Buyer Intent Data Strategies for 2022 and Beyond
Product and market research is an essential step in any buyer’s journey. Today, over 90% of buyers research products and services when making purchasing decisions. What if you could be able to reach out to potential customers at just the right time, before they actually make the purchase.
Buyer intent data strategies allow you to spot potential customers actively seeking your products. Buyer insight data strategies give business owners an unmatched insight into their target customers’ behaviors through a combination of intent detection tools.
Using this data, companies can tailor their sales to reach potential customers just before purchasing decisions. Below is a detailed guide on all you need to know about buyer intent data; its origins, benefits users, and how to incorporate it in your sales strategy.
What is Buyer Intent Data?
Buyer intent data is an aggregate of behavioral information that enables companies to identify prospects who are actively engaged in the buying cycle. The behavior signals show you all the topics, products, or services generating interest among potential buyers. The beauty of intent data strategies is their ability to enhance marketing efforts by facilitating high-quality lead generation while saving time and financial resources.
If well implemented, intent data-driven strategies can give you an edge over your market competitors. While there are many behavior indicator tools, they all use one, or a combination of the below signals to gauge buyer intent.
• The number of times a consumer clicks on your social media ads
• The frequency of website visits by a consumer
• The total and average time spent on the company website
• A customer’s engagement level with emails and other digital platforms.
• Other buyer activities such as product comparisons, ebooks, and whitepapers downloads.
The tools detect and rank buyer signals depending on the frequency of visits and buyer engagement levels. The more the engagement level, the stronger the purchasing intent. In summary, buyer intent is any tool or strategy that gives you a heads up over your competitors when a potential customer is preparing to purchase your product or solution.
From where does Buyer Intent Data Originate?
Two main types of buyer intent signals exist, originating from different sources. Let’s explore the internal and external intent data sources.
Internal intent data sources
Also known as first-party data, it is the data you collect through in-house marketing platforms. For example, the number of website clicks and time spend browsing website content. The beauty of using in-house tools is that you have more freedom over what you collect and how you aggregate buyer insights.
What’s more, you are likely to respond faster to internally generated insights than those sourced from external sources.
External intent data sources
External intent data, also known as third-party intent data, are the buyer insights you collect from sources outside the company. External data may originate from specific website cookies or IP searches.
Third-party insights are just as important as internal data. Not many organizations have the expertise to collect and use intent data effectively using in-house tools. As a result, Relying on external parties to manage buyer behavior insights can be an excellent way to leverage buyer intent tools.
Benefits of using buyer intent data
1. Enhances your account-based marketing campaigns
Personalization is one of the pillars of account-based marketing (ABM). The best way to enhance your ABM strategy is through understanding your buyer journey to target leads who fit your desired consumer profile.
Today, many consumers have to constantly deal with cold emails and non-personalized sales pitches for products or services that don’t interest them. You can gain ground on your competitors by leveraging the clarity of intent data to refine your ABM campaigns.
2. Helps create relevant and targeted content
Buyer intent data tools allow you to know what factors influence buyers’ purchasing decisions. Once you understand your target customers’ needs, you can address them using helpful contexts in your subsequent content posts.
Your digital marketing teams can use intent data insights to guide their content creation and increase lead traffic to your company’s website. Aligning your company content to answer your prospect’s questions at the right time will result in quality lead generation.
3. Enhances sales prioritization strategies
Today, many companies still rely on traditional lead scoring when deciding which leads to contact for sales pitches. Buyer behavior studying tools give more clarity than what you can achieve using conventional lead ranking tools.
Intent data tools add precision and clarity to your sales prioritization strategy because they allow you to track consumer behavior outside your company’s site. Using this information, your sales team can prioritize lead engagement based on the degree of their purchasing intent.
Integrated buyer intent data with your outbound sales and marketing processes
Sales teams can rely on intent data to identify their target customers’ pain points and solve them at the right time. Below are the popular ways marketing teams incorporate intent data in their marketing campaigns.
1. Using intent data to identify early buyer interest
Signals from purchase intent tools will help you know which clients actively seek solutions that match your product or service description. With these insights, you can reach out to potential buyers in their time of need.
2. Using intent data to improve outbound sales
Marketing is a number’s game; the more customer outreach you perform, the better your chances of landing high-quality leads. Instead of casting your nets wide and wasting resources, buyer intent allows you to focus your efforts where it matters most.
By understanding what problems your target audience is looking to solve, you can create personalized solutions and boost your prospect to customer conversion rates.