Download the secret handbook of purchase intent

THE SECRET HANDBOOK
OF PURCHASE INTENT
THE SECRET HANDBOOK
OF PURCHASE INTENT
As businesses adjust their thinking from the sales cycle model to the
buyer’s journey, other trends in sales and marketing are coming to the
forefront as well. Big Data is being used in ways never before considered,
including building customer personas in the B2B world as well as
predicting purchase intent—yet another new frontier to conquer.
Understanding where a potential customer lands in the buyer’s journey
can help marketers and sales teams nurture prospects through the
process, all the way to closing the deal. The ability to predict and
pinpoint purchase intent is no longer a crystal ball—the data is there, as
long as you know what to look for and how to use it.
This handbook will discuss some “insider secrets” you can use when you
consider collecting purchase intent data.
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
02
Why Identifying Purchase Intent
is More Relevant Than Ever
Rudimentary segmentation is a low-level way to identify purchase
intent, and is an essential building block in understanding your buyer.
You can develop a basic customer profile by industry, company size,
geographic location, IT spend, etc. But these data points don’t tell
you whether they are a good fit for your company: with this simple
information, you don’t know whether your product is compatible,
whether they have already chosen another vendor, or if they are ready
to begin researching solutions.
Many companies go a step or two further, with activities like tracking
the kind of marketing content that is being consumed, targeting
lookalike audiences, and researching additional verticals to pursue.
But even that amount of data are still pieces of the big picture and
don’t necessarily result in converting intent into engagement.
Marketing and data analytics
users average a 62.1%
higher Return on Marketing
Investment (ROMI).1
The Data on Data-Driven Marketing: Where
Data & Analytics Make a Difference, Aberdeen
Group, December, 2015
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
It’s important to not only look at a wide variety of data, but also
develop the ability to interpret it as purchase intent, and dig even
deeper into identifying additional prospects that are likely to be
interested in your products and services. These patterns can be
uncovered by wisely mining available data and then leveraging those
insights directly into actionable sales and marketing responses. After
all, failing to reach out to a customer who is displaying purchase intent
signals can equate directly to revenue loss.
The Five Most Likely Attributes to
Identify a Buying Signal
As an individual consumer, you probably often exhibit purchase intent:
in fact, companies like Amazon depend on their recommendation
engines to upsell and cross-sell. But in the B2C world, the cycle is
typically very short: your dishwasher breaks, you research currently
available models and options, and perhaps visit a store for the handson experience. By performing online research and visiting the store,
you are exhibiting purchase intent. You probably want a replacement
dishwasher as soon as possible, so the research phase is probably no
more than a day or two; then, you make the purchase and wait for
installation.
03
TIP
› Some
questions to
ask when planning
to target accounts
include:
What does their tech
environment look like?Are
there any differences in
what or how much
a company buys based
on technology? Or
firmographic information?
• How can we find more
companies that have XXX
technology or equipment?
• Will these companies see the
value in our products and
services? Can we
make assumptions about the
companies who do?
• How can we identify the
types of companies we want
to see more of?
•
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
But sales cycles for businesses can take much longer: problems
must be identified, management must be convinced, budgets
must be approved, research must take place, compatibility must
be assured, and so forth—and, most of these steps happen by
committee. To identify purchase intent in a B2B setting, you must
be able to observe the signals in each of these steps, by each of the
people involved in the decision-making process AND be able to tie
all of these indicators together to one company.
FIRMOGRAPHIC DATA
To make a basic comparison, firmographic data is to businesses,
government entities, and non-profit organizations what
demographics are to people. Firmographics tell us much of the
information used in high-level segmenting, such as company size,
industry type, and core competencies. In other words, firmographic
data gives us the description of an organization in a nutshell.
This data can validate or eliminate large swaths of organizational
purchase intent. For example, a software company with a focus on
educational software is highly unlikely to exhibit purchase intent
for wholesale tires; however, an automotive repair chain might. A
company who buys enterprise-class Cisco products, for example,
exhibits different attributes than one who buys a startup option.
