Buyer Intent Data
Article | August 23, 2022
Sales and marketing have transformed. Marketers have had to adapt, modify their activities and lean into more collaborative interactions with sales teams in a way they haven’t done before. As events and direct channels are on the minor list of concerns, sales teams have become a principal marketing channel to reach accounts.
A quick look at Google trends shows you how Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has revolutionized the world of B2B marketing. It happened by going from non-existent to extremely popular in the last several years and hiked during the pandemic. With today’s buyer journey becoming progressively digital, B2B organizations are interested in ABM to deliver exceedingly personalized and focussed marketing campaigns.
The secret behind the burgeoning popularity of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is how confident and versed marketers feel now while using it. While ABM persists as the hot MarTech topic since 2019, its influence grew during the pandemic. While it may seem all geek to new users, ABM offers rewarding opportunities for marketers.
As per the ABM evangelist, Sangram Vajre of Terminus, “If marketers embrace ABM methods, they will earn desired revenue in their businesses. I want to do everything I can to help make marketers heroes.”
As per The B2B Lead, ABM directly inscribed sales and marketing alignment and challenges 50% of the time when sales wasted time against unproductive targeting.
ABM Drives Revenue, and Here’s the Proof:
If you are putting together an ABM strategy, such numbers would be handy. This blog gathers ten powerful Account-based Marketing stats that every marketer (you) should know as we land in 2021 (the post-pandemic era). So, to show you how beneficial account-based marketing can be, here you go.
10 Account-based Marketing Stats
92% of Marketing Leaders are More Focused at New Selling Process
Marketing leaders are now selling with vision to the executive level than what they did some years ago. As per a recent ITSMA report titled, “Engaging the C-Suite: 2019 Sales and Executive Engagement Survey Report”, 92% of marketing leaders mentioned that selling at the executive level is more critical to their sales strategy.
In today’s time, marketers are relying on ABM capabilities to capitalize on new market prospects. In addition, B2B businesses are designing and deepening their relationships around ABM to engage C-level executives more effectively.
90% Role of Marketers in ABM Today is Strategic
The role of marketers doing ABM is more strategic on particular programs. As per Alterra Group’s report, marketers need to demonstrate deep account and industry-specific expertise to create seamless ABM campaigns. To create account-relevant marketing messages, companies are bestowing more resources and snowballing the expenditure on ABM. Such expenditure is predicted to exceed that on other marketing technologies rapidly.
A Sturdy ICP has a 68% Higher Account...
Organizations with a strong ICP have 68% higher account marketing win rates. Modern marketing teams are now being measured on pipeline and revenue, not leads. This way, they are staying more focused on productive revenue growth at every stage of the funnel.
A Total Economic Impact report by Forrester found that prospects see an average 313% ROI by bringing go-to-market teams practicing account-based marketing tactics together to make marketing efforts efficacious.
69% of Top-Performing Account-Based Organizations have Dedicated Leaders
69% of top-performing account-based organizations now have a dedicated account-based leader. The Account-based marketing stats reflect that 70% of marketers who started their account-based initiatives in the past six months have dedicated leaders who are entirely dedicated to the market, having particular and focused accounts instead of a sea of buyers.
60% of Users Reported an Increase in Revenue
When ABM picked its pace in at least a year, 60% of its users reported a revenue surge of at least 10% & 19%, termed an impact of 30% or greater. In companies with a stout ROI from ABM, 75% measure pipeline generated and revenue, 67.5% measure meetings and target account pipeline are set, and 63% measure marketing qualified leads are gained.
As a result of this, approximately 70% of B2B marketers will pilot or launch full-sized account-based software and programs to target and engross groups of buyers in selected accounts.
62% of Marketers are Being Optimistic
They can easily measure the positive impact of account-based marketing tactics since adopting ABM. This has been the most efficient benefit of ABM observed up until now.
Forrester envisages that by 2025, the term "ABM" will evaporate as account-centric becomes the distinct way for B2B organizations to identify, plan, manage, and measure buying and post-sale motions for prospects.
