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5 Essential Elements of an Intent Data Strategy

Intent Data Strategy
Intent data is a modern sales intelligence tool that helps you capture a prospect’s buying signals. By using an effective intent data strategy, you can be the first to reach out to a prospect and aim for a conversion.

In an interview with Media 7, Gil Allouche, CEO of Metadata.io, talked about the importance of data in converting leads.

“With access to valuable data, marketers are focused on leads that are more likely to become buyers. They can also work on targeting their messaging towards these potential buyers.”

According to SalesIntel, 97% of B2B marketers agree that intent data will give brands a competitive edge.

Intent data collects signals that come from consumption of content like:
  • Blogs and infographics
  • Product comparisons
  • Product reviews
  • Message boards
  • Case studies
  • News

However, it can be challenging to incorporate intent data into marketing and sales initiatives. Regardless of whether you're working with first-party, second-party, or third-party intent data, it can have multiple applications across a range of systems and workflows and may overwhelm your team.

An excellent B2B intent data approach can ease the process and use of intent data. Motivate your team to harness the power of intent data to drive business growth.

5 Essential Elements of an Intent Data Strategy

52% of B2B tech companies implement an intent data strategy in their account-based marketing program. (Source: SalesIntel)

This statistic shows that more and more B2B marketers are seeking the help of intent data to make their account targeting more effective.

Let us look at what essential steps you should take while integrating B2B intent data into your account-based marketing program.

Alignment: Your Intent Data Strategy Should Line up with Your ABM Strategy

To get the results you expect, synchronize it with your ABM marketing strategy. You can use intent data in different ways to optimize your account-based marketing. Here are two of the many ways it can help you with target account prioritization:
  • Bind the intent data to your ICP criteria. Which ones show buyer intent out of the accounts that match your ICP? This information can help your marketing team push these accounts further into the funnel. Your sales reps will have meaningful communication with these target accounts. Overall, the chances of conversion will go up because you know the intent of your ICP-based target accounts.
  • There may be net new accounts showing buyer intent but they fall outside your pre-defined ICP. Segment these accounts and increase your sales pipeline. If your company doesn't have a lot of data, this use case can help you change or define your ICP criteria and help your sales pipeline.

Buy-In: Bring Your Teams Together

For all the teams to come together and work towards the same business goals and objectives, you need to get buy-in from the C-suite of your company. Only your leadership can drive your sales and teams to break silos and work with the mindset of establishing processes and using tactics that can create harmony between them. Ensure that the teams understand what you want to achieve with intent data for ABM. Share it with them and align on a follow-up strategy, metrics, and key accounts. Set up training programs so that your teams understand the newness and precision that intent data will bring to account-based marketing.

Testing: Begin with a Small Pilot

Apply your strategy to a small set of accounts. Involve limited sales team members within your company, probably a team you are closely associated with, to oversee the use of intent data in B2B marketing through your ABM program. This can help you understand where the strategy needs to be tweaked and what approach you need to use while using intent data. Pilot testing is an effective way of streamlining and recording your processes. It can be the foundation for implementing all your intent data initiatives for other sales teams over time. Get everyone on board to analyze the results of your pilot test and then decide on the best way to integrate intent data into your account-based marketing program.

Analysis: Examine the Performance Metrics

To gauge the impact of intent data on your account-based marketing program, you must collect conversion rates before the pilot test. This way, you can compare the before and after rates and examine how intent data helps ABM. Marketing and sales teams can look at what works and eliminate what doesn’t. This learning curve is crucial before you use intent data companywide.

Integration: Collate Your Systems with Intent Data

You can amplify the impact of your data strategy by integrating it with your systems like CRM, marketing automation software, and ABM platform. Through intent-based marketing, you can increase the performance and visibility of your brand throughout the sales funnel. Integration can also spearhead landing deals and expand your account-based strategy across different domains.

Implementing an intent data strategy step-by-step can lead to success and benefit all teams across all departments, increase customer satisfaction, and enable you to scale your business.

Kazoo Saw a 2-3x Increase in Reply Rates after Using Bombora’s Company Surge

Kazoo, an employee experience platform, integrated data from Bombora’s Company Surge buyer intent data tool with its 6sense account engagement platform data. It saw a 2-3x increase in reply rates.

Conclusion

When combined with additional data, B2B intent data can help you develop a scoring model that considers fit and engagement, making it more effective. If you use intent data in B2B marketing correctly, it can be a great way to improve your ABM strategy.

FAQ

How can an intent data strategy enhance ABM?

It can help in ABM marketing by indicating early buyer interest, facilitating content personalization, and helping with creating targeted account lists and lead scoring.

How can sales and marketing teams benefit from intent data?

Sales and marketing teams can use intent data for ABM to create effective go-to-market strategies, accurate target account segmentation, and personalized outreach.

What does intent data do to improve lead scoring?

Intent data provides predictive purchase insights. With the help of this information, you can approach the accounts close to making purchase decisions.

Spotlight

Avenue Marketing Strategy and Activation

Avenue. Driving change and growth for mid-size B2B . We are: A marketing strategy and activation firm that specializes in helping middle market B2B organizations drive growth and capitalize on moments of change. You are: A mid-sized B2B business or business unit of a larger organization with ambitious new growth goals and expectations that are likely being triggered by a big change, such as a merger, change in leadership, a marketplace disruption, or even your own new product launch. As a hybrid strategy and creative firm, we can help you: better understand your buyers' needs and your organization’s nature; develop a more meaningful brand strategy; engage employees; equip and align marketing and sales; and develop more creative and effective go-to-market programs.

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Buyer Intent Data

How 6sense’s Embedded CDP Creates Immediate Wins

Article | October 7, 2022

Here’s a (somehow) well-kept secret about ABX: it can create immediate wins for your teams. When you and your teams start laser-focusing on the right prospects and customers — at the right time — it doesn’t take long for the wins to start piling up. Why? A winning ABX strategy will leverage an AI-powered customer data platform (CDP) that has an existing database of critical information such as: What your ideal customer profile (ICP) looks like Accounts you might not know about that are in-market and ready-to-buy The websites, keywords, and topics your buyers research most The signals your buyers give off when they’re ready to buy When you leverage this historical data, it’s like flipping on a spotlight on your most important accounts and everything they’re doing. Let’s look at why a CDP is so important for an ABX strategy and how you can switch your thinking from, “When will I start seeing ROI?” to “How will I capitalize on all of these opportunities?” How CDPs Bolster Your ABX Strategy Pursuing an ABX strategy means fine-tuning your revenue activities (marketing, sales, operations) to target very specific accounts. The critical data you need about those accounts comes from your CDP, which houses all of the interactions you have with your prospects and customers. That information includes: Web pages they visit Webinars they attend Content they download Calls they have with your sales team The CDP ingests all of that data and starts to learn what your typical buyer looks like, the patterns they follow, and what signals they give off when they’re ready to buy. Over time, and with enough data from your interactions, this information becomes very powerful and enables your teams to start honing their strategies. All of your revenue activities become more efficient because you’re reaching the right buyer at the right time. There’s a problem with traditional standalone CDPs, however. They can’t look backwards. They can only begin collecting data once implemented, and therefore take some time to start uncovering patterns and delivering results. But what if you could unlock the CDP-version of a flying DeLorean that empowers you travel into the past and unlock those missing puzzle pieces — without waiting for your CDP to ingest enough data? Win Fast with a CDP Full of Critical Data The key to unlocking fast wins for your ABX strategy is to utilize a CDP with historical first-party and third-party data. Your buyers have searched keywords related to your offerings, attended industry events, and read third-party review sites long before you implement a stand-alone CDP. Why should you have to wait for the platform to catch up and uncover those insights that are hiding in plain sight? 6sense’s embedded CDP grants you instant access to all of the historical data that our AI-powered platform has collected for years. Previously anonymous accounts that have been researching topics that match your offerings A detailed ICP based on real, historical data Insights into which of your prospects are actually in-market and ready-to-buy Clear evidence on which accounts and buyers should be prioritized We call uncovering this information lighting up the Dark Funnel™. When you shine a light on your Dark Funnel™ your teams can immediately start reaping the benefits. It won’t take months or even weeks to get your first wins — within days you can see a positive impact on your pipeline. Your sales team will get leaner and meaner. No need to spend hours trawling through LinkedIn to find the one uncovered gem of a prospect. As soon as you leverage an embedded CDP loaded with historical data, you’ll discover exactly who your next target should be. Your inside sales team can focus on personalizing outreach, not figuring out who to talk to. Your marketing team will begin improving their engagement numbers without increasing their spend. When a Director of Sales at “Ready-to-Buy Corporation” has been performing some under-the-radar research, the marketing team will receive an alert and can start targeting that person with ads that address their specific pain points. Software development company PTC is a good example. It has used 6sense to uncover more than 1,500 net new high-intent accounts that have generated $18 million in pipeline. “With 6sense, our team has driven outbound success by being empowered, motivated, and eager to strategically prospect to the right targets with relevant messaging,” says Brenda Souto, High Velocity Sales Manager at PTC. Conclusion Traditional standalone CDPs help you capture the interactions you have with your prospects and customers. All of this data is very useful to build a focused and efficient ABX strategy. But, a standalone CDP lacks historical data and trends — meaning it can take longer to see wins and ROI. An embedded CDP with a treasure trove of previous interactions, buying signals, and trend data can instantly prioritize your target accounts. Within days your teams will know much more about your buyers and how to target them with the right message at the right time.

