Article
Winning B2B Markets with Metro-Intent Data
Best Practices: Metro-Intent Data
B2B Marketing and Sales leaders are constantly looking for the next innovative method to give them a competitive edge - particularly in driving revenue for their business. One such method that’s become increasingly popular is intent data. But, like many B2B crazes, many of the very people who could benefit most from intent data don’t understand what it is, how it works, or where it fits in their demand gen strategy.
Intent data can be a powerful tool to help Sales and Marketing understand the context necessary to figure out who’s most ready to buy their product. But, like many MarTech tools, intent data works best in certain specific contexts, and less so in others. Only by understanding both the power and limits of intent data can you be sure you’re getting real value, and not falling victim to “shiny marketing object syndrome.”
Intent data alone is not a solution, but when you understand the topic, the most likely persona interested in that topic and the people within that region who are already engaged, you have the opportunity to create highly-precise campaigns your sales and marketing teams need to close business.
“Context” is all about gaining insight into who the person is that is taking the action in question. For example, if the person reading this white paper is a marketer at a company, it’s highly possible that they are considering intent data as a solution, if not already evaluating a vendor. By contrast, if the reader is a journalist at a publishing company, it’s more likely they’re writing an article and looking for people to speak with on the subject. The former would be a potential customer, and so their interest in this topic becomes relevant, whereas the journalist’s interest is likely not.
We need to understand the context before dedicating our limited sales and marketing resources to pursuing leads that might not pan out. Knowing the context surrounding the leads that show intent is critical to cutting costs and maximizing our close rates.
Standard third-party intent data tells you which companies are searching globally for the intent topic(s) (keywords or phrases) that you’ve selected within the confines of your intent provider. Metro-level intent data provides further insight into the specific metro area that those searches are coming from.
Having metro-level intent provides more geographical context to a lead, but it also enables you to infer some degree of predictive insights. If your intent is coming from San Francisco, and you know that the company’s marketing team operates from San Francisco while their sales team operates from Dallas, you can deduce that your intent is coming from that company’s marketing team specifically.
Metro-intent refers to the buying intent and behavior of customers within a specific metropolitan area or urban region. It focuses on understanding the preferences, needs, and purchasing signals of individuals or businesses located in densely populated urban centers.
This type of data can include a variety of factors such as online search behavior, social media activity, engagement with advertisements, local economic indicators, and demographic information specific to a metro area.
8 ways sales and marketing teams win with metro-intent.
1. Localized Insights
Metro-intent data allows businesses to create highly targeted marketing campaigns tailored to the specific preferences and behaviors of customers in a particular urban area.
It can identify key vertical industries within that intent cluster and specifically target content for individual topics to those verticals.
Understanding local culture, trends, and consumer behavior enables more culturally relevant and resonant messaging.
2. Improved ROI
By focusing on high-intent customers in specific metro areas, businesses can allocate their advertising budgets more effectively, leading to better returns on investment.
Targeting customers who have shown a clear intent to purchase in a specific area can lead to higher conversion rates.
3. Competitive Advantage
Understanding metro-intent helps businesses penetrate urban markets more effectively by identifying and addressing unique local needs and opportunities.
Businesses can gain a competitive edge by being the first to recognize and act on local buying intent trends.
4. Enhanced Customer Experience
Personalized marketing and sales strategies based on metro-intent data improve customer experience by delivering relevant content and offers.
Businesses can engage with customers at the right time and place, increasing the likelihood of successful interactions.
5. Strategic Planning
Metro-intent data helps identify potential markets for expansion by highlighting areas with high buying intent.
Businesses can allocate resources, such as sales teams and inventory, more effectively based on localized demand.
6. Optimized Sales Strategies
Sales teams can prioritize leads and accounts in metro areas with high buying intent, leading to more efficient and effective sales efforts.
By identifying the personas most aligned with the metro intent topics, sales people can prioritize the right contacts in that metro area who are already engaged.
Insights into local intent allow sales teams to tailor their pitches to address specific local concerns and opportunities.
7. Behavioral Insights
Metro-intent data provides insights into emerging trends and behaviors in urban areas, helping businesses stay ahead of market changes.
