This article will help you see how the intent data can help you where predictive modeling fails to achieve the required results. Marketers today need to use purchase intent data to complement their CRM and marketing automation data. Lets study how purchase intent data helps marketers see the actions taken by prospects which are otherwise not perceivable.A quick review of predictive modeling
Predictive modeling will see increasing growth (double digit growth) over the years and we are not new to its uses. Data mining, machine learning, etc techniques are used to gather the data from different sources. In predictive analytics uses big-data to predict the likelihood of the buyers actions. The problems with predictive modeling are
- It cannot accurately predict the future behavior of the prospect based on his past actions which might be irrelevant today.
- Also, the outcomes are based on complex algorithms which can become erroneous and outdated at any time.
- The data volumes for the B2B market are smaller than that is required for predictive analytics. Also, these predictive models produce results over a long time. So investing in such an ineffective tool unnecessarily wastes your marketing budget.
The current predictive analytics platforms are not completely reliable though they provide some direction to the sales team. This is because marketers today need fresh and insightful data to carry out their marketing strategies more precisely.
This need can be fulfilled through the use of intent monitoring i.e. through the use of the intent data. How Can Your Sales Team Progress Faster with Intent Data in 2019 How does intent-monitoring cover the areas where predictive modeling fails?
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Technically, intent monitoring is predictive as it helps us to predict the likelihood of buying. Intent monitoring is used to track the online behavior of your prospecting audiences. You can track
- What keywords they search
- What blogs they read
- What resources they download
- What online forums they join
Tracking above activities over the internet reveals the domains and hence the location of your prospecting audiences. Once you have the demographic and firmographic data of the prospecting audiences, you can easily decide if they fit into your buyers persona. If they do, you can target them just at the right time, or even before they have openly expressed their interest.
This method is simple and easy to implement because you use real-time data. Whereas in predictive analysis, data is integrated from different sources and it also uses complex algorithms to get actionable insights from past actions.
Data integrations are especially very time consuming and as discussed earlier also, complex algorithms can become faulty at any time.
However, Intent Data means no complex algorithms, no time-consuming data integrations but just real-time data that is completely reliable and up to date.
This is the time to empower your sales not just with tools but with more actionable data that drives 100% results. Although I exaggerated, what I meant is intent data is far better in comparison with other databases.
Why do I say so? Because of using purchase intent data your marketing strategy becomes more powerful. With intent data, you can understand the state of mind of your prospecting audiences and target them better.
As we all know guesswork doesn’t win, so there is a need to change the one-to-all content marketing approach where we target every target account with the same message because of a lack of insights.
Intent data gives you the details about what the prospecting audiences are interested in. Hence, it becomes possible to use these insights in your content marketing strategy.
Even though you have intent data, you need to put a lot of efforts to be able to close the deals. Follow-ups are necessary to succeed in the Intent data-driven marketing.
To engage prospecting audiences and move them down the funnel, marketers need to have an action plan ready. I am mentioning a few tips for that
- Be ready with checklists to offer
- Create webinars well in advance and give free demos
- Create a content strategy to keep educating them so that ultimately it builds their trust in you.
To add more food for thought Rather than going for 1000 target accounts that aren’t ready to buy, it makes sense to go for those 500 who are!
What does it mean really? Using other databases, you get leads in numbers but they all don’t get qualified but that is not the case with the intent database.
Using intent data, you can know who fit in your buyers persona and what they are interested in. Knowing who is actively demanding a similar product makes it easy for you to act precisely.
Using intent database along with wholesome follow-up strategy can surely bring success in closing as many deals as you want. Why wait to take actions then? If you want to know more still get in touch with us or read more about it in our blog.
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Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.