80% ABM Budgets are Intensifying
After B2B companies saw the success of early programs, budgets devoted to ABM amplified by 40% year over year, from 20% in 2019 to 28% in 2020. This surge in investment reflects a confident attitude in return on ABM initiatives.
42% B2B Companies Favor Keeping Accounts in ABM Strategy between 50 and 500
As per the Demand Gen Report, 18% of B2B companies try to keep their accounts list under 50, 19% target a broad set of accounts, ranging between 1,000 and 5,000.
For a focused ABM approach, the report found that 42% of B2B companies try to keep their account list between 101 to 500. However, as this quantity varies depending on the size and scope of individual company deal sizes, these results will vary based on industry and product.
Companies Executing ABM Amplified ACV by 171%
B2B companies that have implemented ABM perceived a 171% rise in their Annual Contract Value (ACV) more significant than the pre-ABM ACV. In addition, ABM offers a boost to the pipeline rate, thus, enabling marketers to target prospects belonging to new revenue goals.
75% of B2B Buyers and 84% of C-level Executives Use Social Media
B2B buyers and C-level executives progressively rely on social media to harvest more information about products and services before making purchase-based decisions. 80% of buyers who had not yet used social media to research purchases are willing to use the right platforms.
As online mediums have become a progressive information preference of buyers, companies create profitable account-based campaigns to ignite the initiative.
A recent Social Buying Study from International Data Corporation (IDC) concludes that B2B buyers are the most active in using social media to support the buying process by having 84% superior budgets that made 61% more purchase decisions. This significantly influenced a greater span of purchase decisions than those buyers who did not use social media for their purchase process.
A Note About the Account-based Marketing Stats and COVID-19
April 2020, was just when all businesses were beginning to feel the effects of the pandemic. As a result, the COVID-19 impact has altered several perspectives, including budget, headcount, and prioritization. Yet, ABM programs have shown results with significant improvements in pipeline growth.
“If economic obscurity continues, these programs should persist as a core element of the Marketing strategy.” – Todd Berkowitz, Practice Vice President, Gartner
While COVID-19 is changing B2B organizations’ ability to stimulate sustained growth, it’s hoped that an account-based approach will significantly benefit your organization in the following ways:
Focus on your limited resources (budget, time, and personnel) on those companies to do business.
Target the accounts you already know. This will enable you to spend less money on demand-gen campaigns to generate new names.
Make the most of your team’s efficiency by scoring sales and marketing campaigns that work together to create the best buyer experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are account-based marketing stats measured?
Marketers use close rates when required to measure ABM efforts. Typically, the stats are gainedby measuring the reachability of target accounts or specific contacts at those accounts. This gives you a percentage or a conversion rate by account, which further estimates how successful ABM efforts have been to date.
What are good ABM metrics?
The good ABM metrics are:
Marketing-qualified accounts
Real engagement of account
Velocity of Pipeline
Average selling price
Customer engagement rate
Why should we measure account-based marketing stats?
It is because ABM delivers ROI. For example, when there is a greater emphasis on defining Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), a properly structured approach to selecting account and value is aligned with what a prospect’s business needs. This results in gaining higher win rates.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | June 20, 2023
ABM implementation may be commonplace in the B2B domain, but the application of fundamental ABM concepts is not consistent. This inconsistency can impact the success of an ABM strategy. So, how can you ensure the success of your ABM?
Follow these four simple steps:
Look for Potential in Target Accounts
Your sales team must investigate the target accounts' potential. The sales team must act confidently when a buying group becomes active. Your team should build relationships with unengaged buying groups. This helps inspire new buying initiatives. It may also increase the buying group's proactivity.
Go Beyond the Lead-based Approach
Your sales and marketing teams must move past their lead-based approach for ABM to work properly. Leads alone won't deliver the desired impact and may even have negative effects. Sales management must understand the subtleties and motivate change in mindsets and processes.
Participate in Buying Group Marketing
Your sales team needs better group and individual monitoring technologies to implement buying group marketing to ABM. Quality purchase intent data can provide insights into the behavior of target account individuals. Appropriate intent data can show which solutions and purchase-related topics resonate with each buyer. Your team can then create better tactics and outreach.