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Buyer Intent Data

How Sales and Marketing Can Work Together to Form an Effective B2B Sales Funnel.

Article | August 8, 2021

In any company, there is a sales function and a marketing function. They are supposed to work together to help the organization secure business, earn revenue, and facilitate growth. Oftentimes, because of the nature of their business, sales and marketing work at cross purposes and they lose focus on their ultimate objective of identifying, creating, and retaining customers. In this article, we will discuss how sales and marketing can work together to form an effective B2B sales funnel. But first, let’s explore the roles of sales and marketing within an organization. Sales are the function of driving revenue with salespeople who follow a defined sales process. A typical sales process involves a research phase to ensure that the intended customer is a good fit to the company’s Ideal Customer Profile, a discovery phase where the salesperson gets to know the customer, understand their needs, and see where their solution can help solve the customer’s problem, a demonstration phase where the seller lets the buyer envision how their solution for a product or service can satisfy the buyer’s need. A proposal phase is proactive and where the seller provides the customer with an outline of the work they will undertake and at what price. Sometimes a seller will instead be responding to a buyer’s request for a proposal (RFP). Up until this point in the sales process, prospective customers are referred to as “suspects,” meaning that they may be a good fit, but they have not expressed any interest in the company’s solutions and the company has not proposed any ways in which it could be of service. However, once a salesperson provides the prospective customer with a proposal, that prospective customer becomes known as a “prospect.” In sales, the measurement of potential revenue and its progress towards realization is called a sales “funnel.” In a sales funnel, the probability of the salesperson closing the sale is now weighted with percentages demonstrating the likelihood of success. In the sales process, opportunities are weighted based on their probability of closing. This is called opportunity management and it looks something like this: 0% of the prospect is identified by researching the intended sales target company. 10% of the prospect is prequalified as a potential good fit in alignment with the company’s Ideal Customer Profile (I.D.C.). 25% of the prospect is qualified via a discovery call, and the opportunity is loaded into the sales funnel. 40% is when the buyer agrees to a demonstration, shows genuine buying interest, and is open to receiving a proposal. 50% is the assessment phase where the seller determines if the buyer has Budget, Authority, Need, and the Timeframe for implementation, (B.A.N.T.). Another component of the sale to be addressed at this phase is “why,” as in, “Why is the buyer making this purchase decision, why is my company being considered, and why is this timeframe for implementation important?” 60% is when a proposal is submitted to the buyer for consideration. (Pro tip: A good salesperson will have the boilerplate components of the contract pre-vetted by legal and IT when the proposal is initially submitted to the buyer so that the contract does not get held up at the bottom of the funnel by any issues not within the buyer’s control when it is ready to close). 75% is the negotiation phase where the buyer/decision-maker(s) asks clarifying questions that show an intent to purchase or express some objections that the seller will need to overcome to move the sale forward. 90% is when both parties agree to all the conditions of the purchase and the final contract is submitted for signature. 100% is when the sale is closed and the revenue can be recognized. If the funnel can be trusted, and oftentimes that’s a big “if” because salespeople are not always disciplined in opportunity management, then revenue recognized can be forecasted beginning at 75% of probability. At every phase of the sales funnel, sales are conducted by calling, emailing, texting, or other outreach to prospective and existing customers to guide them towards making a purchase. The process might be consultative, taking place over a long period and involving multiple decision-makers in which the salesperson learns about the customer and their pain points, and then helps them understand how their product or service offering can provide a solution. Sales could also be tactical and a very short process involving just a single conversation with a salesperson before an agreement is finalized. Although technology and social media have certainly influenced how sales are conducted, the essential steps of the sales process have pretty much remained the same. Whereas sales are hands-on, marketing is a much more comprehensive process that does not generally interact with an individual customer but is designed to increase awareness of a brand or product to target customers as a group. Unlike sales, the methods, tactics, and channels used by marketers have evolved tremendously over the last fifteen years. Marketing today is primarily digital and includes content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, organic website traffic, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and the use of influencers and brand ambassadors. The objective of the marketing department is to generate leads for the sales department. These leads start as “marketing qualified leads” (MQLs) and although these prospective buyers are not yet ready to purchase, they have expressed interest in a company’s product. When properly nurtured by the marketing department, these prospects become “sales qualified leads” (SQL’s) and are handed off by the marketing team to the sales team when they are likely to make a purchase. This nurturing can occur via social media, email distribution, or other communication from the marketing team to keep the prospective client interested and engaged. It would seem so easy for marketing to cultivate leads and hand them off to the sales team. However, this is often not the case. Too frequently marketing and sales are simply misaligned. Just consider these statistics: According to Upland, 55% of marketers don’t know which collateral their sales colleagues are most likely to use. LinkedIn reports that only 46% of marketers describe sales and marketing as “highly aligned” at their company. The Precision Marketing Group states that 25% of businesses describe their sales and marketing as either “misaligned” or “rarely aligned”. This lack of synchronization between marketing and sales causes poor execution and lost opportunities. According to LinkedIn’s Art of Winning Report, an estimated $1 trillion a year is lost due to a lack of sales and marketing coordination in the US alone. An industry survey by InsideView found that the six biggest obstacles to sales and marketing working together were: Lack of accurate/shared data on target accounts and prospects (43%) Communication (43%) Use of different metrics (41%) Broken/flawed processes (37%) Lack of accountability on both sides (25%) Reporting challenges (21%) Simply put, marketing and sales need to collaborate more effectively to better manage today’s sales funnel. But how? According to digital marketing strategist, Sujan Patel, there are three levels of marketing alignment: The Emotional Level: Your Sales and Marketing teams should be working cohesively together and supporting each other. They should not be working at cross-purposes. The Process Level: There need to be clear, measurable, sustainable, and repeatable processes in place to ensure that everyone within both the marketing and sales teams is pulling in the same direction and working in the same way. The Feedback Loop Level: Marketing doesn’t always produce awesome leads. Sometimes they might suck. Nobody’s perfect. That’s why sales need to communicate back to marketing so there is a feedback loop between the two teams to either encourage good leads or stop wasting company resources on bad ones. An effective partnership between sales and marketing is the #1 success factor attributed to achieving revenue goals. (Source: Heinz Marketing - Performance Management Report) So, how can we get sales and marketing to work better together? It starts with having a project plan in place. The first step is for sales and marketing to agree on what the ideal customer profile (I.D.C.) of a target customer should be. They need to agree on the characteristics that define the type of company (not the individual buyer or end-user) that will find the most value in their product or service offering. If done correctly, prospects that are aligned to the company’s IDC are most likely to become long-term customers who will give significant value back to the business in the form of possible subscription fees, upsells, and referrals. An easy way to identify the IDC of a company is to look at a list of their current best-performing customers and determine what attributes they have in common. The next step is for sales to explain to marketing the steps of the sales funnel, how it works and what marketing resources are needed to migrate the prospective customer through it. Too often, marketing is concerned with branding and outreach, and they do not allocate sufficient resources to the sales team to give them the resources and collateral they need to expedite their sales. Once sales and marketing are aligned regarding who the IDC of a company is and what marketing resources should be allocated to support the sales team, an organization can take its game up a level and begin to pursue account-based marketing (A.B.M.) opportunities. Account-based marketing is when marketing and sales teams work together in a focused approach to target best-fit accounts and turn them into customers. When done correctly, marketing and sales teams meld their expertise to locate, engage with, and close deals with high-value accounts that offer a high ROI to their company. The primary components of account-based marketing include: Reaching the right accounts Engaging across marketing channels Determining effective metrics and measurements According to LinkedIn research, businesses with strong sales and marketing alignment are 67% more effective at closing deals, 58% more effective at retaining customers, and drive 208% more revenue as a result of their marketing efforts. So, whether an organization is pursuing a traditional marketing approach or a more targeted account-based marketing strategy, it is essential for marketing to work more closely with sales in vigorous and meaningful ways. Today’s buyer is more knowledgeable and has access to more information about a prospective seller, their competition, and the marketplace than ever before. As a result, sales leaders need to demonstrate subject matter expertise in their area of commerce and leverage the content, tools, and resources that the marketing department can provide them to enhance their sales efforts. Although good salespeople will find a way to close business, having the support of a well-synchronized marketing team behind them will help accelerate the sales process, increase revenue, boost profitability and facilitate greater customer satisfaction.

