The marketing statistic that I quote the most is that only 5% of your market is currently ‘in the market’ to buy from you. It’s from The Long and The Short Of It—one of the most important marketing texts of all time. Capturing demand when there is demand is a vital part of marketing. And building your brand to be recognised, remembered and respected is also vital. But these things have to happen together. Of course, with your BoFu activity, being reliant on the market’s peaks and troughs makes it difficult to rely solely on ‘people who are ready’. And most of your competition will be doing the same, saturating your pool of ready-to-buy prospects.
Businesses have attempted to bypass this by setting their sales teams loose on people who aren’t ready to buy yet. They start attempting outreach at MoFu. But this approach has its pitfalls. Trying to force leads down the infamous marketing funnel just doesn’t work, because it’s not how buyers behave. They don’t take a logical path from Touchpoint 1 to Touchpoint 12. Some take less, some take more. Some take 1 month to complete this journey to purchase, others take years. Fortunately, there is a way to reach ready-to-engage prospects first. It’s called intent-based marketing.
What is intent-based marketing?
Intent-based marketing is the approach of collecting individual online behaviour data and using it to advertise to or communicate with individuals at the time when they are most likely to purchase, within the right context. By using this behavioural data, you can get upstream of the inevitably chaotic Paid Search & SEO battlefield. You can speak to these people or market to them before they reach the BoFu, but right when they’re about to get there. So, you aren’t jumping in too early, but you’re getting there before others.
What does this mean for marketers?
When delivering marketing content to a prospect that is ready, you can align your messaging to answer or solve the problem you know they’re facing now. This reduces wasted advertising because you have a higher chance of engaging them, which in turn drives a better ROAS, because you’re only spending on the individuals who are likely to convert.
There are a few tools and platforms that allow marketers to display personalised ads based on users’ browsing behaviour. 6Sense is a great one and it directly integrates with LinkedIn Ads for a perfect B2B marketing set-up.
You could combine intent data with an ABM approach, starting with a much larger pool of data than usual ABM, and just focusing your activity on the prospects within this pool that are ready. Again, this approach will likely deliver a much stronger ROI than standard activity.
Generally, intent-based marketing improves the effectiveness of marketing activity, but also provides richer data during the marketing>sales handoff.
Does sales outreach need to evolve as well?
From a sales point of view, less time is wasted because leads are much easier to close. The sales team only need to spend time following up and selling to individuals who are ready.
Once the marketing team identifies those who are in the buying stage, there are a few things you can do. Remember, with more data on exactly what they’ve been up to, sales can tailor the outreach. A couple of approaches our teams have taken in the past are:
- Reach out with a LinkedIn message: craft a LinkedIn message highlighting some of your success stories in their field and invite them for a meeting.
- Send a link to relevant content: send a link to a free report on the latest trends in their industry.
- Email an offer for a demo: send a personalised email offering a 1to1 demo and a downloadable guide to implementing your solution.
- Run a LinkedIn Ads air cover campaign: target the individuals with LinkedIn Ads promoting a solution to their very specific problem, and even a case study of how you’ve fixed it in the past for another similar organisation.
LinkedIn Ads integrations make this easier…
LinkedIn Ads has a direct integration with G2, 6Sense and Bombora—some of the leading intent-based targeting tools.
View all LinkedIn analytics and data partners
G2 integration:
G2 offers high-value insights into what is happening in the world of software sales. This is a valuable tool for B2B SaaS businesses. The G2 integration for LinkedIn Ads allows you to build Matched Audiences that target professionals at accounts showing interest in a product, company, and category on G2.
View G2 + LinkedIn Integration
Bombora integration:
Bombora offers ethically gathered B2B data derived from a co-operative of more than 4,000 privacy-compliant members. With this data coming directly from the source, we know that it is timely and relevant, so it’s a reliable source of who truly is in the market.
View Bombora + LinkedIn Integration
Cost-effective ways to try intent-based marketing today
Some intent-based marketing tools can cost a fortune, but others are quite cost-effective. It’s worth finding the platform that works for you and investing in it, because it can streamline your MoFu/BoFu activity, and help your Sales Team get to prospects before your competitors.
Bombora
Bombora’s intent data is up-to-date, premium quality and built on consent. Bombora tracks prospects’ digital journeys across a vast network of 5000+ B2B websites. According to their website, 70% of the data they collect is exclusive to them and not available anywhere else.
Features:
- 12,000+ intent topics
- Consent-based data is collected from a cooperative of 5,000 B2B sites, where B2B buyers search for solutions
- 70% of its dataset is exclusive to Bombora
- Considers the historical baseline or typical content consumption when calculating intent
Price: Not available publicly, but there is a free trial which also delivers ongoing weekly reports of ten ‘ready to buy’ businesses, and what specifically they’ve been looking into. It’s worth trialling this regardless!
Lusha
Lusha is a B2B contact information provider that supplies intent data. There is also a chrome extension, allowing you to quickly access your prospects’ contact details.
Features:
- Data enrichment
- CRM integration
- Search function
- Chrome plugin
Price: £60+ per month, per user.
Leadfeeder
Leadfeeder provides information on which companies visit your website and reveals user behaviour.
Features:
- Identify companies to target
- Create B2B intent data reports on visitors
- Rank leads based on engagement
Price: £115 per month.
The Cremarc Innovation Hub has been looking into intent-based marketing for our clients this quarter. We’ve rolled out Bombora, 6Sense and Lusha for a few of them, and the results are already being realised. The important thing is that you choose the right intent data tool for your business. Some don’t integrate with certain CRM and automation platforms that you may be using. Do your research and start your journey to intent-based marketing today. It’s a great opportunity to get ahead of your competitors, optimise your BoFu activity, and build up your bank of rich market data.
If you’d like a hand choosing the right intent-based marketing tool or need support setting one up and integrating with your existing marketing infrastructure, Cremarc is here to help.
