Buyer Intent Data
Article | March 6, 2023
ABM influences key accounts that show buyer intent. This influence is internal (B2B through personalized content) and aims to sway decision-makers who green-light a purchase.
In an interview with Media 7, Mark Emond, Founder & President of Demand Spring, talked about the importance of content in marketing.
“Content is at the heart of great marketing today. It needs to educate, inspire, and convert. It must be tied to the unique rational and emotional needs of each target persona.”
ABM’s focused approach leads to faster lead conversions and a higher ROI. However, B2B marketers still face the following challenges in their marketing strategy:
Maximizing Marketing Efficiency
B2B marketers must consistently drive higher ROI on their efforts while working within a limited budget.
Improving Customer Experience
Cutting through the noise of thousands of competitors and delivering an enhanced customer experience is challenging.
Generating Trust in Customers
Marketers need to humanize their approach and reach a level of undeniable authenticity to generate trust in the minds of customers.
Why Should You Use Influencer Marketing in ABM?
According to a CSO Insights report from Marketing Charts, brands fail to incite enough trust in their target audience. Interestingly, it is what the subject matter experts and third-party influencers from the industry say that counts. So, external influence is driving purchase decisions. Internal influence, though crucial, cannot sideline external influence and how it impacts sales and key decisions.
When you integrate ABM with influencer marketing, you co-create relatable, impactful content with relevant influencers to encourage your target accounts to move ahead in the sales funnel. An influencer becomes a credible touch point, powerful enough to convert a lead. The influencer’s performance-oriented content resonates with the target audience, engages, educates, and informs them of the strong points of your business, creating a strong foundation for lead conversion.
Here is how it can help strengthen ABM strategy:
Increases Content Authenticity
The words of a trusted subject matter expert or third-party niche content creator hold more weight than static website content or brand ads. Their followers trust them and consider their views authentic. If such relevant influencers create content with you, your target audience is bound to be positively influenced. This leads to higher conversions and ROI, qualitative reach, and better engagement.
Attracts New Audiences
Influencers attract new audiences that are similar to your ideal customer profile (ICP). Interactions, content promotions, and publicity can create brand awareness generate more interest in your brand.
Encourages Brand Advocacy
Positive reviews, customer success stories (voice of customer), testimonials, and word-of-mouth publicity that comes from influencers and their followers promote brand advocacy. Influencers also create incentives for referrals, thus bringing in better engagement.
Humanizes the Buyer Experiences
B2B storytelling is the key to conversions. It has more impact than any other form of advertising. Influencers humanize the buyer experience by sharing their opinions, reviews from other businesses, and highlighting success stories through their content. This content is impressive as compared to any other content the brand hosts and promotes.
B2B Influencer Content is Priceless
B2B influencer content has high value because it has third-party credibility that attracts trust across all brand channels. Another advantage is that you can easily access the creativity of the influencer without having to hire someone. All the content that influencers publish on their platforms is brand content, highlighted with the voice of the customer. Influencer marketing generates traction and engagement for businesses.
Integrated Influence
Influence can be integrated through social media marketing, content marketing, PR, SEO, branding, and ABM.
How to Create a Powerful, Influencer-based ABM Marketing Strategy?
Brainstorm a Strategy
To make the most of influencer-based ABM marketing, you need to streamline a process and strategy. Find the answers to these two crucial questions:
1. Who influences your target audience?
2. Which topics interest your target audience?
Once you find the answers to these questions, you can zero in on a relevant influencer and approach them to participate in creating/co-creating high-quality marketing content (text, podcast, video, interactive). Integrate the content and publish it on brand channels, and influencer channels. Promote the content via blogs, ads, other influencers, and brand sites to target your key accounts. Monitor the promotions (URLs, engagement) and adjust the campaign for maximum output. Most importantly, create and nurture relationships with industry influencers for future campaigns.
Understand the Demand
Understanding the demand of the target audience through keyword research and data analysis can boost the results of an influencer marketing campaign. Offering audiences solutions to their problems or information that will help them scale their business assist in lead nurturing and conversions.
