There was a time when mass email blasts were the bread and butter of any great marketing team. You spent significant time and money building up your email list and there seemed to be a direct correlation to the number you sent and the results your email marketing generated. Those days are long gone. Mass email blasts have gone from engaging to spammy, leaving marketers to rethink how email fits into broader demand gen strategies.
Studies show that email marketing can deliver 4,400% ROI, which is $44 returned for every $1 spent. But you only see those returns if you’re able to target the right contacts with the right messages at the right times.
Intent data is the key to doing just that. With quality intent data at your disposal, there are 3 key ways you can improve your demand gen strategies.
1. Improving Account List Segmentation
Segmentation has long been the answer to the mass email blast problem. By using your CRM data, you can break down your email list by certain demographics to ensure you’re sending relevant messages to your audience.
But there’s so much marketing noise now that consumers expect more than just broad segmentation. Now, your account lists have to be segmented to the point that messages are deeply personalized.
When you get email personalization right, the results are clear:
- 74% of marketers say targeted email personalization increases engagement
- Personalizing subject lines generates 26% better open rates
- Relevant, personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates
Intent data helps you build out account profiles beyond the first-party information that’s in your CRM. With insight intent signals outside of interactions with your own company, you can further segment your account lists so that emails and other aspects of your demand gen strategy get the right attention.
Once you’ve gone from broadly segmenting account lists for buyer’s journey stages to more micro segmentation, you can start to prioritize demand gen activities more effectively.
2. Prioritizing Activities with Intent Scores
Intent data doesn’t just give you additional insights to get more personal with your marketing messages. It also helps you develop dynamic account lists that help you target demand gen efforts on the right people at the right time.
These dynamic account lists rely on accurate intent scores that indicate how ready certain prospects are to purchase your product or service. Low scores will indicate that an account is only in the research phases of the buyer’s journey. While these accounts could prove valuable at a later time, it doesn’t make sense to focus so much of your demand gen strategy on converting those leads.
Instead, you want to prioritize accounts with higher intent scores. An account with a score between 50 and 60 (out of 100) may not be ready to convert, but contacts will respond well to high-level messaging that presents an answer to their business problems. Scores between 70 and 80 indicate that an account is coming closer to making a purchase decision, meaning you can invest more resources in presenting your product as a solution to their needs.
Your demand generation efforts shouldn’t be static. For the best results, you need to continuously adapt to changes in account behavior and needs. And with the right intent data, you can dynamically assess intent signals to prioritize marketing activities accordingly.
3. Identifying Accounts that Aren’t on Your Radar
Do you know what your total addressable market (TAM) really is? Even if you’ve taken the time to create a detailed list of target accounts, many potential prospects can still fall through the cracks. When you’re failing to identify prospects with high purchase intent, you risk missing out on low-hanging fruit and losing business to competitors.
When you work with the right third-party intent data provider, you can identify more accounts with high intent scores by searching for look-a-like companies. This strategy starts with having detailed profiles of your known target accounts, including accurate intent scores.
For example, you might have a target account with an intent score between 40 and 50 that has been steadily rising in recent weeks. You know how many people work at the company, the current solution they have in place, their financial situation, and more. Intent data lets you take that account and search for additional companies that match their profile.
You might not always find a 1:1 match between high-intent accounts and their look-a-likes. However, being able to identify more potential prospects can help you discover high-value accounts that weren’t previously on your radar.
Make the Most of Intent Data for Demand Generation
Not all intent data is created equal. The reality is that unlocking the benefits we’ve mentioned here depends entirely on the quality of the intent data you purchase.
The only problem is that collecting first-party intent data can be a significant challenge for the average marketing team. Third-party intent data has been available for years—but it’s difficult to know which vendors you can trust.
If you want to learn more about B2B intent data (what it is, how to collect it reliably, and how to find the right third-party vendor), download our free eBook, Demystifying B2B Purchase Intent Data.