A few instances where firmographic data can yield purchase intent
data include:
•
Status and structure: whether a firm is a public or private
company, a subsidiary, a franchisee, a corporation, limited
liability partnership, and so on. This type of information can
help determine whether an authorized buyer might be present.
•
Location: in some cases, proximity to the customer is a big factor
for purchase intent. For example, a construction company in
Ohio will likely source building materials as locally as possible to
minimize shipping and logistics costs.
•
Performance: this type of firmographic data describes how a
business executes over time. A company in a growth period
might need more servers, computers, or office furniture, while a
company in decline would have very different business needs.
•
Culture: a company’s culture can also provide clues into
purchase intent; for example, some companies are technological
innovators while others are known to be laggards—some take
risks, and others are more conservative.
04
BUYER PROFILE
Although purchase decisions are often made by committee, at the
end of the day those decisions are still made by people. And as we
all know, people are subject to bias. Looking into the characteristics
of the buyers and other decision makers can signal purchase intent
when taken in the right context and is fundamental to building out a
buyer profile.
Some of the demographic information uncovered in the profile
you build for your buyer(s) can signal purchase intent is similar
to the firmographic data discussed in the last section, such as
location: a buyer might prefer to purchase as locally as possible for
certain supplies. And culture can also be a factor: companies with
certain cultures tend to attract people with similar values; a fiscally
conservative buyer would likely be a good match for the same type
of company.
71% of B2B buyers
who see a personal value
will buy a product.
How Emotions Influence B2B Buyers,
Executive Board
The custodian of a company’s money wants to make the best
possible decisions: quality, value, compatibility, etc. Classifying the
details of who does the buying can help you craft messaging and
other activities that appeal to them personally. Consider, as one
example, the generation gap: a millennial might be more interested
in your product or service if it can streamline their workflow or
improve work/life balance, while a baby boomer might prefer a
solution that offers long-term stability.
Profile data can also help lead you to unexpected sources of
purchase intent signals. You may find that people of a certain age
or location might be more likely to reach out to their peers on
LinkedIn or a blog for product evaluations or recommendations. It’s
reasonable to assume that if someone is looking for advice, they may
be considering a purchase.
BUSINESS CONDITIONS
The state of a business can also provide several clues into purchase
intent and include more than just learning whether a company is in a
growth or recession period. However, that information can also be a
clue: growing companies tend to purchase a variety of products to
get new employees up and running. General economic conditions
can also directly affect a company’s decision to purchase or abstain,
so it can be helpful to understand the state of the economy—not
only where they are headquartered, but also in areas where they do
business.
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
05
Another business condition to note is a company’s tech
environment. Many technological products and services are
interdependent; when you learn about a company rolling out a new
technology, that would signal a good time to reach out with details
about your compatible product or service.
TIP
› Consider
these
questions when
mining temporal
data:
Does a company purchase
more just before the end
of a fiscal year, or at the
beginning of a new one?
When does this company's
fiscal year begin?
Are there seasonal patterns to
their purchasing habits?
Is there something black or
white about the business?Did
it change from black to
white, or vice versa?
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
Other behaviors can be evidence of purchase intent as well;
examples include an increase in service calls or an uptick in visits
to a particular product landing page. Those first-party data points
that are either actively being captured or interpreted as changes in
customer behavior may indicate that an existing customer could be
considering a new purchase, or possibly switching to a competitor’s
offering. By astutely mining this data, you can ensure that you are
meeting your customers’ needs and addressing any concerns before
it’s too late.
TEMPORAL DATA
In an ever-changing business landscape, noticing which types of
changes are occurring can provide actionable insights. The most
obvious of these is the ability to predict companies’ purchasing
patterns over time.
There are other, more obscure data points to discover, such as job
postings and vacancies. Job postings can provide a sneak peek
into a company; for example, if a company is looking for an Oracle
developer, clearly the company uses Oracle and may be expanding
in some way. If your product or service is compatible, this kind of job
posting can be a good signal to interact. Additionally, if job listings
at a particular company are trending upward, that’s a good sign of
growth.