Identify Ideal Influencers
Choosing a suitable influencer can help kick start your influencer campaign powerfully. An ideal influencer should be proficient in their domain, passionate about content creation, capable of publishing content across platforms, popular in the industry with keen followers, and knowledgeable and eager to promote content across different channels in different formats.
You can employ software to identify and qualify relevant influencers who create credible, high-quality content on the topic you want to promote. Filter influencers based on how much they charge and how well they align with your company values and brand voice. Focus on creating a long term association.
Shuffle the Content Formats
By shuffling between marketing content formats like blog articles, live video, third party analyst reports, videos, case studies, webinars, podcasts, industry presentations, infographics, and interactive content, the target audience can be engaged on multiple channels, and data can be collected to analyze which formats work best.
Remain Connected with Influencers
As a B2B marketer, you should connect one-on-one through email, phone, or in-person meetings with influencers frequently. You should monitor and engage with influencers on social media when they mention your brand.
By interacting with and sharing relevant influencer content on social channels, you can build a community and promote advocacy through continued partnership and engagement. Additionally, you can recycle content made by influencers to show you value the association.
Sixty-three percent of marketers believe they would have better marketing results with an influencer marketing program, while seventy-four percent of marketers agree that it improves customer and prospect experience with the brand.
How Cherwell Software Witnessed a 437% Year-over-year Increase in Content Shares?
Colorado-based Cherwell Software is an IT Service Management (ITSM) company. It engaged TopRankMarketing to create an influencer marketing campaign with the aim of increasing brand awareness, targeting CIOs, CTOs, and IT Directors of companies for business, and increasing sales and revenue.
With the help of the content 15 ITSM thought leaders created and amplified across five channels, Cherwell Software saw a 170% growth in their audience views and a 437% year-over-year increase in their content shares.
Key Takeaways
In B2B marketing and ABM, influencer marketing can help reach customers you would have otherwise missed. Engaging in an influencer marketing platform to maximize ABM strategy outputs is crucial to remaining ahead in the race.
FAQ
What characteristics should a good B2B influencer have?
A good B2B influencer should be proficient, passionate, popular, a dedicated content promoter and creator.
How does influencer marketing help B2B marketers?
Influencer marketing can help B2B marketers target key accounts by leveraging content created by industry experts.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | September 11, 2023
B2B buyer intent data provides insight into a user’s purchase intent. With this information, you can identify when a prospect matching your ICP is actively considering buying your product, or similar products or solutions. This intent data is collated from different digital sources that use cookies to analyze key intent search terms to zero in on when a prospect is in an active buying journey. With this information, B2B companies like yours can make campaigns that are very specific to these prospects and are more likely to convert them.
Let us take a look at how B2B buyer intent data can assist sales teams to achieve their revenue goals.
Identify High-Intent Target Accounts
In account-based marketing, a target account list has companies and accounts that are most likely to buy your product. This target account list helps your sales and marketing teams concentrate their efforts to push high-quality leads through the sales funnel. Using B2B buyer intent data, the sales team can know which prospect is showing key signals of purchase intent. These B2B intent data key signals include downloading resources, reading blog posts, signing up for a free trial, booking a demo, viewing the pricing page, and revisiting your website after the first interaction. Your sales team can segment the target list based on this information. Every lead can be broken down into three segments: high intent, medium intent, and low intent. Now that your sales team has the high intent leads, they can target these leads and convert them without wasting time on low intent leads that may not be ready to buy.
Your Sales Cycles Are Shorter than Ever
Salespeople often struggle with closing deals faster. The reasons behind this could be anything from wrong contact details to chasing imprecise, low-qualified leads and cold prospecting. Reaching out to accounts that do not show any intent to buy is a waste of time your sales team cannot afford if it wants to meet the revenue targets. With the help of B2B buyer intent data, your sales team gets actionable data insights on the accounts that are in the market and what they are looking for so they can approach these accounts confidently. Popular intent data providers provide more than 95% accurate contact information, company structure, and buyer group details on accounts so your sales team can connect with decision-makers directly and close deals faster.
