3 Ways to Activate Your Account Intelligence Data (Part 3)

In the first two posts of this 3-part series, we explored the shift from mass marketing towards account-based marketing and that the key to success was gathering account intelligence data and turning it into insights. 

The next step is activating those insights, and here are three ways you can:

1 – Incorporate it into your account-based marketing strategy

The data you have collected can be used to organize and tier your target account lists. Not all accounts are created equal, and your marketing strategy should reflect that. You should ensure that your resources and level of investment align with the accounts that are most important to your business. 

One way you can do this is to use your first-party data to understand which clients are associated with the highest lifetime value (LTV) and have closed quickly. From there, identify similar aka “lookalike” accounts and target those accounts by surrounding the buying committee with hyper-personalized messaging. Once the accounts have shown purchase intent and demonstrated an awareness of your business through ad engagement, target them with custom content, private event invitations and exclusive offers – alignment with your sales team for 1-1 offers is also key.

Other accounts that fall into your ideal customer profile but aren’t as strategic can be organized into target groups based on specific regions, personas, industries, and so on. Start with broader awareness programs for each category. From there, layer on intent data to validate buying signals and present them with relevant, gated content offers to respond to. The result is a timely, meaningful connection with a contact who’s a real person who fits the profile of someone sales wants to reach out to.

2 – Use it to inform your B2B advertising

Intent data and account scores related to previous engagements should continuously inform your B2B advertising strategy. As we know, messaging is an iterative process and we’re always testing and tweaking. Rather than throwing linguistic spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks, you can get a head start by using data to inform your ad messages. 

For example, certain account intelligence tools collect intent data that reveals what topics accounts are actively researching. This can help marketers understand what type of content would resonate with those accounts best, and which messages to use in promotion.

Another key piece of account intent data is whether your targets are actively researching your competitors. If they are, you can infer that they are in-market and then get in front of them with messaging about how your brand is different from the competition. 

Lastly, understanding how accounts have previously interacted with your brand can help ensure you deliver a message that is appropriate. You wouldn’t promote high-level blog articles to a prospect that has already received a demo of your product. Instead, you would promote relevant case studies that highlight key results. Ensuring your message meets the account where they are in their buying process will give you the best chance of engagement. 

3 – Give this intelligence to your sales team

Make the account intelligence data you’ve consolidated accessible to the sales team to set them up for success. But don’t just give them an unordered spreadsheet of information. Prioritize accounts by an engagement and fit score to allow sales teams to focus their efforts on accounts that have already expressed interest in your product and service and are more likely to respond to their message. It also enables them to craft a message that feels much more personal to the prospect, because they will have insights into the account’s research journey that they can apply to their outreach.

Furthermore, providing the sales team with a history of previous account activity to help them tailor their outreach even more. Understanding which marketing campaigns prospects have interacted with, what pieces of content or web pages they’ve engaged with, and what time they’ve been active will help sales craft the right message, for the right medium at the right time. For example, if they know a target has been engaging with our brand’s previous on-demand webinar promotions on LinkedIn in the afternoons, a sales rep could plan to connect with them via LinkedIn and invite them to an upcoming webinar or in-person event or send them relevant sales materials related to the content of the webinar they previously viewed.

The Bottom Line

Marketing and sales outreach should be a concerted effort. The more alignment the teams have in terms of their go-to-market strategy, the better the outcomes. Ultimately, you want to ensure that you’re delivering the best account-based experience that you can for your prospects. Account intelligence will help you do just that.

To learn how your business can get started with an account-based marketing strategy, see our ABM Guide.