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Using Intent Signals to Optimize Content & Sales Outreach · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:02
  All right. Welcome everybody to another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, Matt Heinz. Excited to be here with you as we finish up
• 0:10
  August and start a new month.
• 0:14
  Labor Day is right around the corner as we record.
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  This also means college football is back, which I'm very excited about.
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  We're getting back into intent event season. Jennifer, we got Saastr,
• 0:24
  we got Salesforce, we got InBound, we got Pavilion,
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  we got a bunch of great events coming up, but excited to have y'all here.
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  If you are listening to or watching this episode live,
• 0:33
  we're really excited that you're here.
• 0:48
  Thank you very much for subscribing for downloading.
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  We are somewhere around episode 365 of Sales Pipe Radio over the years,
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  and you can find every episode past, present,
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  and future up@salespipelineradio.com.
• 1:02
  Today I want to talk about intent signals and a broader definition of what I
• 1:06
  think intent signals mean and how they can be used;
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  and couldn't think of anyone better than to bring on Jennifer Ross.
• 1:11
  She is the CMO of Intensify. If you know that name and you're in B2B,
• 1:15
  you may have recognized her for many years at SiriusDecisions and Forester,
• 1:19
  and excited to have you here. Thanks for joining us.
• 1:22
  I'm so happy to be here. Matt, thanks for having me. This is a great topic,
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  and of course, near and dear to my heart.
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  I think everyone's looking for buying signals,
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  and I think when we think about intent signals,
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  sometimes we think about intent to buy and think of those things.
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  To me a little too closely related,
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  how do you define an intent signal and what should that mean for B2B
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  buyers and sellers?
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  That's a great question, Matt,
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  and it's something that we even talk about internally at Intensify.
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  At its most basic level,
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  intent data is information collected about a web user's
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  content consumption activities in their research behaviors.
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  So it can directionally point to,
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  or correlate to what you might say would be buying behaviors,
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  but you are really looking at their footprint, if you will.
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  So with this info, B2B teams go to market teams.
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  They can gain a ton of understanding and create greater
• 2:26
  efficiencies with their go-to market motions by looking at which companies
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  may seem most likely to buy based on their behavior,
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  so they can effectively allocate resources to the right accounts.
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  The thing that they can also see is what is it seeming that these
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  companies, these accounts care most about? Because if we know that,
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  we can select the right messages and content to engage them further
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  in their efforts. And then the last thing I would say is the how,
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  right? So there's who's looking the,
• 3:02
  what are they looking at and the where do we think based on
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  those research and content consumption behaviors
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  might point to where they could be in a buying journey.
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  So you can deliver the right messages the right way at the right time.
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  And although those are generally easily
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  understood,
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  you asked the right question because intent data can also get complicated
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  quickly. Lots of different types, lots of different derivation methods,
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  scoring models and so on and so forth.
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  So we're in line with the way that you are thinking about it.
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  They're correlated in parallel, but they're not one in the same thing.
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  If you take all those different signals and you treat them all as buying
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  signals,
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  the majority of the time you may be pushing a prospect faster than they're ready
• 3:53
  to go. They may ultimately have an acute need you can solve,
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  but the signal you're looking for may be something around education that
• 4:03
  they're doing. It may be around the fact that
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  a problem is becoming prescient enough where you've seen this movie before,
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  you know where it's going, but the prospect isn't there yet.
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  I know we're all in a hurry to sell.
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  We're all in a hurry for our BDRs to set appointments.
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  But talk a little bit about discipline and patience and the importance of some
• 4:24
  of those early and mid journey signals and how to best leverage those.
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  I'll start off first kind of going back to when you're
• 4:36
  using intent and you're moving too quickly the way that you described Matt,
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  you also could be getting false positives when you're looking at keywords
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  and topics. So one of the things, shameless plug,
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  but it fits into this what we're talking about,
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  one of the things that Intentsify does differently is we actually introduce
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  beyond the keywords and business topics,
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  a next generation intent derivation method that says that's actually not
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  enough. We are going to look at your content,
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  your webpages,
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  the things that you say your organization does,
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  what problems do you solve, how does your solution solve it,
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  and factor that in as well so that you're actually getting a closer match to
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  not just that broad keyword or topic,
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  but you're getting a closer match to people who are generally interested in
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  solutions that you can provide. And we also think
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  about, again,
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  the different stages right now, even internally,
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  we can imagine a big thing for us is drink our own champagne.