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Buyer Intent Data

Effective Ways of Funding Your ABM Strategy

Article | August 23, 2022

ABM is B2B marketing with a higher ROI. It involves going after fewer accounts with a more personalized approach. So, account selection is vital. No matter the budget, if you fumble the ball in the account selection process, your campaign is bound to fail. Guesswork is not an option. You need to stringently research your ideal accounts based on your ICP (ideal customer profile). In an interview with Media 7, Maliha Aqeel, Director of Global Communications at Fix Network World, talked about the common mistakes companies make while implementing brand strategy. Not budgeting your ABM strategy correctly may be one of them. "One of the most common mistakes companies make is implementing a brand strategy that isn’t aligned to the organization’s overall business goal." Businesses that want to transition into ABM are often confused and have several questions about ABM implementation. One of the most important questions they have is about budgeting. According to a 2016 report by SiriusDecisions, 33% of companies allocated at least 30% of their marketing budgets to ABM. In 2017 that number increased up to 52% — a 57% year over year increase. Their 2019 State of Account-Based Marketing Study showed that the average ABM budget is around $350,000 excluding head count costs. Going by these statistics, how much should you invest in your ABM strategy? It is common to finalize a strategy way in advance. Allocating budgets to a certain strategy and then deciding to execute ABM can be a pain. Before deciding on your ABM budget and streamlining your ABM funding strategy, consider the following factors: Factors to Consider for ABM Funding Know Your Target Accounts Business size, decision-makers, departments, positions, interests, demographics, get all the information you can on your target accounts. Make sure you are investing your money in the right target accounts. The bigger your target account, the more stakeholders, and departments there are to manage. This may considerably increase the cost and complexity of your campaign. Your Advertising Budget Zero in on the platforms you want to use to engage your target audience. Once you do this, you will get an idea of how much you need to spend to reach your audience on these platforms and get maximum engagement. Additional marketing techniques like seminars, webinars, conferences, and other events should also be considered in your ABM funding. Brand Awareness Gather information on how well your target accounts know your brand. If they already know your brand, then you are saving time and money on creating a new relationship from scratch. However, if your brand does not have a good reputation or reach, creating new leads requires more resources than creating new opportunities. Your Product’s Complexity If your product or service complexity is high, you need to work harder to explain its advantages and benefits to convince the stakeholders of your target accounts. This effort is directly proportional to the amount of money you need to spend. Your Customer’s Needs The customer’s need for your product or service defines how much you need to spend on advertising. If there is no urgency or if there are many similar solutions that they have used in the past, it becomes difficult to convince them to use your product or service. In short, if they don’t need your product, you need to spend a better part of your budget on impressing them. Your Competition The more competitors you have, the more aggressive your campaign needs to be. An aggressive campaign will need a bigger budget. It gets trickier if your competitors already have an established relationship with your target account. However, if you have the target account’s CLV (customer lifetime value) figured out, you can easily determine how much you need to spend on pursuing a particular account. Technology Integration To deliver hyper personalized account-based experiences, you need to find suitable technological platforms to launch your ABM strategy. Platforms like ABM Unified Workforce are an ideal start because of their unified approach to strategy implementation. Consider allocating a part of your budget to technology integrations so you remain up-to-speed with modern implementations like marketing automation. It will also help you optimize your campaign results. ABM Partners You need knowledge, human resources, and technology to launch and successfully run account-based marketing campaigns. Alternatively, you can also hire new staff or train the people you already have. Partnering with an ABM agency is also a great option. It not only saves you the time and effort of finding the right marketers, but it also delivers the results and metrics you expect. There are many service providers in the market who can help you kick-start your ABM campaign. Funding Your ABM Strategy Now that you know the factors that should be considered for your ABM funding, let us look at some tips to enhance your budgeting. Identify Target Account CLV In ABM, less is more, so identify target accounts based on their CLV. It may require three or more years for your ABM campaign to show results, so make sure you periodically assess your target account’s CLV before making big investments. Harness Technology Tie your technology budget with sales. Support your goals and streamline your processes by using martech. Collaborating with specialized agencies that have talent and technology can uplift your ABM campaign. Not only do agencies quickly launch your campaign, but they also save you the trouble of recruiting new staff. However, make sure you engage a trustworthy agency with the best technology offerings and expertise. Get Approval and Support from Stakeholders Get your stakeholders on your side by justifying your budget with a list of target accounts and their projected value. If you are planning to implement ABM, then you should already have a preliminary version of your ABM funding proposal ready. Measure Your Performance Use relationships, reputation, and revenue, the three crucial R’s to measure your performance. These should be your benchmarks and should be assessed periodically. Conclusion ABM funding takes effort and time but doing it diligently can bring an increase in ROI, brand awareness, revenue, and confidence in ABM. FAQ What is the first step in your ABM funding strategy? The first step in your ABM funding strategy is to know your target accounts through stringent research. What are the three important Rs for measuring ABM performance? The three important Rs for measuring ABM’s performance are relationship, reputation, and revenue.

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Buyer Intent Data

Intent Marketing: Removing Guesswork Out of Marketing

Article | October 7, 2022

In 2018, Demand Gen Report’s ABM Benchmark Survey found that 25% of participating B2B companies used buyer intent data and monitoring tools. 35% of them planned on using intent data within a year. Cut to 2022, and about 99% of B2B marketers are using some form of B2B intent data in their marketing campaigns to target accounts (Source: InboxInsight). In his exclusive interview with Media 7, Gil Allouche, CEO of Metadata.io, talked about how data helps convert leads. “With access to valuable data, marketers are focused on leads that are more likely to become buyers. They can also work on targeting their messaging towards these potential buyers.” Buyer intent data helps in creating a robust foundation for your marketing efforts. Let us look at how intent marketing can help you get the sales and ROI you desire. Intent Marketing: The New Normal in B2B Intent-based marketing uses consumer data that signals purchasing intent through consumption of relevant content like blogs and infographics; product comparisons; product reviews; message boards; case studies; and news. Through this data, you can find out what your prospects are looking for, which stage of the customer journey they are in, if they are researching solutions or ready to make a purchase, and what kind of steps you can take to get in front of them. One of the most important benefits of intent marketing is that it removes the guesswork out of your marketing campaigns and ensures that you are targeting the correct prospects. This targeting can be done through either intent-based branding or intent-based marketing. Intent-based branding decodes the behavior of your target audience online while intent-based marketing harnesses data on the prospect’s buying behavior so you can tailor your marketing offerings accordingly. Consequently, your sales cycle is shortened. Power-up Your Content Strategy The biggest challenge B2B marketers like you face today is to cut through all the noise and create an impact on their prospects. Consumers have a host of content options. However, they do not want to consume unnecessary information. When the content is personalized to match their needs and goals, they are more likely to engage with it. Intent data helps you plan your content as it provides you with information on the theme, buyer personas and their behavior, buyer journey maps, content formats, copy, call to action (CTA), and keyword strategy that will best suit your prospect targeting efforts. An intent-based content strategy can deliver leads while increasing conversion rates and sales. It can give you the competitive edge you need to influence your prospects at the right time. Drive Sales and ROI Intent marketing brings in more conversions on landing pages and overall higher traffic and qualified leads to your website. It uses intent information to recruit engaged prospects for sales demos and events. It helps sales teams to effectively rank their leads and accounts so that they can focus on the right leads at the right time and not miss out on any sales opportunities. Your sales teams can execute effective nurture campaigns and create sales pitches with messaging that appeals to a target account’s buying committee. This messaging addresses the account’s pain points and requirements and accelerates the buying decision. Additionally, intent marketing helps improve customer retention rates and makes it easy for teams to identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities. It takes into consideration the existing customers’ signals to find any at-risk accounts to prevent churn and increase renewal. Data-driven Marketing Personalization Intent data makes it easy to personalize your marketing efforts and provides an accurate report of prospective signals, their needs, and interests so that you can segment and categorize them. Once this segmentation is done, you can determine what kind of content needs to be created and displayed for these accounts depending on their position in the buying cycle. With this kind of personalization, your target audience gets to know that you care about them and you can connect with them on a deeper level. Increase ABM Efficiency B2B buyer intent data helps your marketing, sales, and customer success teams align their goals so that they can agree on target accounts, establish lead hand-off processes, and diversify investments to target newer, relevant accounts while maintaining the current customer list. Intent data provides marketing intelligence for creating ICP in marketing, messaging, and brand positions for B2B account-based marketing. Additionally, it provides account intelligence for target account list creation, ways to increase engagement, improve lead scoring in ABM and lead nurturing tracks, thus increasing the efficiency of your account-based marketing. Summing It Up Intent-based marketing helps B2B marketers like you to understand potential customers so you can find high-value accounts and nurture them through customized content and targeted campaigns.

