InsideView added Bombora intent intelligence to its Apex “go-to-market” ICP/TAM service. InsideView highlighted two use cases: Refining a list of ideal prospects to focus on those showing intent and expanding a list of buyers to find additional prospects with similar intent and other characteristics.
Refining an ICP list helps marketers target their best prospects based upon open web research currently being performed at their ICP accounts. Thus, custom campaigns can be targeted to accounts likely in market for specific solutions. Instead of blanketing ICP accounts with general messages, a more refined approach can be taken with a higher likelihood of the message resonating.
Conversely, Intent data can be used to expand an ABM list.
“InsideView’s Targeting Intelligence platform provides a single point of access for all B2B data and targeting signals, from firmographics, contact details, news events, personal connections, technographics, and now intent data. Adding Bombora intent data makes go-to-market planning in Apex that much more powerful. Now you can discover even more ideal prospects, and home in on the specific accounts in your target market that are not only an ideal fit for what you sell but are also currently in-market.”
- InsideView VP of Products Marc Perramond
I find the first use case, refining a list for targeted messaging, to be more compelling. Intent data is ephemeral. A firm that is researching a topic this month will have moved onto other topics a month or two later. Using intent data to message to these companies on intent-based topics today is powerful. It allows vendors to reach out to prospects before they have begun talking to prospective vendors. It is a powerful method to answer the questions whom to call (account-wise), when to call, and what to say.
However, vendors should be careful about using intent to expand their targets. Identifying the key intent topics is crucial, but building an ABM list based upon ephemeral intent signals risks adding firms that had surging interest over the past few weeks, but have already made purchasing decisions, chosen not to pursue a technology, or were simply performing due diligence. Surge scores simply mean that there was a recent peak in topical interest above the mean.
Defining who are your best candidates amongst your pool of ABM accounts for specific messages is a clear winner. Adding accounts to an ABM list based upon a short-term surge in interest is likely to result in wasted marketing dollars.
Until recently, Bombora has had more success selling their intent file to predictive analytics companies than sales intelligence firms. However, sales intelligence companies are now figuring out how to present intent data to sales reps and marketing professionals without having to provide sales training sessions on the nuances of intent data. For example, DiscoverOrg recently redesigned its OppAlerts to focus on the few key topics relevant to the client and then limited the intent signals to the top few percent of surging accounts. This level of refinement gives sales reps confidence that when they see a surging topic at an account, it is truly surging and not simply an anomaly. And because numeric surge scores have been removed, the rep merely needs to know that there is a high certainty that individuals at the account are actively researching the topic in question.
B2B tech media company TechTarget delivers intent data to sales reps from its Priority Engine service. While other intent services are at the company level, TechTarget has opted-in readers performing current research on a topic. Thus, TechTarget can identify company, executive, topic, and buying stage for its intent file.
HG Data