs low-intent signals

Leads in the later stages of the buyer journey are more likely to make a purchase compared to leads who are in the earlier stages.

Examples of high intent 

Here are some examples of high-intent signals that suggest a lead is more ready to make a purchase.

Requesting a demo

Prospects who schedule a demo are no longer just casually browsing offers. They’re ready to dig deeper into the features and benefits of products and services offered by you and your competitors. It’s a clear indication of a lead’s desire.

Attending a webinar/event

People who attend webinars take the time to fill out a registration form and plan to sit down and listen to a presentation. Not only is this a decisive action, but it’s a definite investment of time.

Visiting a pricing page repeatedly

A prospect who makes repeated visits to your pricing page indicates that they’re ready to move past the consideration stage. They’re in the process of gathering the info they need to make a final decision.

Closing a recent funding round

Recent fundraising announcements indicate business growth and readiness to acquire new resources. Startups or enterprises that successfully raise funds typically gear up to hire new employees and subscribe to new solutions.

Examples of low intent 

Here are some examples of low-intent purchase signals that indicate a lead needs to receive further nurturing or content that can build an appetite for your solutions:

Browsing websites casually

People visiting your website may just be browsing out of curiosity. This is especially true for those reading your blogs or visiting your homepage without going any further. You can also tag those who leave your website after only a few seconds as casual browsers.

Reading blog posts

Site visitors who read your blog posts are sometimes there only to find answers to their questions or get some industry news. They may not be interested in your brand or your products and services. They’re interested in your industry, though, and could be persuaded to dive deeper.

Engaging via social media

There are many reasons people interact with a brand on social media. They may be interested in your content or feel an affinity with your brand identity. While this signals buyer intent, it may not be strong enough without cultivation from your marketing team to transform them into actual paying customers.

Opening emails without engaging further

Your email may rouse enough interest that your target audience opens it, but they might not engage any further. You can interpret a strong buyer intent only if the reader responds to a high-intent call to action. Otherwise, they need more convincing.

Benefits of intent data for marketing

Intent marketing can help speed up the movement of leads down your sales funnel since you’ll know just how to engage prospects and curate content to build interest in your solution.

Easy identification of customers and their needs

Your marketing team can use buyer intent data to craft ideal customer profiles (ICPs) that model the companies most likely to purchase your product. Such data helps your team understand and leverage information about existing customers to target prospects with similar profiles.

Personalized outreach

Intent data offers info that marketers can use to personalize their messaging. In one survey, 91% of B2B tech marketers reported they used intent data to tailor messages for targeted accounts and customize outreach to high-value prospects.

Effective engagement

Knowing where a prospect is in the buyer journey lets you strike while the iron is hot. You get to engage with leads when they’re most interested in your offering and much more likely to finally make that purchase.

Tips for using intent data to improve sales

You can put these tips and tactics into action to take advantage of buyer intent data and improve your sales results.

Track previous and potential buyers

Prospective and past customers leave behind digital footprints that can help you identify leads who are more likely to purchase or repurchase your products or services. 

You can capture this data by tracking site visits, file downloads, online searches, customer feedback (on your platform and third-party websites), purchase history, and past interaction with your company (your CRM will come in handy).

Reach out to warm leads on time

Thanks to digital footprints that tell you exactly where prospects are in their buying journey, you can reach out to warm leads at the right time to have the most impact.

Use intent data to score leads and set thresholds for sales-ready leads. Then, route the warm leads to closers to ensure someone engages with them when they’re ready to purchase.

As for leads who are in the early stages of their journey, it’s still important to reach out and connect with them. They you can assign them to a nurturing campaign that will gradually built their interest in your solution

Use customer intent data to personalize offers

Intent data offers another path for segmenting your leads.

By grouping leads by intent level or classifying them by certain interactions (e.g. booking a demo vs watching a webinar), you can adjust emails, content, and ads to account for their personal intent or action.

For instance, retargeting ads based on those who booked a demo and didn’t purchase versus those who visiting the demo page but didn’t book can help optimize your ad spend and reduce your cost per lead. 

Enhance the accuracy of your lead search

Start by creating ICPs for your product offerings, then harness your intent data to build a list of prospects that match your ideal customers. This is a great way to discover and capture leads that are most likely to become paying customers.

Explore customer touchpoints and behavior

Identify and track various customer behaviors, such as casual browsing on your website and taking the time to fill in your sign-up forms. Then you can pinpoint the touchpoints in the buyer journey and engage with the prospect accordingly. 

Analyze markets and customer experience

Don’t just study intent data to find specific buyers. 

Instead, broaden your horizons and study the market to uncover new opportunities or areas of focus. Second-party and third-party intent data give you a holistic view of what’s happening in your industry.

For instance, let’s say you’re selling a business intelligence platform. Casting a wider net may help you discover that you can not only market to those searching for predictive analytics, but also to businesses in need of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. 

Optimize your strategies and offers

Intent data can shed light on prospects who are doing market research and checking out competitors. You can research those competitors to find out what they’re doing right and what’s appealing so you can adjust your approach.

You can even leverage such insights to alert the sales team so they can offer a competitive deal and preemptively sign a client.