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Buyer Intent Data

Intent Marketing: Removing Guesswork Out of Marketing

Article | October 7, 2022

Here’s a (somehow) well-kept secret about ABX: it can create immediate wins for your teams. When you and your teams start laser-focusing on the right prospects and customers — at the right time — it doesn’t take long for the wins to start piling up. Why? A winning ABX strategy will leverage an AI-powered customer data platform (CDP) that has an existing database of critical information such as: What your ideal customer profile (ICP) looks like Accounts you might not know about that are in-market and ready-to-buy The websites, keywords, and topics your buyers research most The signals your buyers give off when they’re ready to buy When you leverage this historical data, it’s like flipping on a spotlight on your most important accounts and everything they’re doing. Let’s look at why a CDP is so important for an ABX strategy and how you can switch your thinking from, “When will I start seeing ROI?” to “How will I capitalize on all of these opportunities?” How CDPs Bolster Your ABX Strategy Pursuing an ABX strategy means fine-tuning your revenue activities (marketing, sales, operations) to target very specific accounts. The critical data you need about those accounts comes from your CDP, which houses all of the interactions you have with your prospects and customers. That information includes: Web pages they visit Webinars they attend Content they download Calls they have with your sales team The CDP ingests all of that data and starts to learn what your typical buyer looks like, the patterns they follow, and what signals they give off when they’re ready to buy. Over time, and with enough data from your interactions, this information becomes very powerful and enables your teams to start honing their strategies. All of your revenue activities become more efficient because you’re reaching the right buyer at the right time. There’s a problem with traditional standalone CDPs, however. They can’t look backwards. They can only begin collecting data once implemented, and therefore take some time to start uncovering patterns and delivering results. But what if you could unlock the CDP-version of a flying DeLorean that empowers you travel into the past and unlock those missing puzzle pieces — without waiting for your CDP to ingest enough data? Win Fast with a CDP Full of Critical Data The key to unlocking fast wins for your ABX strategy is to utilize a CDP with historical first-party and third-party data. Your buyers have searched keywords related to your offerings, attended industry events, and read third-party review sites long before you implement a stand-alone CDP. Why should you have to wait for the platform to catch up and uncover those insights that are hiding in plain sight? 6sense’s embedded CDP grants you instant access to all of the historical data that our AI-powered platform has collected for years. Previously anonymous accounts that have been researching topics that match your offerings A detailed ICP based on real, historical data Insights into which of your prospects are actually in-market and ready-to-buy Clear evidence on which accounts and buyers should be prioritized We call uncovering this information lighting up the Dark Funnel™. When you shine a light on your Dark Funnel™ your teams can immediately start reaping the benefits. It won’t take months or even weeks to get your first wins — within days you can see a positive impact on your pipeline. Your sales team will get leaner and meaner. No need to spend hours trawling through LinkedIn to find the one uncovered gem of a prospect. As soon as you leverage an embedded CDP loaded with historical data, you’ll discover exactly who your next target should be. Your inside sales team can focus on personalizing outreach, not figuring out who to talk to. Your marketing team will begin improving their engagement numbers without increasing their spend. When a Director of Sales at “Ready-to-Buy Corporation” has been performing some under-the-radar research, the marketing team will receive an alert and can start targeting that person with ads that address their specific pain points. Software development company PTC is a good example. It has used 6sense to uncover more than 1,500 net new high-intent accounts that have generated $18 million in pipeline. “With 6sense, our team has driven outbound success by being empowered, motivated, and eager to strategically prospect to the right targets with relevant messaging,” says Brenda Souto, High Velocity Sales Manager at PTC. Conclusion Traditional standalone CDPs help you capture the interactions you have with your prospects and customers. All of this data is very useful to build a focused and efficient ABX strategy. But, a standalone CDP lacks historical data and trends — meaning it can take longer to see wins and ROI. An embedded CDP with a treasure trove of previous interactions, buying signals, and trend data can instantly prioritize your target accounts. Within days your teams will know much more about your buyers and how to target them with the right message at the right time.

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Buyer Intent Data

Get In Front of the Competition: Use Intent Data to Find the Accounts that Drive Your Busines

Article | August 8, 2021

In any company, there is a sales function and a marketing function. They are supposed to work together to help the organization secure business, earn revenue, and facilitate growth. Oftentimes, because of the nature of their business, sales and marketing work at cross purposes and they lose focus on their ultimate objective of identifying, creating, and retaining customers. In this article, we will discuss how sales and marketing can work together to form an effective B2B sales funnel. But first, let’s explore the roles of sales and marketing within an organization. Sales are the function of driving revenue with salespeople who follow a defined sales process. A typical sales process involves a research phase to ensure that the intended customer is a good fit to the company’s Ideal Customer Profile, a discovery phase where the salesperson gets to know the customer, understand their needs, and see where their solution can help solve the customer’s problem, a demonstration phase where the seller lets the buyer envision how their solution for a product or service can satisfy the buyer’s need. A proposal phase is proactive and where the seller provides the customer with an outline of the work they will undertake and at what price. Sometimes a seller will instead be responding to a buyer’s request for a proposal (RFP). Up until this point in the sales process, prospective customers are referred to as “suspects,” meaning that they may be a good fit, but they have not expressed any interest in the company’s solutions and the company has not proposed any ways in which it could be of service. However, once a salesperson provides the prospective customer with a proposal, that prospective customer becomes known as a “prospect.” In sales, the measurement of potential revenue and its progress towards realization is called a sales “funnel.” In a sales funnel, the probability of the salesperson closing the sale is now weighted with percentages demonstrating the likelihood of success. In the sales process, opportunities are weighted based on their probability of closing. This is called opportunity management and it looks something like this: 0% of the prospect is identified by researching the intended sales target company. 10% of the prospect is prequalified as a potential good fit in alignment with the company’s Ideal Customer Profile (I.D.C.). 25% of the prospect is qualified via a discovery call, and the opportunity is loaded into the sales funnel. 40% is when the buyer agrees to a demonstration, shows genuine buying interest, and is open to receiving a proposal. 50% is the assessment phase where the seller determines if the buyer has Budget, Authority, Need, and the Timeframe for implementation, (B.A.N.T.). Another component of the sale to be addressed at this phase is “why,” as in, “Why is the buyer making this purchase decision, why is my company being considered, and why is this timeframe for implementation important?” 60% is when a proposal is submitted to the buyer for consideration. (Pro tip: A good salesperson will have the boilerplate components of the contract pre-vetted by legal and IT when the proposal is initially submitted to the buyer so that the contract does not get held up at the bottom of the funnel by any issues not within the buyer’s control when it is ready to close). 75% is the negotiation phase where the buyer/decision-maker(s) asks clarifying questions that show an intent to purchase or express some objections that the seller will need to overcome to move the sale forward. 90% is when both parties agree to all the conditions of the purchase and the final contract is submitted for signature. 100% is when the sale is closed and the revenue can be recognized. If the funnel can be trusted, and oftentimes that’s a big “if” because salespeople are not always disciplined in opportunity management, then revenue recognized can be forecasted beginning at 75% of probability. At every phase of the sales funnel, sales are conducted by calling, emailing, texting, or other outreach to prospective and existing customers to guide them towards making a purchase. The process might be consultative, taking place over a long period and involving multiple decision-makers in which the salesperson learns about the customer and their pain points, and then helps them understand how their product or service offering can provide a solution. Sales could also be tactical and a very short process involving just a single conversation with a salesperson before an agreement is finalized. Although technology and social media have certainly influenced how sales are conducted, the essential steps of the sales process have pretty much remained the same. Whereas sales are hands-on, marketing is a much more comprehensive process that does not generally interact with an individual customer but is designed to increase awareness of a brand or product to target customers as a group. Unlike sales, the methods, tactics, and channels used by marketers have evolved tremendously over the last fifteen years. Marketing today is primarily digital and includes content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, organic website traffic, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and the use of influencers and brand ambassadors. The objective of the marketing department is to generate leads for the sales department. These leads start as “marketing qualified leads” (MQLs) and although these prospective buyers are not yet ready to purchase, they have expressed interest in a company’s product. When properly nurtured by the marketing department, these prospects become “sales qualified leads” (SQL’s) and are handed off by the marketing team to the sales team when they are likely to make a purchase. This nurturing can occur via social media, email distribution, or other communication from the marketing team to keep the prospective client interested and engaged. It would seem so easy for marketing to cultivate leads and hand them off to the sales team. However, this is often not the case. Too frequently marketing and sales are simply misaligned. Just consider these statistics: According to Upland, 55% of marketers don’t know which collateral their sales colleagues are most likely to use. LinkedIn reports that only 46% of marketers describe sales and marketing as “highly aligned” at their company. The Precision Marketing Group states that 25% of businesses describe their sales and marketing as either “misaligned” or “rarely aligned”. This lack of synchronization between marketing and sales causes poor execution and lost opportunities. According to LinkedIn’s Art of Winning Report, an estimated $1 trillion a year is lost due to a lack of sales and marketing coordination in the US alone. An industry survey by InsideView found that the six biggest obstacles to sales and marketing working together were: Lack of accurate/shared data on target accounts and prospects (43%) Communication (43%) Use of different metrics (41%) Broken/flawed processes (37%) Lack of accountability on both sides (25%) Reporting challenges (21%) Simply put, marketing and sales need to collaborate more effectively to better manage today’s sales funnel. But how? According to digital marketing strategist, Sujan Patel, there are three levels of marketing alignment: The Emotional Level: Your Sales and Marketing teams should be working cohesively together and supporting each other. They should not be working at cross-purposes. The Process Level: There need to be clear, measurable, sustainable, and repeatable processes in place to ensure that everyone within both the marketing and sales teams is pulling in the same direction and working in the same way. The Feedback Loop Level: Marketing doesn’t always produce awesome leads. Sometimes they might suck. Nobody’s perfect. That’s why sales need to communicate back to marketing so there is a feedback loop between the two teams to either encourage good leads or stop wasting company resources on bad ones. An effective partnership between sales and marketing is the #1 success factor attributed to achieving revenue goals. (Source: Heinz Marketing - Performance Management Report) So, how can we get sales and marketing to work better together? It starts with having a project plan in place. The first step is for sales and marketing to agree on what the ideal customer profile (I.D.C.) of a target customer should be. They need to agree on the characteristics that define the type of company (not the individual buyer or end-user) that will find the most value in their product or service offering. If done correctly, prospects that are aligned to the company’s IDC are most likely to become long-term customers who will give significant value back to the business in the form of possible subscription fees, upsells, and referrals. An easy way to identify the IDC of a company is to look at a list of their current best-performing customers and determine what attributes they have in common. The next step is for sales to explain to marketing the steps of the sales funnel, how it works and what marketing resources are needed to migrate the prospective customer through it. Too often, marketing is concerned with branding and outreach, and they do not allocate sufficient resources to the sales team to give them the resources and collateral they need to expedite their sales. Once sales and marketing are aligned regarding who the IDC of a company is and what marketing resources should be allocated to support the sales team, an organization can take its game up a level and begin to pursue account-based marketing (A.B.M.) opportunities. Account-based marketing is when marketing and sales teams work together in a focused approach to target best-fit accounts and turn them into customers. When done correctly, marketing and sales teams meld their expertise to locate, engage with, and close deals with high-value accounts that offer a high ROI to their company. The primary components of account-based marketing include: Reaching the right accounts Engaging across marketing channels Determining effective metrics and measurements According to LinkedIn research, businesses with strong sales and marketing alignment are 67% more effective at closing deals, 58% more effective at retaining customers, and drive 208% more revenue as a result of their marketing efforts. So, whether an organization is pursuing a traditional marketing approach or a more targeted account-based marketing strategy, it is essential for marketing to work more closely with sales in vigorous and meaningful ways. Today’s buyer is more knowledgeable and has access to more information about a prospective seller, their competition, and the marketplace than ever before. As a result, sales leaders need to demonstrate subject matter expertise in their area of commerce and leverage the content, tools, and resources that the marketing department can provide them to enhance their sales efforts. Although good salespeople will find a way to close business, having the support of a well-synchronized marketing team behind them will help accelerate the sales process, increase revenue, boost profitability and facilitate greater customer satisfaction.

