EXPERT WEBINAR SERIES: Intent is Everything

On September 30, we presented the second webinar in our series on ABM, “Intent is Everything: How Intent Topics Drive Engagement and Maximize Marketing Impact.” Presenters Lori Wizdo, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, and Tom Koletas, SVP Advertising Programs at Madison Logic offered up their insights into how intent data can cut through a noisy marketplace to help B2B marketers find the customers who are already in market.
As usual, we kicked off with a poll of webinar attendees; Tom asked participants what they saw to be their greatest marketing challenge, and “increasing and proving ROI” and “generating high quality leads,” were the clear answers.  Lori then provided some of Forrester’s research, which revealed that 74 percent believe “driving brand awareness” to be their top challenge, while 84 percent say their largest challenge is “increasing market share.”
She also covered how the changes in B2B customer attitudes have shifted the dynamic of the buyer/customer relationship and how marketers attempt to reach their prospects. Forrester has denoted the “Age of the Customer” as the last two decades or so in which businesses have taken steps to improve their engagement efforts based on technology and changing consumer content use patterns. It is those companies that have figured out how to be present at every ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth), or decision-time, throughout the customer journey, Lori stated.
Tom then took us on a journey through the world of B2B marketing with intent data as our guide. Intent data enables marketers to know what customers are researching while they’re researching it, driving leads and revenue.
So wait, what does all this have to do with ABM?!
As the webinar title says, everything.
Intent data helps B2B marketers find those in-market prospects, as well as their spheres of influence, during the unfortunately short window they have to engage during the consideration process, and then allows them to engage throughout that journey. Tom made the great point that job titles no longer mean enough when your average mid-tier organization (500-700ppl) has at least 7 people involved in making a single business decision these days. Intent data drives both awareness and direct response when it is used to target the right people, with the right messages at the right time. Sound familiar?
Lori jumped back in to address lead nurturing; ABM lead nurturing today can’t rely on the “serial touches” between lead and revenue, as did its prior iterations. Intent data allows far deeper intimacy and insight into their pain points and needs, and can actually influence their behaviors and accelerate the journey to the sale via highly targeted content. She then went on to talk about the opportunities, challenges and pitfalls involved in creating the kind of content that can deliver those results, emphasizing the collaboration between sales and marketing as a necessary element. Sales and marketing alignment? Pretty sure I’ve heard that somewhere before…
The webinar wrapped up as usual with a Q&A session, which generated a deeper dive into the topics discussed, such as identifying topics your customers and prospects are interested in so as to create content and messaging tailored to those topics.
To explore these topics and more, view the webinar on-demand and stay tuned for the next in our series of webinars supporting the launch of our account-based marketing offering, ActivateABM.
You can watch the first webinar in the series here.