Intent Monitoring: Getting More Out of Data to Reach the Right Prospects at the Right Time

It’s no secret that a solid data acquisition strategy is needed to attract new customers and generate incremental revenue, but many marketers still struggle with actually putting their strategies in motion.

A newly published report by DemandGen provides some interesting insights on this topic, stating that while only about a third (32%) of marketers say their B2B data acquisition strategy needs minor enhancement, a full 43% admit it requires significant improvement. And only 16% classify their program as “solid,” while 9% confess it’s not working at all.

The report goes on to say that these marketers aren’t sitting still. Most are planning to invest in methods to combat old and outdated data, remove data silos and minimize legacy technology issues.

Other marketers are thinking outside the box entirely, turning to a few interesting strategies where I see real promise ahead when it comes to using data to drive business growth. Take a look:

• The rise of buyer intent data: Marketers are looking to get more use out of the data they already have: over half (53%) surveyed in the report are seeking to use that data to build buyer intent insights. These insights are obtained when buyers’ online activities are anonymously monitored, captured and analyzed based on website visits, content downloads, product reviews, registration for webinars, etc., to uncover purchase intent signals that can be used to improve and tailor email campaigns, content marketing, programmatic advertising, account-based marketing and more. These insights not only empower marketers to identify buyer interest but also augment lead scoring, account prioritization and the process of analyzing and retaining customers.   
• Add email for a powerful one-two punch: Let’s say your company makes and sells IT security software, and you market it to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). As part of your marketing initiatives, you implement an email campaign to your list of SMB IT contacts and ask them to click on your call to action (CTA), which leads to your landing page. However, because only a small percentage may be actually looking for an offering like yours at that point in time, you’ll likely only get a small number of email opens. Here’s where intent data can have an impact: Instead of shot-gunning your campaign to your list, you can use intent monitoring to obtain the company IP addresses of the individuals searching for software like yours. From there, you can then work with a data provider to secure IT contacts aligned with those IP addresses. While the list may include various job titles, what’s powerful is that each one has expressed a recent interest and an intent to purchase IT security software. You can then go on to create your campaign -- with content customized for each role -- and enjoy significantly higher response rates than you would by sending to your standard email list. Important point: after you’ve zeroed in on the digital intent signals, it is crucial to make sure you identify the correct prospects associated with the intent behavior, along with the correct prospect functions that align with the purchase decision. This ensures you’ll target your audience accurately and avoid wasteful spending.
• Right prospect, right time, right message: Intent data offers B2B marketers the opportunity to reach the right prospect, with the right message at the exact right time. At OMI, with our focus on providing quality prospect data, we see great upside and potential of leveraging intent data to boost email campaign results. In fact, we are nearing completion of a partnership that will allow us to combine intent data with our proven and highly targeted business contact data, enabling our clients to truly take their data-based email campaigns to the next level. Stay tuned for more details on this coming soon!

As a side note, because email marketing is a huge part of our business model at OMI, one aspect of the DemandGen report that really caught my attention was this: the two most widely used data fields that marketers use and pursue are the contact name and the email address. At OMI, we specialize in providing both of those fields, allowing our clients to reach a very precise audience, right down to the title, industry, size of organization, geographic location and much more.

Clearly, email marketing will continue to reign supreme into 2020 and beyond, and will only get more exciting, relevant and effective as it is combined with powerful new tools such as intent data. How are you planning to elevate your data acquisition strategy in 2020? Let us know how we can support you.

Outward Media’s proven data cleansing services and targeted, accurate email data can enable you to achieve better email marketing ROI and, ultimately, convert more prospects into customers. Take a look at our case studies to find out more.