Upgrade Your Sales Approaches
Present a high-value offer (HVO) that combines insights into the buying group's needs and interests, as well as their business. Address the challenges that you are facing in ABM execution with this HVO. Bring together your marketing, sales, and account executives to chalk out relevant processes, roles, and responsibilities.
With an Empowered Sales Team, Your ABM Engagement Rises
An enabled sales team can help you drive improved revenue from a defined set of target accounts if it has the right approach and flexibility to optimize its processes and responsibilities.
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Account Based Analytics
Article | August 3, 2022
In an interview with Media 7, Assaf Eisenstein, Co-Founder & President of Lusha, talked about the importance of buyer intent data for offering great customer service.
“The most important things B2B brands can do to establish themselves are to know their customers and match their strengths to the buyers they can best serve.”
B2B buyer intent data providers help companies resonate with their target audience in a sea of competitors. They can create timely campaigns to convert a prospect into a customer. According to Statista, about 70% of technology vendors rely on buyer intent data vendors for better prospecting. This puts B2B buyer intent data providers in the spotlight more than ever to come up with innovative solutions that can streamline marketing strategies and get more leads to the sales department.
Buyer Intent Data: What It Delivers
Businesses are sourcing intent data from B2B buyer intent data providers to maintain a competitive edge and grow. Here are a few of the key areas that buyer intent data can positively influence:
Your Prospecting
With the help of buyer intent data, your sales team can engage with a prospect with added accuracy at the right time (ZMoT) because it has the contextual information on the prospect. The team can prioritize good-fit leads and accounts.
Your Messaging
Identify any messaging gaps and create ideal, personalized, and precise messaging for your lead nurturing campaigns to increase engagement. Buyer intent data reveals your prospects’ interests and pain points, which you can capitalize on through your messaging.
Your Ad Targeting
Your ad campaigns can be more accurate thanks to B2B buyer intent data. They can target both known and unknown prospects who engage with your key topics with precise messaging.
Your ABM Campaign
In ABM marketing, B2B buyer intent data can tell you which of your target accounts are actively in the market looking for your product or services. It can also help you prioritize engagement and resource allocation and tailor messaging to address specific pain points that your target accounts are struggling with.
Your Revenue
The combined result of using buyer intent data tools is a spike in your revenue through lead nurturing campaign personalization, timely engagement, enhanced sales prioritization, and customer experience.
How is B2B Buyer Intent Data Driving Revenue?
For some time now, B2B buyer intent data has been a buzzword for B2B marketers because it is streamlining the conversion of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales qualified leads (SQLs) through multi-channel targeted advertising. It helps them focus more on engaging prospects with buyer interest than on their size to predict the actions of prospects. It considerably shortens sales cycles and assists in demand orchestration when integrated with the sales funnel.
Let us look at how B2B buyer intent data can benefit businesses:
Understanding the Customers’ Pain Points and Demands
Using TechTarget’s Priority Engine, a prospect-level intent data product, Zoom was able to solve three crucial challenges in their ABM marketing strategy: sorting their prospects, personalized messaging to engage these prospects, and the perfect time to get in touch with them. With the help of Priority Engine, Zoom’s sales representatives improved their efficiency and generated more qualified leads that were closer to conversion.
Optimizing Sales and Marketing Approaches
It is crucial to implement ABM marketing to build an enterprise pipeline. Tracking deal progression, account engagement, and sales and marketing alignment are important for any company to succeed. Dialpad, a cloud communications platform, leveraged Demandbase to optimize its sales and marketing approaches. The platform provided Dialpad with insights whenever a lead moved from marketing qualified to sales qualified, so its sales reps never missed an opportunity. In less than six months, Dialpad sales reps got 80% more MQLs for conversions, a 20% increase in target account penetration, and 15% more deals in the pipeline in a shorter timeline.