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  Anybody that's in B2B tech selling to other B2B marketers or salespeople,
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  we've got to demonstrate that we're doing this internally.
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  And so we've recently implemented Forester's
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  latest revenue waterfall that looks at
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  opportunities, buying groups,
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  multiple opportunities on an account,
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  but how intent can also inform
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  how they move from stage to stage, which gets at where you were headed too--
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  you don't treat them just like the old days when you looked at an individual and
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  an MQL coming in the top,
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  you wouldn't treat them the same way all the way through.
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  So now you've just got better data and more insights
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  with intent to really think about the next best action based on where
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  they are and helping to offer up things that are going to help
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  them move to the next stage.
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  I think what's sometimes an unpopular opinion in companies that have a bit of a
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  impatience is that three steps are faster than one where we see something and we
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  want to fast forward the story,
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  we want to move them more quickly to where we think we believe they need to go.
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  Your prospect may not be at that speed, and if you push them too fast,
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  that creates artificial friction.
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  I think also talk about the fact that an intent signal doesn't mean the same to
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  every individual in the organization. When we think about the buying committee,
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  people with different roles, different perspectives, different needs,
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  a company intent signal may need to be translated and communicated in a
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  different way to different people to help them each reach consensus on a
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  commitment to change. Talk a little bit about how to do that.
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  Good point,
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  and probably we should talk a little bit about (because we may have different
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  audiences listening in today), different types of intent data.
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  We know most people are using some form of intent,
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  but it's probably good to just level set on when we think about intent data.
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  We've got party type and source type. So we've got third party data,
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  which is the broadest set available and the best source for early
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  interest signals. You've got second party data,
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  which is great for late stage signals and use cases.
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  Coverage is a bit more limited. And then you've got first party data,
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  great for early and late, but also limited coverage.
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  And it's important to note that each source type comes with its own strengths
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  and weaknesses. They're all very complimentary.
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  It's best to use at least one source from one party type to get the coverage,
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  breadth and insight depth that you need.
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  So a basic understanding of what we
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  even mean by intent data and all the different types of intent data that can
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  come into play are important for you when you're thinking about how you're going
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  to utilize it and leverage it in your own situation.
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  That's right. Talking today on Sales Pipeline Radio with Jennifer Ross,
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  CMO of Intentsify
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  and really liked this comment from Dennis here talking about,
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  how you can have this information,
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  but how you divulge that to a client or a prospect needs some nuance.
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  You may see that someone was on your buying page and you don't want to call them
• 9:00
  or email this afternoon and say, I saw you are on our buying page.
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  How do you teach an organization to create,
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  to do the art in the science there, to take the data, to implement the data,
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  but to be careful and thoughtful about how that is communicated implemented?
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  That's a great point,
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  and I would say that isn't specific to just intent data.
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  The way that we're talking about it today in general,
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  we all have to be careful. There's that line that you can easily cross that.
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  I get emails like that every day of, Ooh, that's creepy,
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  or BDR is now doing text messages. I mean,
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  things are changing and they're trying all different kinds of channels and
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  tactics. So the way that intent can help play a role there is
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  if we go back to talking about when you're looking at
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  intent and you're looking at potentially multiple sources and what
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  content has been consumed,
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  and you're drawing that correlation to where we think they are in their buying,
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  buying decision making process and what we know about them at
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  intensify, we bucket those into tiers.
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  So again, we're not saying it is where they're,
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  and they're buying journey. We're saying,
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  this is the research stage we believe they're at,
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  which you can correlate potentially to, oh,
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  a lot of this is they're doing education, they're doing this.
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  So if you have that kind of tiering and
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  level based on research stages that you can correlate to where they're in their
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  buying journey,
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  you can be more thoughtful and planful about the next action,
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  the next piece of content you're going to send,
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  what you're going to say in that outreach message from your BDR
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  team.
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  So that's the way we have our team internally working is looking holistically.
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  They have a dashboard they go into every day before they do any action.