Lead Prioritization is No Longer a Struggle
Prioritized lead scoring effectively puts sales managers and salespeople in a position to see real opportunities. B2B buyer intent data allows them to see what other paths leads can take even if they do not visit your website. They can understand which leads are in the final stage of the sales cycle in real-time. Leveraging this information, sales managers can align sales representatives based on the comprehensive overview of accounts without worrying about the initial ranking of the account with the help of intent-based marketing. It helps the entire sales team take advantage of the foresight that intent data provides to create an agile method to capture demand accurately.
Improved ABM Implementation
Enriching the B2B buyer journey with hyper-personalized content to target ICP in marketing as a part of intent data marketing becomes easy for your marketing teams. They can prepare content for each stage of the buying funnel, which consists of awareness, consideration, and decision-making stages. In the awareness stage, you can help your prospects narrow down their search and lead them to your brand. In the consideration stage, your sales teams can get in touch with the decision-makers who respond the most to your marketing campaigns and are in the stage to purchase your product. In the final decision-making stage, your customer support and sales teams can provide the prospects the assistance they need through content on crucial pages via a product guidance tool or a chat service. This way, your B2B account-based marketing strategy can be implemented with added accuracy.
Final Thought
Saving costs, generating more leads, and boosting sales becomes easier with the help of buyer intent data. Rather than letting your sales team wait for prospects to stumble upon landing pages, your business can leverage B2B intent data to gain a competitive edge by finding them first and offering them solutions to their problems through your products using buyer intent data strategies.
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Account Based Data
Article | August 19, 2022
Gain insights into 2023 buyer intent data trends. Explore key marketing technologies and strategies essential for businesses to enhance their ability to engage potential customers effectively.
Buyer intent data is indispensable for businesses in an increasingly fast-paced and data-centric account-based marketing (ABM) space. It serves as a compass guiding marketing and sales efforts by providing profound insights into consumer behavior and purchase intent. With this information, businesses can precisely target their targeted audiences, personalize their messages, and optimize their resource allocation, all of which result in higher conversion rates and a greater return on investment.
With rapidly changing customer behavior and evolving marketing space, buyer intent data has become the cornerstone of contemporary marketing and sales strategies. In 2023, it is set to reach new milestones, fueled by growing technological advancements and a deeper understanding of consumer behavior.
As a result, it is essential for B2B businesses and marketing teams to be aware of the emerging buyer intent data trends to adopt cutting-edge technologies and strategies that enhance their ability to understand and engage potential customers effectively.
Futuristic Buyer Intent Data Trends for 2023 and Beyond
In an era where competition is fierce and customer expectations are continually growing, harnessing the power of buyer intent data is not just advantageous; it's fundamental for achieving sustainable growth and increasing market share in the space. Furthermore, it bolsters customer engagement and loyalty by demonstrating a commitment to understanding and meeting their needs.
Businesses that embrace B2B buyer intent data gain a decisive advantage, positioning themselves as agile and customer-focused enterprises ready to thrive in the marketing domain. Consequently, staying informed about buyer intent data trends is not only a strategic advantage, it's a necessity for sustained growth and relevance.
Here are some of the latest buyer intent data trends that businesses must be aware of in 2023
AI-Powered Predictive Analytics
One of the most exciting trends in buyer intent data is the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics. AI-powered buyer intent data tools analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends that might not be apparent to human analysts. This, coupled with predictive analysis, enables businesses to predict buyer intent more accurately.
With advanced AI algorithms, businesses are able to sift through vast datasets, recognize intricate patterns, and predict buying intent with unprecedented precision. This technological advancement enables companies to not only identify prospective customers but also create customized marketing strategies and engage them at the precise moment when they are most likely to make a purchase. In essence, AI-powered predictive analytics is elevating buyer intent data to an entirely new level, making it an invaluable asset for any forward-thinking business striving for marketing and sales excellence.