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Buyer Intent Data

Transform Your Business into a Sales Machine with Buyer Intent Data

Article | August 23, 2022

ABM is B2B marketing with a higher ROI. It involves going after fewer accounts with a more personalized approach. So, account selection is vital. No matter the budget, if you fumble the ball in the account selection process, your campaign is bound to fail. Guesswork is not an option. You need to stringently research your ideal accounts based on your ICP (ideal customer profile). In an interview with Media 7, Maliha Aqeel, Director of Global Communications at Fix Network World, talked about the common mistakes companies make while implementing brand strategy. Not budgeting your ABM strategy correctly may be one of them. "One of the most common mistakes companies make is implementing a brand strategy that isn’t aligned to the organization’s overall business goal." Businesses that want to transition into ABM are often confused and have several questions about ABM implementation. One of the most important questions they have is about budgeting. According to a 2016 report by SiriusDecisions, 33% of companies allocated at least 30% of their marketing budgets to ABM. In 2017 that number increased up to 52% — a 57% year over year increase. Their 2019 State of Account-Based Marketing Study showed that the average ABM budget is around $350,000 excluding head count costs. Going by these statistics, how much should you invest in your ABM strategy? It is common to finalize a strategy way in advance. Allocating budgets to a certain strategy and then deciding to execute ABM can be a pain. Before deciding on your ABM budget and streamlining your ABM funding strategy, consider the following factors: Factors to Consider for ABM Funding Know Your Target Accounts Business size, decision-makers, departments, positions, interests, demographics, get all the information you can on your target accounts. Make sure you are investing your money in the right target accounts. The bigger your target account, the more stakeholders, and departments there are to manage. This may considerably increase the cost and complexity of your campaign. Your Advertising Budget Zero in on the platforms you want to use to engage your target audience. Once you do this, you will get an idea of how much you need to spend to reach your audience on these platforms and get maximum engagement. Additional marketing techniques like seminars, webinars, conferences, and other events should also be considered in your ABM funding. Brand Awareness Gather information on how well your target accounts know your brand. If they already know your brand, then you are saving time and money on creating a new relationship from scratch. However, if your brand does not have a good reputation or reach, creating new leads requires more resources than creating new opportunities. Your Product’s Complexity If your product or service complexity is high, you need to work harder to explain its advantages and benefits to convince the stakeholders of your target accounts. This effort is directly proportional to the amount of money you need to spend. Your Customer’s Needs The customer’s need for your product or service defines how much you need to spend on advertising. If there is no urgency or if there are many similar solutions that they have used in the past, it becomes difficult to convince them to use your product or service. In short, if they don’t need your product, you need to spend a better part of your budget on impressing them. Your Competition The more competitors you have, the more aggressive your campaign needs to be. An aggressive campaign will need a bigger budget. It gets trickier if your competitors already have an established relationship with your target account. However, if you have the target account’s CLV (customer lifetime value) figured out, you can easily determine how much you need to spend on pursuing a particular account. Technology Integration To deliver hyper personalized account-based experiences, you need to find suitable technological platforms to launch your ABM strategy. Platforms like ABM Unified Workforce are an ideal start because of their unified approach to strategy implementation. Consider allocating a part of your budget to technology integrations so you remain up-to-speed with modern implementations like marketing automation. It will also help you optimize your campaign results. ABM Partners You need knowledge, human resources, and technology to launch and successfully run account-based marketing campaigns. Alternatively, you can also hire new staff or train the people you already have. Partnering with an ABM agency is also a great option. It not only saves you the time and effort of finding the right marketers, but it also delivers the results and metrics you expect. There are many service providers in the market who can help you kick-start your ABM campaign. Funding Your ABM Strategy Now that you know the factors that should be considered for your ABM funding, let us look at some tips to enhance your budgeting. Identify Target Account CLV In ABM, less is more, so identify target accounts based on their CLV. It may require three or more years for your ABM campaign to show results, so make sure you periodically assess your target account’s CLV before making big investments. Harness Technology Tie your technology budget with sales. Support your goals and streamline your processes by using martech. Collaborating with specialized agencies that have talent and technology can uplift your ABM campaign. Not only do agencies quickly launch your campaign, but they also save you the trouble of recruiting new staff. However, make sure you engage a trustworthy agency with the best technology offerings and expertise. Get Approval and Support from Stakeholders Get your stakeholders on your side by justifying your budget with a list of target accounts and their projected value. If you are planning to implement ABM, then you should already have a preliminary version of your ABM funding proposal ready. Measure Your Performance Use relationships, reputation, and revenue, the three crucial R’s to measure your performance. These should be your benchmarks and should be assessed periodically. Conclusion ABM funding takes effort and time but doing it diligently can bring an increase in ROI, brand awareness, revenue, and confidence in ABM. FAQ What is the first step in your ABM funding strategy? The first step in your ABM funding strategy is to know your target accounts through stringent research. What are the three important Rs for measuring ABM performance? The three important Rs for measuring ABM’s performance are relationship, reputation, and revenue.

