Leverage Intent Data to Expedite Your Sales Pipeline

Every business wants to observe growth in its sales system. As they see the numbers increase, the happiness increases. But this is not a piece of cake and doesn’t happen so easily. It takes strategies, proper management, hard work, and a bit of good fortune to achieve good results. To smoothly keep the sales engine running, it is very important to have a better sales process that will give you great results in less time. In 2023, managing your leads without intent data is not enough. Let us understand more about intent data.

What is intent data?

Intent data is a piece of information gathered about a user’s behaviour on the web. It provides insights into their interest. You can evaluate users’ intent by closely examining their behaviour such as downloads, form submissions, requests, event participation, media consumption, webpage visits, etc. Intent data can be divided into two parts:

1. Active intent data

When users are currently looking for a product or service, they can be categorised as active intent data.Following are the data sources:

Transactional intent: It involves all the transactional activity of the user like adding the product to the cart, checking the price at checkout, etc. It shows that the user is very likely to purchase a product. For example: whenever you add any product to your cart on any shopping website, you get notifications like your product is waiting in the cart.

Navigational intent: This source involves searching for a specific web page or a specific product. It shows that the user wants a specific product or a page, and you can make it easy for them by giving them a helping hand. For example, when you search for a particular product, you will find that product on every web page you open next.

Informational intent: Here, the user is more likely to gather information about your website or product. They will be interested in reading your guides, tutorials or blogs at this source.

2. Passive intent data

Sometimes users don’t realize that there is a solution to their problem. There is something in the market that is likely to solve their problems. This unrealized need for a product can be categorized as passive intent data.

It is important to properly nurture the passive intent and turn it into an active intent. Figuring out this passive intent, the sales and marketing team can find valuable leads. It will grow your sales pipeline because the user is not yet actively looking for the product where you have already reached them. Various datasheets help us to understand whether a user has passive intent or not, and these are:

Technographic Data: This datasheet gives you information about tools and software used or has been used by your users previously. Based on this, you can figure out what they currently want and what they are interested in.

Demographic Data: This datasheet helps you segregate people into different groups, such as age, income, occupation, gender, and other information.

Firmographic Data: This datasheet includes attributes like industries served, company size, funding information, market share, total revenue, and other information that will help you segregate companies.

Passive and active intent data is further sub-divided into three: First-party data: Data collected from the interface you control such as your CRMs, chatbots, websites etc., is your first-party data.

Second-party data: Data collected with the permission of the visiting user. For instance: reviews on websites and cookie data.

Third-party: Data collected beyond your websites and other technology that you don’t own or control.

Now that we know what intent data is, let us dig more and find out why it is an important pillar to an efficient sales pipeline.

How to use intent data for lead management and pipeline acceleration?

When your sales representative uses intent data, they can focus on and prioritize a specific target that is more likely to purchase your product. Based on the intent data, they will know whether the company has the purchasing power, they are only interested in the product, did it sign-up for a free trial, or has recently raised funds. By knowing all these factors, your representatives have a better understanding of your leads and, will turn more effective in closing the deal.

Enhance your first-party lead management platform Data collected from the interfaces you control, like CRMs, chatbots, websites etc., is your first party lead management platform. Your sales representative will not have to search for information about your leads that have registered a day before. Intent data platform allows your sales team to integrate intent data directly into the marketing platforms.

Segregate your leads Intent data helps you to segregate your prospects into different segments. It will make it easy for your sales representative to work on leads according to their needs. If they see more potential in some leads, they can prioritize it and turn it into a qualified lead. For example: If a prospect has registered for your free trial and has been recently funded or has good purchasing history, he is the prospect you need to immediately pay attention to.

Avoid rejections With the help of intent data, you are less likely to face rejections or objections, as you will be already aware of the details of your prospects. Intent data will also help you to overcome any irrelevant objections or threats. You can counter the objections with factual data and personalized pitches.

Personalized outreach strategy Intent data will help you give a personalized touch to your outreach campaigns with correct information. Before pitching the lead, you will already know their current status and history. Rather than doing cold calling, you can know your prospect now. It will help you hit the right target and not waste time on the wrong ones.

If your lead is already using your competitor’s product, with all the insights, you can try to manipulate and make them believe in how good your product is than theirs.

Intent data as sales acceleration tool

All the information you will gather from intent data is your content. Content is very important for sales and marketing. It is very necessary to know what your buyer needs or wants. Knowing their requirements is the key to a successful business. When you know what is most required in the market, you can alter your tool accordingly.

So now you know why intent data is an important pillar for your sales pipeline. Create content according to your intent insights to attract more customers. Intent data helps with better leads and sales pipeline management.

By now, you must have understood how important intent data is to grow your sales. It helps you to get better leads and manage the sales pipeline. It saves your representative’s time and efforts by finding leads that are intended to buy.

Content plays a vital role in sales and marketing. Intent data is just a new way to help you with your content. With the right content, you will know the market more closely and work accordingly on your product, tool, software etc.

If you wish to create great content for your webpage, intent data will do your job. There are various intent data tools in the market you can research and get one for yourself.

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