Creating a Targeted Content Strategy and Web Personalization
Companies can no longer rely only on search engine optimization while designing their content strategy. They need to focus on offering a solid customer experience through web personalization and targeted content that addresses the pain points of the customers through effective solutions. Dodge Data, a data analytics company, used buyer intent data from Triblio to create a content strategy, personalize their website, and execute targeted display advertising campaigns. Dodge Data re-engaged 30-40 visitors per day, approaching them right when they were warm, leading to more conversions than when they relied only on demand generation campaigns.
Customer Retention Through Insights
Post-sales experience is just as important for business growth as gaining new customers. With the help of Demandbase One, Equilar, a software and technology company, was able to retain their customers and serve them on time with the help of insights on product activity and engagement. The company received regular alerts on the accounts it was catering to so it could reach out to them and keep the existing clients happy.
Efficient Lead Scoring & Pipeline Growth
Pipeline growth is a criterion for success and synchronization between the sales and marketing departments, an important attribute of ABM. Buyer intent data helps business development representatives qualify prospects that show buyer intent so they can book meetings. Leoforce, an AI-based recruiting company, used buyer intent data from Slintel and saw a pipeline growth of 10%-20%.
Enhancing ABM Strategy
B2B buyer intent data enhances the ABM strategy by identifying key accounts ready to go in-market. If B2B companies do not have this data today, they will be far behind in the competition and won’t be able to monetize their ABM strategy. A great example of how a company can enhance its ABM strategy using B2B buyer intent data would be Arizent, a book and periodical publishing company that became a part of B2B buyer intent data provider Bombora’s Data Co-op. The company monetized its ABM strategy using the buyer intent data from Bombora by capitalizing on the accounts that showed purchase intent.
Wrapping It Up
By leveraging B2B buyer intent data, businesses can drive revenue through enhanced ABM strategy implementation, outstanding customer experience, and insights that can help them enhance their sales strategy and pipeline.
FAQ
How can buyer intent data providers help you increase your sales?
Intent-based marketing can help you streamline your prospecting pipeline, focus your marketing effort on accounts that show buyer intent, and understand the pain points of customers. This can help you increase your sales pipeline.
How can you enhance your ad campaigns using buyer intent data?
Intent data can help you make your ad campaigns more granular because it allows you to capitalize on leads that show buyer intent signals. As a result, the ads will target buyers who are close to making a purchase decision.
Who are some of the popular B2B buyer intent data providers?
Some of the popular B2B buyer intent data providers are Bombora, Slintel, Demandbase, and ZoomInfo.
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Account Management
Article | July 7, 2022
Targeted advertising has become the norm on popular ABM platforms. As a result, many marketers have forgotten ABM's principles. Leadership, marketing, revenue, sales enablement, customer success, and product teams should work together to hit ABM numbers instead of completely relying on platforms and demand generation strategies.
Here are three reasons why ABM platforms and demand generation campaigns shouldn’t drive your ABM strategy:
GTM Teams Cannot Advance
Companies focusing on targeted demand gen through technology make their ABM strategy campaign-based instead of focusing on the interactions the sales and marketing teams need to have with target accounts to deliver revenue growth. They struggle with winning multi-year contracts.
Ideally, the teams should focus on filling the gaps left by competitors with different content and messaging in order to turn accounts into sales.
Buying Journey Support is Limited
ABM is about getting key accounts to generate revenue. When teams rely on technology to put out content and messaging for target accounts but don’t change their sales motions, processes, and conversations, their win rates drop. They should change their prospects’ experiences at every stage of the buying journey to deliver an optimal customer experience.
Sales Cycles Continue to be Lengthy
An ABM strategy should be used to influence both selling conversations and internal conversations that the sales teams are not privy to. Creating demand and building a pipeline through ABM platforms won’t bring revenue growth if there is no follow-through to convert accounts. Teams should engage in account-based enablement and come up with a plan to engage accounts that go dark or get stuck in the buyer journey.
Use Technology and Demand Generation in Moderation
Remember that ABM platforms and demand gen strategies can enhance your ABM efforts, but they shouldn’t be the driving force behind your ABM strategy. Marketers need to start using ABM to fix the revenue issues in their organizations instead of treating it like a targeted demand-generation function.
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