Best approach when using Intent data

Question

I find it a bit creepy to cold call/email and say "I heard your team may be looking at X alternatives."

But does that work?

Or is it better to play dumb and ask leading questions such as " I wonder if there's an initiative to improve Y thing that X does"?

Savages, what do you do with intent data? how do you leverage it?

Accepted Answer

So....in the spirit of anonymity, lets just say that I "know a guy" who has built and sells an intent data engine for the use of sales and marketing teams. Intent data is best leveraged in two specific use cases. 1) Identification - understanding who has the highest propensity to convert/buy in your total addressable market (or for you as a seller, your current account book. Your outbound approach to these accounts shouldn't change -- what should change is the velocity and frequency you reach out to the accounts that have intent. On my team (we drink our own koolaid) when we added our SFDC intent plugin our opportunity creation went up 25% 2) TAM identification - what companies (industry/company size, etc) should your team (or you) be targeting with sales and marketing message. If intent says that 25% of all companies with intent are lets say in Healthcare, and your company isn't focused there - it may be a direction you want to go.

Intent isn't about messaging, its about prioritization and identification

Answer

I love just mentioning hey saw you guys might be looking into X so I wanted to get a gauge {insert your question; mine is have you guys considered adding digital signage partners to the linecard} Rarely do I ever get push back like how did you know but you have two options. You can either say you have called around and been told by an employee this was being considered or you could say I might have some bad info but we utilize a tool called Zoominfo and it said multiple members on your team are looking into this, but if I'm barking up the wrong tree I apologize. Seems like most people in the corporate world understand so much data is out there and no point trying to be secretive about it. I've been in sales a year and in that short time it seems like I'm getting less and less surprised people when I reach out to someone cold and confirm their email if they are willing to take a meeting.

Answer

A little birdie told me that you should target recommended contacts between signal scores of 60-75 with audience of 3-5. As @lordbusiness said, identification of what department is key there and you can go ahead and fill up the ol' CRM.

Answer

Personally…I think it works and is becoming more the norm. I may not explicitly say I know you are searching for X, but I view it as somewhat of a luke warm lead as I know they are looking for something. 
If you have google or echo in your home and mention certain products in conversation, then open up google on your phone…boom, there’s an ad for that product from their marketing team. 
Curious to other thoughts and opinions here.

Answer

I would personalize the message around a client that succeeded without making it about me or my company.

Answer

Intent informs who to reach out to and when. However, it should not influence your messaging.

Answer

Yeah it all depends on how you go about it. Starting off the call saying "I heard you may be looking at x,y,z" is creepy. But you can call and introduce yourself and explain the benefits of your software, then ask what they are using, and figure out what pains they are dealing with. If they are truly looking at alternatives then understanding their pain and showing them benefits will set you up in a good position.

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Best approach when using Intent data

11 comments

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Best approach when using Intent data

11 comments

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