Alexa How To Use Intent Data Effectively for Sales with Easy to use CRM

How To Use Intent Data Effectively To Become A Sales Rock Star

CRM | by Patricia Jones
Easy to use CRM

Most lead generation rock stars in every organization have their own secret recipes when it comes to developing and executing their lead generation campaigns using easy to use CRM software .
Whether it is the use of Big Data, Predictive Analysis, Creative Persona Development, Use Case Study or Voodoo, every rocking sales lead generating person has an under-covered thing that makes their perfect campaign recipe.

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In fact, the Internet is filled with ticks, trips, methodologies and numerous how-to guides on what it takes to make leads and prospects ‘sing’ your pipeline tunes.

Big Data, Intent Data, and Predictive Analysis

If you are into business and especially into marketing you must have observed that every other year there seems to be a novel marketing “flavor of the year” that will try to throw light on the lead generating business.

Even as of now, Big Data seems to turn out well as databanks are stuffed to the gills with volumes of external and internal contacts that are available in every imaginable shapes and size.
Predictive Analysis also found a big recognition in the modern time, as it promised that it will help innovative marketers to “guess” which leads are going to most valuable even for the most ambitious sales pipelines in their easy to use CRM software.

Now, marketers who are more cynical among others may be tempted to ask: “Is intent data marketing just another fad?”
Well, this is definitely an intelligent question, as we must know what makes intent data different from other lead generation tools.

Now, modern-day marketers always look for ways to make data available in their CRM database more actionable and scalable so that it can better target prospects at their various stages in the sales pipeline in their buyer’s journey.

Well, in a gist, that is exactly what intent data promises and delivers to the marketers, guaranteeing success in their deals.

Therefore, intent data quite simply hones in the stealthy signals which indicate that a person is particularly looking for your brand’s offerings in the marketplace, which helps in targeting users that have demonstrated their intents through website visits, product searches, white paper downloads, and others.
In other words, intent data is the ‘work-horse’ for modern-day marketers in the lead generation world.

This is because intent data can help boost engagements across several use cases which mostly works for ABM (Account Based Marketing) ad targeting, lead scoring, sales data and account managing, lead generation activities and more.

Is there any guarantee for marketers working with intent data?

Well apparently stating it is not.

Nevertheless, as no strategy in marketing remains constant let us now explore how intent data when used with easy to use CRM can help increase your businesses’ bottom line.

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR INTENT DATA-INFUSED LEAD GENERATION CAMPAIGNS

  1. Know your prospect

For intent-based marketing, primarily begin by developing buyer persons for your offerings.

Get inputs from all major stakeholders on both marketing and sales sides in your company, and thereafter when you conduct research, make sure that you answer these following questions that include:

  • What issues do your targeted prospects must care about?
  • What are the present hot topics in their industry?
  • Which keywords your targeted prospects use when they search for solutions pertaining to your business?
  • Which events do your targeted prospects visits and attend?
  • Which publications do your targeted prospects read and trust?
  • Which are the influencers that your targeted prospects turn to for enhancing their skills?
  • Who are your top competitors in your line of business?
  • What technology stack your targeted prospects use and whether they are complementary to your offerings?
  1. Understand the marketing metrics

Marketing metrics and indicators may vary to reflect business priorities; however, measurements in your easy to use CRM will surely identify specifications, such as:

  • Lead conversion rates
  • ROI on lead generation spent
  • Sales cycle timings
  • Boost in increasing your brand offering’s footprint within key accounts
  • Progress in your ABM programs
  1. Know the customer

Maximize your businesses’ revenue goals by understanding specific criteria if the customers, which include:

  • Least and most profitable customers by geography, industry, product line or any other variables that are critical for your ABM email campaigns
  • Best cross-selling/up-selling opportunities
  • Best time to grab additional revenue from existing customers in your CRM database
  • Outcomes of specific engagements of the customers as an indicator for your future ABM initiatives
  1. Know the platforms

Based on your lead generation requirements, you may need many systems, which can include plain vanilla CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, demand generation automation tools, business intelligence dashboard, or rather to say an all-in-one CRM platform (which includes all these tools) and is compatible to your mar-tech stack.

  1. Honor your content marketing strategy

A good content marketing strategy (after a degree of diversity and experimentation) can be the biggest growth opportunity for your business.

Therefore use infographics, videos, micro-site blogging, corresponding email assets, testimonials and reviews, research reports by which you can refine your ABM lead generation over time.

  1. B2B Marketers own the top of the funnel

It has always remained a topic of heated dispute whether sales or marketing owns the funnel. Nevertheless, in the modern marketplace, both sales and marketing are held responsible for generating specific sales goals, as no longer the sales teams are the only proprietor for nurturing leads from awareness to purchase.

  1. Sales Reps must follow-up speedily with prospects

Providing a fast response at times can boost the odds of converting the eager prospect into a customer of your brand exponentially.
Therefore your sales reps should follow up immediately by emailing contents designed to advance the conversation forward after making sure that the content is “mapped” appropriately in context to the buyer’s persona, industry, and the stage they are in of the buying cycle, before making a follow up with a phone call.

  1. Focus on solving problems instead of hard selling

Marketers must work in tandem with the sales reps to make them avoid any hard pitching of their offerings.

Therefore the most effective way to open up a conversation after the initial intro of your brand is to make your prospects understand why you have called or how your offering(s) can help to solve their issue.

  1. Do not hand off leads to the sales reps right away

Primarily before you pass-on a lead to the sales team make sure that they are properly scored.

For this define the lead stages and make sure both your marketers and sales reps are crystal clear on terms like “MQL”, “SQL”, Raw Leads, “SAL” and others. Since these terms do not mean anything unless everyone in your company understands what is required to meet these criteria.

  1. Be persistent in developing reporting to measure success and improve programs

Finally, look into metrics like ‘sales accepted leads’ or ‘conversion to opportunity’ or if your lead scoring system is functioning optimally and where you need to make changes for finding business growth .

Remember to adjust your lead-scoring process once every quarter, until you feel it is right.

Takeaway

Therefore irrespective of whether it is internal, external or behavioral, intent data is designed to identify your prospective leads who are interested in your offering right now.

Hence pairing intent data with other signals that are found in Salesforce or even Salesforce Alternative CRM software platforms especially created for small businesses truly helps in leveraging and understanding your prospective customer’s insights for more lead generation opportunities, sales and thereby aid in finding rapid business growth.

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