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Buyer Intent Data

Intent Marketing: Removing Guesswork Out of Marketing

Article | October 7, 2022

In 2018, Demand Gen Report’s ABM Benchmark Survey found that 25% of participating B2B companies used buyer intent data and monitoring tools. 35% of them planned on using intent data within a year. Cut to 2022, and about 99% of B2B marketers are using some form of B2B intent data in their marketing campaigns to target accounts (Source: InboxInsight). In his exclusive interview with Media 7, Gil Allouche, CEO of Metadata.io, talked about how data helps convert leads. “With access to valuable data, marketers are focused on leads that are more likely to become buyers. They can also work on targeting their messaging towards these potential buyers.” Buyer intent data helps in creating a robust foundation for your marketing efforts. Let us look at how intent marketing can help you get the sales and ROI you desire. Intent Marketing: The New Normal in B2B Intent-based marketing uses consumer data that signals purchasing intent through consumption of relevant content like blogs and infographics; product comparisons; product reviews; message boards; case studies; and news. Through this data, you can find out what your prospects are looking for, which stage of the customer journey they are in, if they are researching solutions or ready to make a purchase, and what kind of steps you can take to get in front of them. One of the most important benefits of intent marketing is that it removes the guesswork out of your marketing campaigns and ensures that you are targeting the correct prospects. This targeting can be done through either intent-based branding or intent-based marketing. Intent-based branding decodes the behavior of your target audience online while intent-based marketing harnesses data on the prospect’s buying behavior so you can tailor your marketing offerings accordingly. Consequently, your sales cycle is shortened. Power-up Your Content Strategy The biggest challenge B2B marketers like you face today is to cut through all the noise and create an impact on their prospects. Consumers have a host of content options. However, they do not want to consume unnecessary information. When the content is personalized to match their needs and goals, they are more likely to engage with it. Intent data helps you plan your content as it provides you with information on the theme, buyer personas and their behavior, buyer journey maps, content formats, copy, call to action (CTA), and keyword strategy that will best suit your prospect targeting efforts. An intent-based content strategy can deliver leads while increasing conversion rates and sales. It can give you the competitive edge you need to influence your prospects at the right time. Drive Sales and ROI Intent marketing brings in more conversions on landing pages and overall higher traffic and qualified leads to your website. It uses intent information to recruit engaged prospects for sales demos and events. It helps sales teams to effectively rank their leads and accounts so that they can focus on the right leads at the right time and not miss out on any sales opportunities. Your sales teams can execute effective nurture campaigns and create sales pitches with messaging that appeals to a target account’s buying committee. This messaging addresses the account’s pain points and requirements and accelerates the buying decision. Additionally, intent marketing helps improve customer retention rates and makes it easy for teams to identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities. It takes into consideration the existing customers’ signals to find any at-risk accounts to prevent churn and increase renewal. Data-driven Marketing Personalization Intent data makes it easy to personalize your marketing efforts and provides an accurate report of prospective signals, their needs, and interests so that you can segment and categorize them. Once this segmentation is done, you can determine what kind of content needs to be created and displayed for these accounts depending on their position in the buying cycle. With this kind of personalization, your target audience gets to know that you care about them and you can connect with them on a deeper level. Increase ABM Efficiency B2B buyer intent data helps your marketing, sales, and customer success teams align their goals so that they can agree on target accounts, establish lead hand-off processes, and diversify investments to target newer, relevant accounts while maintaining the current customer list. Intent data provides marketing intelligence for creating ICP in marketing, messaging, and brand positions for B2B account-based marketing. Additionally, it provides account intelligence for target account list creation, ways to increase engagement, improve lead scoring in ABM and lead nurturing tracks, thus increasing the efficiency of your account-based marketing. Summing It Up Intent-based marketing helps B2B marketers like you to understand potential customers so you can find high-value accounts and nurture them through customized content and targeted campaigns.

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Avenue Marketing Strategy and Activation

Avenue. Driving change and growth for mid-size B2B . We are: A marketing strategy and activation firm that specializes in helping middle market B2B organizations drive growth and capitalize on moments of change. You are: A mid-sized B2B business or business unit of a larger organization with ambitious new growth goals and expectations that are likely being triggered by a big change, such as a merger, change in leadership, a marketplace disruption, or even your own new product launch. As a hybrid strategy and creative firm, we can help you: better understand your buyers' needs and your organization’s nature; develop a more meaningful brand strategy; engage employees; equip and align marketing and sales; and develop more creative and effective go-to-market programs.

Related News

Core ABM

Marketers Given Marginal Grades for ABM-Driven Revenue Growth

GlobeNewswire | January 25, 2024

Seeding and harvesting the sales pipeline — the process of acquiring, capturing, qualifying and converting business opportunities — are essential to the growth and profitability of B2B marketers across every industry and geographic sector. Marketing is largely responsible for driving this business process, yet nearly two-thirds of lead gen and engagement strategies are underperforming. A new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council report, produced in collaboration with WM America, entitled “Fire Up Your Revenue Generation Engine,” covers critical aspects of lead generation and engagement. This includes models and metrics for tracking and measuring performance, best practice demand-gen execution, ways to score effectiveness, and more. The latest CMO Council research finds scores of marketers falling behind in lead scoring, account-based marketing, accelerated pipeline, and intention-based marketing. Key findings from a Q4 survey of over 170 B2B marketing, sales, revenue, growth, demand gen and campaign execution leaders include: 63% say marketing must own and optimize a company’s revenue-generation engine 64% say their lead gen and engagement strategy underperforms 78% of highly evolved marketers are satisfied with their accelerated pipeline, compared to only 15% of lesser evolved marketers “In today’s competitive data-driven environment, marketers should no longer be satisfied with paltry returns on their sizable lead-gen and ABM investments,” the report notes. “It’s time to turn the tables on inefficient, ineffective, and outdated practices for anticipating, adapting, and responding to customer needs and opportunities.” “Marketers must climb the evolutionary ladder and leave behind outmoded and dated practices,” notes CMO Council executive director, Donovan Neale-May. “Using AI-derived, intention-based buyer data and advanced sales intelligence are among the ways growth marketers bring more precision, predictability, and performance to B2B account marketing investments.” The CMO Council’s research revealed the top five skill sets contributing to improved ABM-driven business outcomes: Better segmentation and precision targeting of buyers and influencers On-demand customer business intelligence and personal buyer insights Tighter integration of demand gen, channel, direct sales, and support teams Greater utilization of tools and data sources for richer prospect profiling Proactive and timely pre-sales follow up and cultivation strategies The CMO Council has uncovered widening gaps in performance between highly evolved marketers and lesser evolved marketers. Gaps are occurring in four core capabilities: lead scoring, account-based marketing, accelerated pipeline, and intention-based marketing. This report tiers factors that make up a model for better identification, engagement and conversion. The model coincides with the CMO Council and WM America’s thought leadership initiative to advance lead revenue science practices through a certified Lead Evaluation and Assurance Process, or LEAP model. “Marketers will need to take a few LEAPs of faith in the coming months, because sticking to the status quo is just not practical or possible anymore. As data becomes more critical than ever before, CMOs need to extend their visions for innovation and forward-thinking strategies,” according to Lee Salem, WM America’s Vice President of Sales. Methodology The report is based on a survey of over 170 heads of B2B marketing, sales, revenue, growth, demand gen and campaign execution in Q4 2023. It also included content from in-depth interviews with executives from Netline, Autodesk, T-Mobile, NTT, ABM Consortium, TechTarget, IBM, B2B Marketing, Reachdesk, Momentum ITSMA, and Xometry. About the CMO Council The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council’s 16,000+ members control more than $1 trillion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 65,000 global marketing and sales executives in over 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council’s strategic interest groups include the Customer Experience Board, Digital Marketing Performance Center, Brand Inspiration Center, Marketing Supply Chain Institute, GeoBranding Center, and the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE). To learn more, visit https://www.cmocouncil.org. About WM America WM America is a leading B2B marketing company specializing in targeted in-market demand generation. The intent database at WMA tracks the intent behavior of over 75 million business professionals globally, 24X7. The database is segmented into 3,300 categories. WMA keeps around-the-clock track of buying signals from each category in this database. Based on this extremely strong foundation of data points, the company delivers precisely targeted prospects for focused marketing. Accurate keyword search enables deriving of active content consumption and opt-in content downloads. WMA's deep search ensures accurate and targeted information delivery that helps craft successful, cutting-edge marketing strategies. For more information, visit www.wmamerica.com