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  They're factoring in the intent score, aggregate level,
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  but they're looking more granularly at the actual assets and that
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  tiering model.
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  These are the questions that I think you're kind of addressing here, Jennifer,
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  the right journey to each prospect and stack ranking some of the data that
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  is used in that journey. I want to talk a little bit about activating.
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  This is a marketing job. Is sales involved in doing this?
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  Is this sort of a sales enablement function? How do you start to activate,
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  even if you decide, okay,
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  here's the message to these type of workflows and people in the buying journey,
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  how is this activated and deployed across an operational team?
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  Love that question.
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  And for those marketers that are familiar with and are using or know the
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  concept of the demand waterfall,
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  that's a bit where I started in thinking about all the different ways that we
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  could leverage intent across the organization before you're even,
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  anything comes into the waterfall intent can be used to help
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  identify your target account list, prioritize your target account list,
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  expand your ICP, right? We may think we know who our target account list,
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  who should be on it, are there lookalikes?
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  Are there companies that we're missing that are interested in the same things?
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  It can be activated via digital programs. So for example,
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  you've got intent providers likel Intentsify.
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  There's different kinds of intent providers.
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  You've got data providers that are focused on selling the data alone.
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  You've got ABM platforms that usually license that as part of a broader
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  platform. You've got campaign execution where they focus on activating that
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  intent through things like content syndication, display advertising,
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  and then you've got some what Forrester calls walled gardens.
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  So mainly in the realm of second party data sources with pricing based on
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  access to a private community. But so you can drive top of funnel,
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  you can do intent fuel display advertising that can be used for
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  creating awareness that feeds into intent fueled content syndication.
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  You can use the display advertising in the backend of something like content
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  syndication for nurture.
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  We use it as I touched on earlier of, okay,
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  now we've got some engagement and some interest that was informed by our intent.
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  In fact,
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  we decided where to spend marketing dollars based on the accounts that we're
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  showing in market, used those types of engagement activities.
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  And then now we've got them flowing into a BDR team that again uses that
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  intelligence and those intent scores to prioritize who they're going to follow
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  up with, how they're going to follow up, what we would offer as the next step.
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  So we're using it for all of those things.
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  I'll say one more thing that wasn't in the question, but how do you activate it?
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  So those are some tactics for activating it,
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  but the beauty of the intent data and the intelligence you
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  can get from that is we all know, we've always said
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  success depends on marketing, sales alignment. Well,
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  now that's even a greater challenge in organizations. It's marketing,
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  it's sales, it's customer success, it's the product team,
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  and the intent intelligence really can become the
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  backbone or the foundation for driving that kind of alignment because we're all
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  looking at the same dashboard and at the same information of what's going on in
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  that account and taking action in unison
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  together in a unified way.
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  It seems to me that,
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  just in this conversation that data and intelligence is almost
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  replacing media as the coin of the realm and a differentiator for marketers
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  where it's not just all about reaching people on search in digital channels
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  in a one to many way,
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  but the intelligence that is around us that is available to us today allows us
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  to have a one-on-one conversation almost infinitely at scale.
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  And so an investment in those tools,
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  in that technology allows for better, more precise conversations.
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  Doesn't eliminate media from your mix,
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  but how should marketers be thinking about, I mean, look,
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  it's already September, we're thinking about 2024 already.
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  How should marketers be thinking about budget mix in this age of vastly greater
• 15:47
  information available?
• 15:49
  Yeah,
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  you're spot on where we are coming up right into that season,
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  and we all
• 15:56
  say
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  we
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  can't do that without data.
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  So anytime we get into conversations about what's the best strategy?,
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  what are the best channels?, what are the best tactics?,
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  that can vary greatly depending on the organization,
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  depending on the audience you're going after.
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  But one thing that doesn't vary is to do it efficiently and effectively.
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  You need the right information.
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  You need to understand what your audiences need or where they're
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  going for that information.
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  And sometimes when you are thinking about also
• 16:35
  budgeting for something like, well, we need to invest in intent data,
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  it tends to be pigeonholed into one
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  bucket. Like, oh, okay, I've got to increase my demand bucket.
