ABM for 2020, Part 1: Know Exactly Who To Target

There are customers out there, right now, actively looking for what you’re selling. How do you find them? How will they find you? And when that magical moment happens, what is the best way to get their attention, engage them, perhaps even impress them so that they are ready to see a demo, or meet with a sales person? 

This is a marketer’s daily challenge.

While many technologies, platforms and strategies have emerged to solve this question, putting them all together is not as straightforward as we’d like. 

To help, we wanted to share a few learnings from designing, testing and executing campaigns targeting B2B technology buyers on a daily basis. In this multi-part series, we will share four B2B marketing strategies that yield better quality leads; leads your sales teams will thank you for. 

Strategy 1: Know Exactly Which Companies to Go After 

Fact: Account-based marketing allows you to focus your marketing efforts on accounts that fit your target criteria–but even within that narrow band, there’s the possibility that you are wasting marketing dollars reaching the wrong companies.

For example, your list of target companies could fit existing criteria (the right industry, geo, etc), but that does not mean that they are “in-market” i.e. actively researching or organizationally-ready for your product or service. 

The good news is that now, marketers can use intent data to build an account list of companies who are already showing signs of being ready.

What is Intent Data?

Or more importantly, what is B2B intent data? There is a difference as B2C and B2B buyers purchase very differently and therefore the intent signals are vastly different as well. More on that in the next edition of this series. 

According to Strategic IC, B2B intent data is “information collected about a company’s digital activity, to provide insight into their purchase intent.

Note: the definition didn’t say that intent data was purely based on a company’s digital content consumption pattern–but on its digital activity. This is because there are a few types of digital activity that can signal a company’s intent to purchase a particular service or solution and there are various vendors that provide it.

Types of Intent Data  

In this article we will cover three types of intent data. 

Bombora’s Company Surge Analytics

Bombora collects and analyses business content consumption across millions of B2B websites, giving marketers insights into which businesses are researching what topics and the intensity/velocity of that consumption with a Topic Score from 0 to 100. 

By using Company Surge, marketers will be be able to get a list of companies researching topics related to their products every week. This list can be fed into your existing and ongoing ABM campaigns in order target and attract higher quality leads at a lower CPL.

Tech Target’s Priority Engine

Tech Target’s Priority Engine is  similar to Bombora, but only collects data on content consumption within its websites. 

The clear advantage of using Tech Target’s Priority Engine is it’s ITDM-focused database and that it gives marketers visibility on the exact contact i.e name, company, designation and contact details of the people within each company actively researching a particular topic. This list can be downloaded and used in direct outbound campaigns as these contacts have opted-in to receiving content related to their searches.

DemandMatrix’s Technographic Data & Next-Technology Purchase

Other than online content consumption, there are other types of publicly-available digital activity that can indicate that a company is in-market for your products. 

DemandMatrix collects different types of data such as a company’s current technology stack, when various parts were purchased and if they are being actively used. 

This data, when viewed across thousands of similar companies, historically, reveals trends on how companies purchase their technology stack. Add a predictive algorithm and DemandMatrix is able to produce a map of a company’s next-technology purchase, or more simply, what they’re likely to purchase next.

Targeting companies that have a high predictive score for your product or service will put your company in a good position to get in early and potentially shape your prospect’s requirements ahead of an RFP.  

Intent data is very powerful if we understand what data is available, where to get it and how to use it to improve our existing marketing and sales activities. Talk to us about generating a list of your ideal customers and how to reach them directly.

Now that you know how to find the right prospects, what is the best way to reach them and what do you say? In the next edition we will cover the B2B buyer’s journey and how to create content that engages.

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