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Buyer Intent Data

ON24 Recognizes 2023’s Leaders in Digital Engagement

Business Wire | January 24, 2024

A recent Forrester survey found that more than 60% of B2B buyers base their final purchase decision solely on the digital content and experiences companies provide. That’s why thousands of B2B companies choose ON24 (NYSE: ONTF), a leading digital engagement platform for B2B sales and marketing that helps enterprises generate data-driven insights and deliver cost-effective revenue growth. Today, ON24, announced the industry-leading digital experiences of 2023 that drove ROI for their organizations. “At ON24, our goal is to propel business success through digital engagement, with our customers at the core. We take pride in helping our customers drive deeper engagement with their target audiences and extract meaningful insights that result in revenue growth,” said Callan Young, CMO, ON24. “It is our honor to recognize the leading organizations that exemplify excellence in leveraging our platform to create digital experiences that not only meet but surpass their audience’s expectations.” The following organizations were recognized for delivering outstanding digital experiences on the ON24 platform in 2023: Danfossdrove product growth and customer retention by leveraging distributor, reseller and customer data to optimize its webinar and digital engagement program. FloQastinfluenced 82% of event pipeline in Q3 and created 120+ new active opportunities by routing high-quality leads from in-experience demo requests directly to sales. Global X ETFsincreased qualified, high-value leads in Australia by 22%, by integrating ON24 engagement data with their CRM and using the platform’s personalization capabilities. Informaticascaled a live event into a hybrid experience across three key regions simultaneously, driving registration and delivering a consistent customer experience on a global scale. Infopro Digitalincreased conversion rates and registrations by automating processes on the ON24 platform and making real-time adjustments based on customer feedback. Kasperskydrove product adoption and business growth by creating new relationships with prospects and fostering existing relationships with customers. KnowBe4generated over $300k in pipeline through an ON24-powered digital experience. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)achieved 100% participant satisfaction for its unique and impactful digital experience powered by the ON24 platform. PowerSchoolachieved record-breaking registration rates, 75 CTA clicks, over 400 poll responses and 300+ content downloads during an educational experience with ON24. S&P Globaldoubled marketing qualified leads and boosted engagement by designing an ON24 digital experience personalized to different customer segments. Tata Consultancy Servicesdrove revenue growth with record-high registrations for their webinar on ON24, resulting in 70% attendee participation across 30 countries. Texthelpsourced leads during a webinar series and converted at least 70% of them into marketing-qualified leads within 30 days. TOPdeskincreased revenue and improved its customer engagement by 7% YoY and extended the shelf life of its content with an on-demand hub. TravelMediaGroupclosed three deals from a single digital experience by creating a seamless and engaging customer experience on ON24. UCBachieved a 50%+ attendee conversion rate by enhancing the HCP’s experience and integrating ON24 engagement data with its business intelligence system. UnitedHealthcareachieved an 80% cost savings, increased attendee score and engagement with a new digital engagement strategy and an always-on content hub. Wood PLCsourced leads, increased audience engagement and automated continuing professional education credits on ON24, across different time zones. ZoomInfosurpassed webinar benchmarks by generating a record number of marketing-qualified leads and 190 scheduled demos, resulting in 10 closed-won deals. To learn more about 2023’s leaders in digital engagement, watch the on-demand webinar here. About ON24 ON24 is on a mission to re-imagine how companies engage, understand and build relationships with their audience in a digital world. Through our leading sales and marketing platform for digital engagement integrated with generative AI, businesses use our portfolio of webinar, virtual event and content experiences to drive engagement and generate first-party data, delivering ​revenue growth across the enterprise – from demand generation to customer success to partner enablement. ON24 powers digital engagement for industry-leading customers worldwide, including 3 of the 5 largest global technology companies, 3 of the 6 largest US banks, 3 of the 5 largest global healthcare companies, and 3 of the 5 largest global industrial manufacturers, enabling organizations to reach millions of professionals a month for billions of engagement minutes per year with all the first-party data being captured, generated and integrated from one place. ON24 is headquartered in San Francisco with global offices in North America, EMEA, and APAC. For more information, visit www.ON24.com.

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ABM Accounts

Bloomreach and Sonepar to Power Continued Search Relevance for Customers

Business Wire | January 12, 2024

Bloomreach, the platform fueling limitless e-commerce experiences, today announced Bloomreach Discovery will continue to power product discovery for Sonepar, the global world leader in B-to-B distribution of electrical products, solutions, and related services, as the companies renew their existing partnership. With Bloomreach Discovery’s AI-driven search and merchandising capabilities, Sonepar enables customers around the world to find what they want to buy — when, where, and how they want. “Sonepar is pleased to partner with Bloomreach as we continue to pursue our next stage of digital transformation,” said Fabrice del Aguila, SVP Digital Factory, Sonepar. “We look forward to leveraging Bloomreach’s expertise in product discovery as we become the first global B2B electrical distributor in the world to offer the best omnichannel experience to all our customers.” Sonepar leverages Bloomreach Discovery to drive personalized experiences across its omnichannel platform. Using rich data to refine search results, Bloomreach Discovery helps customers easily discover the products they want. It also accounts for a range of attributes and quantitative search queries, creating a search experience that is not only personalized, but personalized to the unique needs of B-to-B buyers. “We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Sonepar,” said Jordan Roper, General Manager and Head of Product, Bloomreach Discovery. “The B-to-B space has so much to gain from digital transformation, and Sonepar is a leader in making that transformation a reality. We’re proud to join them on this journey and look forward to continuing to support their omnichannel experience with the fast ROI and relevance of Bloomreach Discovery.” Learn more about how Bloomreach Discovery and Sonepar are working together to drive success. About Bloomreach Bloomreach personalizes the e-commerce experience. Its data engine unifies real-time customer and product data so businesses understand what customers really want. By connecting that understanding to every channel, the e-commerce experience becomes limitless — reflecting a changing customer as they shop. Amplified by the speed and scale of Loomi, Bloomreach's AI for e-commerce, this creates endless new paths to purchase, greater profitability, and fast business growth. Bloomreach products include: Engagement, a marketing automation platform; Discovery, an e-commerce search solution; Content, a headless CMS; and Clarity, AI-powered conversational shopping. The company has multiple AI patents and serves 850+ global brands including: Albertsons, Bosch, Puma, and Marks & Spencer. About Sonepar Sonepar is an independent family-owned company with global market leadership in B-to-B distribution of electrical products, solutions and related services. Through a dense network of brands spanning 40 countries, the Group has an ambitious transformation agenda to become the first global B-to-B electrical distributor to provide a fully digitalized and synchronized omnichannel experience to all customers. Drawing on the skill and passion of its 44,000 associates, Sonepar had sales of €32.4 billion in 2022. www.sonepar.com