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  We're going to do content syndication. But if you think about it holistically,
• 16:52
  it's full funnel. So think about things like cross-selling and upselling intent
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  data can reveal a customer's intent to explore additional products and features,
• 17:00
  and that information empowers sales reps to present relevant cross-selling and
• 17:05
  upselling opportunities. Competitor insights,
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  do we know if they're suddenly looking? Could be our existing customers,
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  do we know if they're suddenly searching our competitors?
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  What we know from having done our own research is everyone knows that intent
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  data seems that the vast majority of sales and marketers know intent data is
• 17:25
  table stakes. But what we see is,
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  they're not leveraging it across all of these use cases. So they may,
• 17:34
  from a how do I build the business case for my budget?
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  They may not have the strongest story for that because they're missing
• 17:40
  opportunities to use it across all of these different use cases.
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  I'm really, really glad you brought that up.
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  If you're not thinking about intent signal usage across your customer base,
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  you're missing an opportunity to find buying signals for additional products and
• 17:57
  services. You're missing warning signs, as you just mentioned of them,
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  surging looking at a competitor's site.
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  They may just be getting educational materials that may be a sign that they're
• 18:07
  not satisfied. So every intent, and if you think about,
• 18:11
  we've been thinking more recently about customer led growth quite a bit.
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  We've got Julie Persofsky from Winning By Design,
• 18:17
  who's done a ton of great work in this space coming up in a couple of episodes,
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  and just this idea of thinking about that user committee,
• 18:23
  that customer committee as at least the same complexity,
• 18:27
  if not more complexity than the buying committee and thinking about stages and
• 18:30
  needs and signals. Huge, huge opportunity.
• 18:34
  So Jennifer, for people that are sort of nodding their heads,
• 18:39
  this sounds great, where else can people look? Where can they learn?
• 18:42
  I know there's a lot of great information on intentsify.com,
• 18:45
  but where else can people learn and get started on this journey?
• 18:48
  Oh, so many great places. I mean,
• 18:50
  always coming from the likes of a SiriusDecisions and then Forrester,
• 18:55
  I would say anytime you're looking at something that's a new or emerging
• 18:59
  category,
• 19:00
  they've got great information about the different types of intent providers,
• 19:04
  how they differ. Again,
• 19:06
  I would say go to community sites for,
• 19:09
  there's lots of great blogs out there about different types of understanding,
• 19:14
  the different types of intent,
• 19:17
  why you might want to consider more than one source of intent.
• 19:23
  And there's a plethora of places that you can go.
• 19:26
  But I always start with some great blogs from marketing communities,
• 19:30
  like a MarketingProfs. Almost anywhere you go,
• 19:35
  you'll find information on different use cases.
• 19:39
  Just today, we're all searching everything AU, generative AI, AI. Well,
• 19:46
  what we are doing at a company like Intentsify, it's AI fueled,
• 19:50
  I mean that ability to identify the research that's being
• 19:55
  consumed, to map it to your company's offerings. It's AI,
• 19:59
  it's natural language processing. It's the latest in AI technologies,
• 20:02
  and there's tons out there on those topics as well.
• 20:07
  Absolutely. Well definitely encourage folks to go to intentsify.io.
• 20:11
  Look at the media library.
• 20:12
  There's some really good educational content up there.
• 20:15
  Just if you're getting up to speed,
• 20:17
  Forrester's done some reports on data providers that are worth looking at.
• 20:20
  And to Jennifer's point, some great communities Pavilion, RevGenius,
• 20:24
  really great. Just like go to RevGenius,
• 20:26
  sign up for their stuff and just do a search for intent signals or signals,
• 20:29
  and you're going to find practitioners that are deep into this already you can
• 20:33
  learn from. Well, Jennifer, thanks so much for joining us for this episode.
• 20:35
  This was a lot of fun. It always goes fast, but it's good to see you again.
• 20:38
  Great to see you on the road a little more often these days.
• 20:40
  And thanks again so much for joining us. Jennifer: Great to see you too.
• 20:43
  Look forward to passing each other in the hall at the next event. And
• 20:48
  thanks everyone for watching and listening.
• 20:49
  This is another episode of Sales Pipe. I'm Radio. We'll see you next week.
• 20:52
  Take care.