Intent signals for salespeople are like headlights for a car. Sometimes, you can get along without them, but at some point, you’ll be driving (or selling) blind. This becomes clearer each day, as more of your competitors discover sales and marketing tools that leverage the actual and potential actions of target companies in your industry.
What Are Intent Signals?
Intent signals are actions that prospects take or interactions that occur, which may indicate that companies want to buy your product.
Intent signals are only the beginning of the “intent value chain.” To make sense of the potentially thousands of intent signals that your company collects, they need to be turned into intent data, i.e. numbers and contact lists. The result is a long list where the info isn’t ranked, and working with such raw data would probably waste a lot of time. Thankfully, there are techniques like lead scoring that allow for intent classification filtering.
This separates the information according to quality so that you can apply the right intent-based marketing technique. For example, if someone downloads a white paper, it makes sense to gather their contact info as part of the process. But a much clearer signal, such as requesting a demo, might warrant a call from somebody on your sales team. Turning an intent signal into action is part of the process of generating data insights.
Is intent-based targeting really necessary? Well, even before the internet era, salespeople still used directories like Dun & Bradstreet. Even the Yellow Pages is a source of intent signals because it contains information that has contact data organized into types of companies. Yes, many salespeople do a great job with trade show contacts and referrals from a network of business connections. But, in a competitive world, you need to make the most out of every possible opportunity.
Types of Intent Signals
There are many ways to describe intent signals. They can be classified via the intent data providers that supply them, through their origin (e.g. search, website, or the Yellow Pages), or according to purchasing intent.
Purchasing intent signals can be categorized as strong or weak. The strongest among them, which show the highest chance that the prospect will become a customer, are also considered forms of buying signals.
For salespeople, these are the most relevant signals. The weaker ones are often passed on to marketers for analysis and scoring. Strong signals mean that a direct approach might soon be in order. Below, we’ve outlined the major types of intent signals and how they relate to purchase potential.
Profiling Signals – Weak
These signals are made up of incidental information. For example, if you sell widgets, and Acme Ltd. buys widgets, then they might be interested in your product. Such information is available from third parties like LeadGenius, Global Database, and LinkedIn. Profiling data often shows weak overall purchase intent. Unless there are only a few target customers to begin with, profiling data requires some serious sifting. Categories include:
- Firmographic – This data includes industry, company size, revenue, and number of employees. Essentially, the information points to prospects that tend to buy what you sell, but there is no indication of specific interest in your product.
- Technographic – This is like firmographic but specifically related to the hardware and software that prospects are likely using.
- Hiring – When companies hire, they usually do so for specific positions. For example, if a firm is recruiting for various tech positions, chances are that they are expanding, and could use a scalable technology of a certain type.
- Bidstream – Derived from real-time bidding advertising auction sites, bidstream data looks at the keywords that companies use to match intent to behavior.
- Research – This is information about the kinds of research that employees at certain companies are doing (for instance, the articles that they are reading).
Indirect Engagement Signals – Strong
Whenever somebody visits your website, watches a video that you have posted on YouTube, or reads a review about your product, they are engaging with your brand indirectly. The main source of this information is first-party; your organization collects it through website analytics tools.
However, there is a growing second-party industry. Second-party data firms provide online information about other companies in the form of reviews, videos, and product descriptions. When a website visitor checks out one of those companies, the second-party website records that interaction and sells related information to the company in question. For example, websites like TrustRadius, which reviews products and companies, will sell engagement data to the companies discussed on their website. Indirect engagement data like this is a pretty good indicator of purchase intent.
Direct Engagement Signals – Strongest
It doesn’t really get better than this. Direct engagement is when a prospect makes actual contact with the organization. This could be filling out contact info to download a whitepaper, requesting a demo, or calling back a rep who is part of an account-based marketing campaign (ABM).
How Useful Is Search Intent for Sales?
Search intent occurs when somebody looks for a product using keywords that match the ones that you use. At first glance, this seems to be a very strong signal of purchase intent. This is especially true if you are selling something unique. Also, when it comes to physical goods, users often include the location (e.g. Chia Pet in Arizona), so you’ve got some chance they’ll knock on your door.
But what does search intent mean for B2B sales? For something like B2B SaaS, which can be sold virtually, info about searches in a particular area may not be as useful. However, if you know a company that fits your ICP is searching for a product like yours, it could mean that it’s a good time to reach out to them. Making a sale is easiest when you can strike while the iron is hot. When prospects are starting to research solutions to problems you fix, there’s a good chance they’ll be more open to what you have to say.
How to Use Intent Signals to Increase Sales
Each type of intent data invites a certain response. Here are a few examples:
- Firmographic – apply lead scoring to build a list of prospects for a B2B product and use ABM to find strong purchase intent.
- Indirect – discover what reviewers don’t like about your product, fix the problems, and release a revision notice to users.
- Direct – provide a demo, a 30-day free trial, and a dedicated customer support representative to ensure that a deal is closed.
Key Takeaways
- Intent signals indicate that a prospect might buy a product.
- There are many types of intent signals, including profiles, search, indirect engagement, and direct engagement.
- For every kind of intent signal, salespeople and marketers should use different techniques to nurture the prospect
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