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Core ABM

Marketers Given Marginal Grades for ABM-Driven Revenue Growth

GlobeNewswire | January 25, 2024

Seeding and harvesting the sales pipeline — the process of acquiring, capturing, qualifying and converting business opportunities — are essential to the growth and profitability of B2B marketers across every industry and geographic sector. Marketing is largely responsible for driving this business process, yet nearly two-thirds of lead gen and engagement strategies are underperforming. A new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council report, produced in collaboration with WM America, entitled “Fire Up Your Revenue Generation Engine,” covers critical aspects of lead generation and engagement. This includes models and metrics for tracking and measuring performance, best practice demand-gen execution, ways to score effectiveness, and more. The latest CMO Council research finds scores of marketers falling behind in lead scoring, account-based marketing, accelerated pipeline, and intention-based marketing. Key findings from a Q4 survey of over 170 B2B marketing, sales, revenue, growth, demand gen and campaign execution leaders include: 63% say marketing must own and optimize a company’s revenue-generation engine 64% say their lead gen and engagement strategy underperforms 78% of highly evolved marketers are satisfied with their accelerated pipeline, compared to only 15% of lesser evolved marketers “In today’s competitive data-driven environment, marketers should no longer be satisfied with paltry returns on their sizable lead-gen and ABM investments,” the report notes. “It’s time to turn the tables on inefficient, ineffective, and outdated practices for anticipating, adapting, and responding to customer needs and opportunities.” “Marketers must climb the evolutionary ladder and leave behind outmoded and dated practices,” notes CMO Council executive director, Donovan Neale-May. “Using AI-derived, intention-based buyer data and advanced sales intelligence are among the ways growth marketers bring more precision, predictability, and performance to B2B account marketing investments.” The CMO Council’s research revealed the top five skill sets contributing to improved ABM-driven business outcomes: Better segmentation and precision targeting of buyers and influencers On-demand customer business intelligence and personal buyer insights Tighter integration of demand gen, channel, direct sales, and support teams Greater utilization of tools and data sources for richer prospect profiling Proactive and timely pre-sales follow up and cultivation strategies The CMO Council has uncovered widening gaps in performance between highly evolved marketers and lesser evolved marketers. Gaps are occurring in four core capabilities: lead scoring, account-based marketing, accelerated pipeline, and intention-based marketing. This report tiers factors that make up a model for better identification, engagement and conversion. The model coincides with the CMO Council and WM America’s thought leadership initiative to advance lead revenue science practices through a certified Lead Evaluation and Assurance Process, or LEAP model. “Marketers will need to take a few LEAPs of faith in the coming months, because sticking to the status quo is just not practical or possible anymore. As data becomes more critical than ever before, CMOs need to extend their visions for innovation and forward-thinking strategies,” according to Lee Salem, WM America’s Vice President of Sales. Methodology The report is based on a survey of over 170 heads of B2B marketing, sales, revenue, growth, demand gen and campaign execution in Q4 2023. It also included content from in-depth interviews with executives from Netline, Autodesk, T-Mobile, NTT, ABM Consortium, TechTarget, IBM, B2B Marketing, Reachdesk, Momentum ITSMA, and Xometry. About the CMO Council The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council’s 16,000+ members control more than $1 trillion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 65,000 global marketing and sales executives in over 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council’s strategic interest groups include the Customer Experience Board, Digital Marketing Performance Center, Brand Inspiration Center, Marketing Supply Chain Institute, GeoBranding Center, and the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE). To learn more, visit https://www.cmocouncil.org. About WM America WM America is a leading B2B marketing company specializing in targeted in-market demand generation. The intent database at WMA tracks the intent behavior of over 75 million business professionals globally, 24X7. The database is segmented into 3,300 categories. WMA keeps around-the-clock track of buying signals from each category in this database. Based on this extremely strong foundation of data points, the company delivers precisely targeted prospects for focused marketing. Accurate keyword search enables deriving of active content consumption and opt-in content downloads. WMA's deep search ensures accurate and targeted information delivery that helps craft successful, cutting-edge marketing strategies. For more information, visit www.wmamerica.com

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Buyer Intent Data

ON24 Recognizes 2023’s Leaders in Digital Engagement

Business Wire | January 24, 2024

A recent Forrester survey found that more than 60% of B2B buyers base their final purchase decision solely on the digital content and experiences companies provide. That’s why thousands of B2B companies choose ON24 (NYSE: ONTF), a leading digital engagement platform for B2B sales and marketing that helps enterprises generate data-driven insights and deliver cost-effective revenue growth. Today, ON24, announced the industry-leading digital experiences of 2023 that drove ROI for their organizations. “At ON24, our goal is to propel business success through digital engagement, with our customers at the core. We take pride in helping our customers drive deeper engagement with their target audiences and extract meaningful insights that result in revenue growth,” said Callan Young, CMO, ON24. “It is our honor to recognize the leading organizations that exemplify excellence in leveraging our platform to create digital experiences that not only meet but surpass their audience’s expectations.” The following organizations were recognized for delivering outstanding digital experiences on the ON24 platform in 2023: Danfossdrove product growth and customer retention by leveraging distributor, reseller and customer data to optimize its webinar and digital engagement program. FloQastinfluenced 82% of event pipeline in Q3 and created 120+ new active opportunities by routing high-quality leads from in-experience demo requests directly to sales. Global X ETFsincreased qualified, high-value leads in Australia by 22%, by integrating ON24 engagement data with their CRM and using the platform’s personalization capabilities. Informaticascaled a live event into a hybrid experience across three key regions simultaneously, driving registration and delivering a consistent customer experience on a global scale. Infopro Digitalincreased conversion rates and registrations by automating processes on the ON24 platform and making real-time adjustments based on customer feedback. Kasperskydrove product adoption and business growth by creating new relationships with prospects and fostering existing relationships with customers. KnowBe4generated over $300k in pipeline through an ON24-powered digital experience. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)achieved 100% participant satisfaction for its unique and impactful digital experience powered by the ON24 platform. PowerSchoolachieved record-breaking registration rates, 75 CTA clicks, over 400 poll responses and 300+ content downloads during an educational experience with ON24. S&P Globaldoubled marketing qualified leads and boosted engagement by designing an ON24 digital experience personalized to different customer segments. Tata Consultancy Servicesdrove revenue growth with record-high registrations for their webinar on ON24, resulting in 70% attendee participation across 30 countries. Texthelpsourced leads during a webinar series and converted at least 70% of them into marketing-qualified leads within 30 days. TOPdeskincreased revenue and improved its customer engagement by 7% YoY and extended the shelf life of its content with an on-demand hub. TravelMediaGroupclosed three deals from a single digital experience by creating a seamless and engaging customer experience on ON24. UCBachieved a 50%+ attendee conversion rate by enhancing the HCP’s experience and integrating ON24 engagement data with its business intelligence system. UnitedHealthcareachieved an 80% cost savings, increased attendee score and engagement with a new digital engagement strategy and an always-on content hub. Wood PLCsourced leads, increased audience engagement and automated continuing professional education credits on ON24, across different time zones. ZoomInfosurpassed webinar benchmarks by generating a record number of marketing-qualified leads and 190 scheduled demos, resulting in 10 closed-won deals. To learn more about 2023’s leaders in digital engagement, watch the on-demand webinar here. About ON24 ON24 is on a mission to re-imagine how companies engage, understand and build relationships with their audience in a digital world. Through our leading sales and marketing platform for digital engagement integrated with generative AI, businesses use our portfolio of webinar, virtual event and content experiences to drive engagement and generate first-party data, delivering ​revenue growth across the enterprise – from demand generation to customer success to partner enablement. ON24 powers digital engagement for industry-leading customers worldwide, including 3 of the 5 largest global technology companies, 3 of the 6 largest US banks, 3 of the 5 largest global healthcare companies, and 3 of the 5 largest global industrial manufacturers, enabling organizations to reach millions of professionals a month for billions of engagement minutes per year with all the first-party data being captured, generated and integrated from one place. ON24 is headquartered in San Francisco with global offices in North America, EMEA, and APAC. For more information, visit www.ON24.com.

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ABM Accounts

Bloomreach and Sonepar to Power Continued Search Relevance for Customers

Business Wire | January 12, 2024

Bloomreach, the platform fueling limitless e-commerce experiences, today announced Bloomreach Discovery will continue to power product discovery for Sonepar, the global world leader in B-to-B distribution of electrical products, solutions, and related services, as the companies renew their existing partnership. With Bloomreach Discovery’s AI-driven search and merchandising capabilities, Sonepar enables customers around the world to find what they want to buy — when, where, and how they want. “Sonepar is pleased to partner with Bloomreach as we continue to pursue our next stage of digital transformation,” said Fabrice del Aguila, SVP Digital Factory, Sonepar. “We look forward to leveraging Bloomreach’s expertise in product discovery as we become the first global B2B electrical distributor in the world to offer the best omnichannel experience to all our customers.” Sonepar leverages Bloomreach Discovery to drive personalized experiences across its omnichannel platform. Using rich data to refine search results, Bloomreach Discovery helps customers easily discover the products they want. It also accounts for a range of attributes and quantitative search queries, creating a search experience that is not only personalized, but personalized to the unique needs of B-to-B buyers. “We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Sonepar,” said Jordan Roper, General Manager and Head of Product, Bloomreach Discovery. “The B-to-B space has so much to gain from digital transformation, and Sonepar is a leader in making that transformation a reality. We’re proud to join them on this journey and look forward to continuing to support their omnichannel experience with the fast ROI and relevance of Bloomreach Discovery.” Learn more about how Bloomreach Discovery and Sonepar are working together to drive success. About Bloomreach Bloomreach personalizes the e-commerce experience. Its data engine unifies real-time customer and product data so businesses understand what customers really want. By connecting that understanding to every channel, the e-commerce experience becomes limitless — reflecting a changing customer as they shop. Amplified by the speed and scale of Loomi, Bloomreach's AI for e-commerce, this creates endless new paths to purchase, greater profitability, and fast business growth. Bloomreach products include: Engagement, a marketing automation platform; Discovery, an e-commerce search solution; Content, a headless CMS; and Clarity, AI-powered conversational shopping. The company has multiple AI patents and serves 850+ global brands including: Albertsons, Bosch, Puma, and Marks & Spencer. About Sonepar Sonepar is an independent family-owned company with global market leadership in B-to-B distribution of electrical products, solutions and related services. Through a dense network of brands spanning 40 countries, the Group has an ambitious transformation agenda to become the first global B-to-B electrical distributor to provide a fully digitalized and synchronized omnichannel experience to all customers. Drawing on the skill and passion of its 44,000 associates, Sonepar had sales of €32.4 billion in 2022. www.sonepar.com

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Events