It’s not enough to have B2B sales data these days. It's about how quickly you can:

• Analyze the datasets
• And use it in your account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns

Approach it any other way, and you run the risk of failed campaigns, missed quota, and a disgruntled sales team. A great B2B sales intelligence process prevents this from happening. In this piece, we'll be sharing four ways you can take advantage of sales intelligence to maximize the results of your ABM campaigns.

But before we get into all the meaty stuff, let's get definitions out of the way.

What is B2B sales intelligence?

B2B sales intelligence is additional intel and insights about your leads. This information can be used to arm your sales and marketing teams with the relevant data they need when they need it to make the sale. 

The best way to get this information is through the use of sales intelligence software which can do everything from finding and enriching lead data to advertising and executing various account-based marketing or account-based everything strategies, like gifting. 

Before we dive into some of the ways B2B sales intelligence makes this process easier, it’s important to make sure you have product-market fit. No ABM strategy can make up for a bad product or a product that doesn’t solve the pain point your ideal customer has.

What sales intelligence data points are important for B2B companies?

Sales intelligence companies gather data from individuals and organizations alike. The type of data you have access to depends on the type of sales intelligence tool you use. The best sales intelligence software will provide real-time data on potential prospects including: 

• Name
• Job title
• Phone number
• Email address
• New business funding
• Job title changes
• Purchase intent

What are the key benefits of sales intelligence?

Sales intelligence gathers important data and showcases it in an easily digestible way. Your sales and marketing teams will find key insights faster than before. 

Provides fresh actionable data

Having the most up-to-date data is key for sales team in the B2B world. These days people are changing jobs a lot more frequently and it pays off to know when a previous customer changes jobs or if a target company receives new funding. These types of sales triggers will help your team close more deals. 

Supplies prospect insights  

The best sales intelligence data offers a window into a prospect's interests, goals, and business needs. It's easier to win deals when you can properly communicate with a potential customer by showing them your product or service can relieve pain points and help their business grow.  

Identifies customers most likely to convert

Knowing when a prospect is not ready to make a purchase can save your team time. Having clear insight into a target’s buying intent allows your sales reps to spend time with the right prospects at the right time.

Helps optimize sales cycles

All of these sales intelligence benefits work together to accelerate your sales pipeline. If your teams know who to target, when to reach out, and how to personalize their communication the result is a shorter sales cycle.

How does B2B sales intelligence improve sales performance?

If you have been searching for ways to help your sales team prospect more efficiently sales intelligence is the answer. 

Increases productivity

Sales intelligence tools help automate processes to save time. Instead of spending time researching prospects, your sales reps can use their time on outreach. Automated sales intelligence is key to optimizing your sales rep’s time. 

Helps personalize outreach

It’s no secret that personalization gets results. In fact, Epsilon Marketing found that 80% of consumers are more likely to buy a product or service when they receive a tailored experience. Sales intelligence software makes it easy to add personalization to your sales process.

Optimizes prospecting process

Sales intelligence data helps highlight what strategies are working and what aren’t. Your marketing and sales teams can use this data to improve their tactics. 

How B2B sales intelligence fuels ABM campaign

B2B sales intelligence software is essential for running account-based marketing (ABM) or account-based everything (ABE) campaigns at any level of scale. We know this...because sales intelligence is an essential part of our ABE program.

1. Build background information on your ideal customer profile

The first step in running a successful ABM campaign is getting a clear idea of what your ideal customer profile is (ICP). The only way to do this is to invest in customer research, which may include: 

• Lining up customer interviews on the phone, Zoom, or in-person 
• Listening to recorded or live sales and support calls 
• Mining reviews on sites like G2 Crowd or Capterra
• Reading and monitoring comments, reviews, and other customer communication on social media 
• Running market research surveys 

As tempting as it may be to do all of your research online, you’ll get much better intel about your ICP by picking up the phone and talking to customers.  

The goal of all of this customer research is to understand and analyze it to the point where you can put together a detailed ICP, which includes:

• Demographic Details: For example, information like job titles, locations, company size, organizational hierarchy, key decision-makers, revenue numbers, tech stack, etc. 
• Contact Details: Like the email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, and more, for key decision-makers you want to get in touch with.
• Buying Triggers: Such as the key intent drivers that signal someone is in the market for the product or service you offer. 

Note: It is not enough to create a single ICP. This information — and its associated data — is always changing, so you need to make sure it’s enriched, up-to-date, and accurate. 

2. Help you select the right prospects

Just because you can find and enrich all the sales data doesn’t mean you should. 

After all, trying to target everyone means you’ll end up either reaching no one or spreading your resources way too thin. Both of which mean your ABM or ABX campaigns will underperform. 

A better approach is to prioritize and target the right prospects who are the most likely to convert. This requires a mindset shift for both sales and marketing, where you collectively decide on a list of strategic accounts to go after. 

While this approach can work at any size and budget, for the best results, we recommend focusing on accounts with an average contract size of at least $15K USD per year. This ensures your efforts are more likely to scale profitably.

3. Personalize conversations with prospects

While prioritizing who to target, how often to reach out, and when to do so is important in any ABM campaign, the most critical elements are which contact method you use and what you say.

Compelling ABM messaging can overcome a lot of flaws in your campaign strategy. However, bad or irrelevant messaging will tank even the best ABM campaign strategy. 

Here are some tips that have helped us craft personalized messaging at scale:

• Clearly communicate why you are reaching out: You are not being cute or clever by trying to disguise the real reason you are reaching out. If you send unclear or insincere messages, it will be harder to get your ideal audience to trust you. 
• Find ways to signal that you know what you’re talking about: There’s nothing worse than a sales or marketing person who has no clue what the product does. Make sure you can speak and write intelligently about it, as well as answer any questions a prospect may have.  
• Demonstrate that you understand a key pain point your target audience has: Acknowledge the problem that they have, and then (once they’re invested in you or your product) show them how your product solves it. 
• Be interesting and concise: This is almost too obvious to include. You’re interrupting a prospect’s time and asking them to spend money. The least you can do is make sure your message is intriguing and relevant enough for them to respond to.

4. Encourage sales and marketing alignment

Sales and marketing alignment is the holy grail for revenue teams. And we've found out that it plays a crucial part in the success of your ABM/ABE campaign (these acronyms 😴).

Yes, alignment starts with getting buy-in from the C-Suite.

But it also means having at least a couple of shared goals and open communication lines. Especially around target accounts and background information on your ideal customer profile(s). This is almost impossible or a manual and painful task without the right sort of actionable sales intelligence.

The end result of this approach is that you eliminate silos and hold everyone accountable for their individual roles in the campaign.

The right B2B sales intelligence tools increase your odds

From understanding your ICP to getting alignment between sales and marketing and selecting the right prospects to target, it all starts with having access to the right sales intelligence data. B2B sales intelligence data should be a key part of your prospecting toolkit.

That’s where UserGems comes in handy. Our software helps with everything from turning your calendar into a lead-generating machine to identifying when to reach out to your most likely buyers.