How Your Prospects’ Behaviour Online is a Vital Tool for ABM Success
A key component of effective ABM is understanding where a prospect is on their buying journey and ensuring that our interactions are tailored to engage with this moment in time, rather than ignore it.
It can be difficult when a stranger tries to sell us their services from a standstill via LinkedIn, and we’ve all hung-up on a cold caller who’s completely misjudged our needs and circumstances. This just proves that when a company interacts with us is just as important, if not more so, than how.
Connecting with clients at the right moments in their purchasing journey is vital to the ABM approach and could make the difference between turning a prospect on to our offer or turning them away- sometimes, for good.
So how can we, as ABM pioneers, pinpoint where in the buying cycle our prospects are – particularly that golden moment when they’re primed to make a purchase?
Using ‘buyer intent data’ is one way in which we can inhabit our potential customer’s worlds and align ourselves with their problems in real time.
What is buyer intent data?
As internet users, the content we view and the searches we make each day are recorded, leaving a ‘digital footprint’ which reflects our exploration and interaction online. Some of our interests are fleeting, reflecting a moment in time. Others are repetitive, building up a pattern that reveals our more enduring concerns, problems and preoccupations.
Third party intent data is more specific, in that it highlights what workplace products and services an individual is actively looking for online – possibly with a view to make a purchase.
By keeping track of the key words and phrases an individual is searching for, and by using cookies and other intent data tools, we can clearly see who is in the market for what- all the way down to whether a employee from a prospect you’ve identified is considering your solutions, or pondering your competitor’s offer.
How can intent data help us with ABM?
Intent data is a great tool to marketing teams using an ABM strategy, as it allows us not only to track down target clients who are interested in using our products or services, but to personalise our content so that it exactly matches their needs, offering solutions to specific problems.
It also allows us to prioritise our resources by using them to fit the very best, active opportunities first, rather than allocating them to interested parties who may only be testing the water, rather than poised to invest should the right solution present itself.
With intent data incorporated into your target account matrix, you can locate the exact stage each of your key accounts is at on their buying journey, and tailor content to meet this, giving every engagement maximum impact.
Intent data as a time saver
It’s no secret that successful ABM requires a substantial investment of time and resources – particularly if your targeted approaches are 1-2-1 or 1 to few.
Intent data is a fantastic time saver for sales and marketing teams as it identifies which prospects are most receptive and ensures that they’re approached at the right time and engaged with intelligently. This can save you so much time (and money) when you’re not chasing clients are disinterested in your services and avoiding mis-timed approaches!
Intent data and understanding pain points
Intent data can help us understand the pain points faced by the companies we want to work with. Not only can we learn that a company is in the market for a service, but that their current practices are inefficient and causing significant impacts to the company. Armed with this knowledge, we can approach prospects with direct solutions to their most painful problems, in real time.
Intent data can also help us take the resource pressure off sales and marketing teams by gaining better understanding of not just the issues our ideal accounts are tackling, but those faced by entire industries, making a broader inference to help us shape our offers to be more relevant and helpful.
Intent data and understanding demand
We’ve all had specific pieces of content or web pages that don’t engage with our prospects as we expect them to.
Intent data can help us understand why and make changes that increase their efficiency – or remove and replace them with something more productive.
If the data shows, for example, that our target clients just aren’t searching for the intent keywords we’re monitoring around a certain service, then it’s a good idea to alter the service to better match their needs.
This allows for a more agile, streamlined approach to service provision; allowing us to quickly identify why things aren’t working, and take appropriate action that saves time and money.
Intent data is just one component of ABM, a sophisticated and complex approach that relies on all facets being balanced to achieve optimal results.
It can, however, make our campaigns more targeted, personalised and – most importantly – better informed, so that we can make decisions with purpose and intelligence.
Here at AmbitionABM, we have the third-party intent data tools to help you deliver those successful, more targeted campaigns at the optimum time. See how we can help you today.
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