Integration of Multiple Data Sources
Buyer intent data relied on a single source of information, such as website analytics or email engagement metrics in the past. However, with increasing emphasis on understanding customer behavior, there's a growing recognition of a holistic view of buyer intent. This, in turn, is increasingly creating a need to integrate multiple data sources.
The trend of integrating multiple data sources provides a more detailed and deeper understanding of consumer behavior, thereby significantly enhancing the value of buyer intent data. Businesses can construct an extensive mosaic of each lead's digital journey by combining data from various touchpoints and channels, such as website interactions, social media engagement, email responses, and chat interactions. This multidimensional perspective provides more in-depth and accurate insights into buyer intent, allowing companies to tailor their marketing and sales strategies with unmatched precision.
Real-time Intent Monitoring
As businesses and marketers increasingly adopt advanced technologies, the days of post-event analysis are rapidly diminishing. Now, real-time monitoring of intent has become the primary focus. The strategy involves the use of innovative tracking technologies to detect and respond to buyer signals in real-time. The trend is increasingly gaining prominence as it allows businesses to respond to buyer signals as they happen.
When a potential customer exhibits strong purchasing signals, such as extended engagement with pricing pages, repeated product demo views, or initiating a live chat, real-time alerts trigger immediate action. This instantaneous response capability enables marketing and sales teams to provide highly relevant information and immediately deploy targeted messaging or offers, significantly increasing the chances of conversion.
Cross-channel Engagement
As businesses recognize the significance of engaging with leads and consumers across multiple channels, the need for innovative strategies, such as cross-channel engagement, is rapidly growing to ensure that businesses are present where their audience is, be it via email, social media, website interactions, or even chatbots.
In an era where consumers frequently switch between channels during the purchasing journey, cross-channel engagement ensures that businesses are consistently present and responsive. It improves the customer journey, enables complete data capture and analysis, and contributes to a more in-depth and accurate understanding of buyer intent. Cross-channel engagement enriches buyer intent data by providing businesses with a more detailed and real-time view of their audience's behavior and preferences, ultimately resulting in more effective marketing and sales strategies and stronger customer relationships.
Hyper-personalization
The hyper-personalization trend is ushering in a new era of consumer intent data utilization by bringing personalization to new heights. The approach utilizes the abundance of available consumer intent data and AI-driven content recommendation engines to deliver personalized experiences to individual leads and customers.
By analyzing a prospect's past actions, preferences, and interactions, businesses can create hyper-personalized content and offers that precisely align with their interests. It also optimizes time, ensuring that engagements occur exactly when a prospect has the highest possibility of converting. This level of personalization increases the chances of conversion as well as fosters a deeper connection between brands and their target audience. Hyper-personalization is not merely favoring consumer intent data; it is elevating it, enabling businesses to deliver exceptional, one-to-one experiences that boost engagement, trust, and brand loyalty.
The Bottom Line
Buyer intent data is the lifeblood of modern businesses, providing vital insights into consumer preferences and behavior. It enables companies to determine when potential consumers are prepared to buy, allowing timely and targeted marketing and sales efforts.
Staying informed about the latest buyer intent data trends enables businesses to employ cutting-edge technologies and strategies that improve their capacity to comprehend and engage potential customers. Companies can improve their techniques, enhance customer targeting, and optimize resource allocation by foreseeing and adapting to these trends. Furthermore, being aware of these trends is crucial for maintaining customer trust and compliance with evolving data privacy regulations, thereby ensuring the ethical and responsible use of data.
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ABM Accounts
Article | January 11, 2022
High-value content plays a key role in account-based marketing. Account-based marketing uses content to nurture leads and address their pain points throughout the sales process.
A perfect ABM strategy is one that provides relevant content to the right prospects at the right time. ABM content needs to be personal and highly relevant to create an impact on the stakeholders of your target account.
In an interview with Media 7, Stuart Sumner, Editorial Director at Incisive Media, talked about the importance of content in marketing strategy.