Understanding local consumer preferences aids in product development and positioning.
8. Event and Promotion Planning
Businesses can plan events, promotions, and launches in areas with high buying intent to maximize impact and attendance.
Tailoring campaigns to seasonal trends and regional preferences based on metro-intent data enhances their effectiveness.
Most Are Missing Out...
Most sales and marketing teams are missing out these benefits of metro-intent data. Traditionally, salespeople will search around their sales list for the companies that showed standard intent and guess at who would be good to reach out to by eyeballing job titles, not even knowing if the titles are correct and up to date, which ones have already been lit up by their sales/marketing teams, or which regions these intent signals are coming from.
They’ll likely do all of this within their third-party data vendor without even looking at their own database or leveraging their historical first-party data and ICP as most companies don’t connect their Marketing Automation Platforms (Marketo, Eloqua, Dynamics) to their Salesforce instance.
Unfortunately, topic interest alone is not actionable without knowing the context of the individual person and their region. But by understanding the topic, the most likely persona interested in that topic and the people within that region who are already engaged, there is a lot that can be done.
5 steps can you can take to leverage metro-intent data effectively:
1. Data Collection and Integration
Use various data sources such as online behavior tracking, social media analytics, local search trends, and demographic data to gather comprehensive metro-intent information. Integrate this data into your CRM and marketing automation systems for seamless use.
2. Analytics and Segmentation
Analyze metro-intent data to segment your audience based on location-specific intent and behavior. Use predictive analytics to forecast future buying intent trends in specific metro areas.
3. Customized Marketing Strategies
Develop marketing messages and campaigns tailored to the unique preferences and behaviors of customers in each metro area. Personalize offers and content to match the identified intent and needs of local customers.
4. Sales Enablement
Equip your sales teams with metro-intent insights to enhance their targeting and engagement strategies. Provide training on how to leverage localized intent data in sales pitches and customer interactions.
5. Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation
Continuously monitor metro-intent data to stay updated on changing trends and behaviors. Adapt your strategies and tactics based on real-time insights to maintain relevance and effectiveness.
Leveraging Metro-Intent with Leadspace Market Activation Packs (MAPs)
Perhaps the best way to leverage metro-intent data is through Leadspace’s B2B Market Activation Packs (MAPs). In Leadspace’s Corporate Hierarchies MAP, for example, I can filter specifically for Subway locations within the United States, then expand the view to access a working sheet of the nearly 12,000 Subway locations with 46 columns of data fields related to each location’s hierarchical environment. I can also drag and drop the columns to create my own grouping, where I can add or modify columns and filter the entire dataset even further.
This can be especially useful in targeting by adding in metro-intent topics – being able to see a specific location at Subway who has expressed intent in your type of product or solution, then honing-in on the people at that location directly.
With global ultimate IDs, domestic ultimate IDs, subsidiary ultimate IDs, I can actually figure out how each company organizes themselves. Having all of these hierarchies mapped with direct integrations into CRM or marketing automation systems means that Leadspace can be used to clean up all the messy account data that exists in native systems.
Being able to explore a company and its parent/child relationships becomes invaluable to sales and marketing teams as we aim to cross sell / up sell, especially when we add Leadspace’s person data into the mix. Knowing the hierarchies that exist around a specific person with persona scoring models and metro-intent on top makes finding the right people to target easier than ever before.
Final Thoughts
by leveraging metro-intent data with engagement scores, businesses can figure out the specific people in a region who are already engaged and significantly enhance their sales and marketing efforts with more targeted campaigns, leading to better customer engagement, higher conversion rates, and ultimately, increased revenue.
Looking at the whole world and resolving down to the specific square mile that you need to target is an invaluable tool – and that’s what Leadspace’s Corporate Families Map enables with complete mapping and exploration of hierarchies within our CRM-integrated platform. To learn more about Leadspace MAPs, please check out our recent webinar, Introducing Market Activation Packs: Fast Fix for Unproductive CRMs, by Marge Breya.
Hop on the fastest road to revenue today with Leadspace’s Metro-Intent for the competitive edge you need to win.
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