“The best way to win the content war is to have better, more valuable, and more timely content than your competitors. You need to offer audiences a regular supply of high-quality, in-depth content, which they can’t get elsewhere.”
The need for effective content is all-encompassing across industries, demographics, and niche domains. It helps businesses seek solutions to their critical business challenges. Reading through the opinions of other thought leaders from the industry influences their purchase decisions. So, good quality, reliable content can convince a business that you are the ideal choice for a B2B association.
How Should ABM Content Be Organized?
Creating effective content is the need of the hour, but it can be challenging if done without a direction or goal in mind.
Your ABM content should build brand awareness, and engage the readers while also presenting value to them. It should also be personalized enough to convey your involvement and dedication to your target account. To organize ABM content effectively, follow these steps:
Conduct Stringent Research
Stringently researching your target audience can help to create a content framework that can capture the solutions to their problems, their needs, and their interests. When you investigate the target accounts in-depth, you will know what aspects you can leverage to capture their attention and interest. Then you can organize the content to engage them.
Another interesting approach is to directly ask your audience about the kind of content they enjoy and their preferred formats. These insights can help you personalize the content better because 80% of consumers prefer shopping with brands that provide a personalized experience. You might also be able to leverage content for more than one account.
Maintain a Content Inventory
The research-based content that was created before you developed your ABM strategy can be repurposed to target the accounts in your focus. Creating a content library and mapping the intent of your content can help you with repurposing the correct content. The more detailed your content library, the easier it gets to reuse it. Consider organizing your content library with dates, extra information, highlights, and formats so you can start using the content without much ado.
The content you develop should complement your ABM strategy. As a part of your ABM strategy, it should add value to your marketing effort.
Create a Content Matrix
Create a content matrix that lists out the target accounts in your focus. It is a tool to organize your data to meet your marketing objectives. Based on your objectives, you can carry out content mapping to influence purchase decisions for these accounts. This can help you decide on the purpose of your content strategy. Do you want to create awareness or incite action from your readers? By figuring out what you want, you can use your content matrix to understand the scope to personalize the content in line with your ABM goals.
Analyze Your Performance
Experiment with different formats, visuals, and messages while creating your content. Measure the success of your content strategy like you measure the success of your ABM strategy using KPIs. Gauge how your audience reacts to different formats and visuals to know what to focus more on. Revise, retest, repurpose the content till you get the best output. It all boils down to how well you organize your ABM content.
ABM Content Best Practices
Best practices should be followed when creating content to achieve sales and marketing alignment, drive ROI, and target key accounts. Periodically engaging in website content mapping and content research to see how your content is doing is vital. Here are the ABM content best practices you should follow to organize ABM content:
1. Personalize the content to suit your target account’s needs.
2. Conduct regular SEO and content audits to find any flaws or unresponsive content.
3. Optimize your content to meet search engine optimization needs.
4. Repurpose your content regularly to make the most of it.
5. Support your content with good design.
6. Focus on creating interactive ABM content.
7. Your content should build trust in the minds of your target accounts.
How Coca-Cola’s Fanbase on Facebook Increased by 39% Because of Organized Content
Coca-Cola’s famous ‘Share a Coke’ campaign targeted Australian millennials to improve their sales numbers in the summer of 2011. Under this campaign, Coca-Cola offered name-branded coke bottles to the customers. Through stringent research, understanding their audiences’ preferred formats (TV commercials, newspapers, bus ads, and social media), and implementing strong CTAs in their ads, Coca-Cola gained a 39% increase in its Facebook fanbase.
Key Takeaway
The way you formulate and organize ABM content plays a key role in driving results from your ABM strategy. It is crucial that you dedicate time and resources to creating, personalizing, organizing, presenting, and analyzing the content you offer to your target accounts. You can drive a higher ROI from your ABM and content strategy only when your approach to content is as focused as your ABM strategy.
FAQ
What is a content matrix?
A content matrix is a tool that a marketer can use to plan and offer the right content in the right format and on the right platform to the target audience.
How can you use old content in your ABM strategy?
You can use your old content by repurposing it to better target your key accounts.
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