Job vacancies can also be clues. If an executive leaves a company,
for example, you’ll want to learn why they left. If the reason is
related to company performance as a whole, rather than the person
moving on to a similar role within a different organization, that
could indicate a downturn in purchasing. Consider researching press
releases and other corporate communications to learn whether the
role will be backfilled, as well as information about the person hired
to that role. You may be able to uncover demographic information
that could affect the company’s culture or purchasing habits.
06
BEHAVIORAL DATA
In some ways, customer behaviors can be simpler to collect than
some of the other more esoteric indicators we’ve covered. For
example, learning the number of times a white paper has been
downloaded is a fairly straightforward process. Tracking how people
are interacting with your marketing content like white papers,
webinars, and videos can yield beneficial data that can hint at
which of your products and services are being researched. However,
evidence of research isn’t always an indicator of purchase intent—
unless you have the ability to see where the traffic is coming from.
A particularly intriguing behavior that can be a strong signal of
purchase intent was touched on in the Buyer Profile section: social
media and forums. Buyers researching solutions may ask for
recommendations, references, or use cases using LinkedIn, product
forums, and in other media channels. They may want to know how
other similar companies use your products (or your competitor’s
products) to solve their business needs, whether it performs as
advertised, or even the name of someone they can contact for more
detail.
DID YOU KNOW
Lead gen content users produce
3.
1
X
the revenue from their
content marketing efforts
Content Marketing for Lead Generation:
Success in Simplicity, Aberdeen Group,
October 2015
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
Additional behavior to consider is the shift toward mobile. As
mobile devices become increasingly ubiquitous, so does research
being conducted using them—so be sure your website and other
marketing materials are optimized for mobile displays. More
purchasing is taking place using mobile devices as well, so you
might even consider an online storefront or a standalone app—and
don’t forget to include mobile payment options.
Pitfalls to Avoid
To make purchase intent assumptions based on a single data point
is to do a disservice to your company. With the amount of data that’s
currently available, intuition and faith won’t cut it. For example,
you absolutely don’t want to make your marketing decisions based
on just web visitation data alone. Some may erroneously interpret
content downloads or webinar attendance as intent data, but
research doesn’t always equate purchase intent. The most valuable
models are those that leverage the largest amounts of data; the
more data you have, the more accurate your models will be,
because you can segment at a very granular level.
07
About Aberdeen
Group
Aberdeen Group is the leader
in bringing big data and
content marketing services
together for sales and
marketing professionals. Our
solutions provide proprietary
intelligence on who their ideal
target audiences are, what
they are interested in now,
how to connect with them
and what content to share
with them. The Aberdeen
integrated marketing solution
provides our customers with
a unique ability to reach the
best opportunities.
Learn more at
aberdeenservices.com.
But all the analytics in the world won’t help if they can’t be properly
interpreted. Beware of assigning a narrative to a data set—don’t
assume. Just because the data appears to show a pattern doesn’t
necessarily mean that there is one. Be sure you have as many facts
as you can get, and ask for a second or third opinion. Inspect the
sample size: exactly how many does a 3% increase in impressions
over last quarter mean?
Don’t expect perfection, and be willing to experiment. Predictive
analytics can help you find likely candidates with high purchase
intent indicators, but even those who don’t hit every benchmark can
become good, loyal customers. Consider connecting with perhaps
the top two tiers of suspects rather than just the cream of the crop.
Future Trends in Purchase
Intent Prediction
In the B2C world, data is often shared across various platforms.
Perhaps you’ve looked at, say, cookware, on a few websites to
learn more about available options and then seen matching
products displayed in your Facebook feed. Quite a bit of B2B data is
proprietary and not used in this way, but it’s possible in the future.
At this point in time, whether B2C or B2B, we’re still only looking at
textual data. Technologies that can interpret images—still or video—
would revolutionize how we look at data. For example, the ability to
identify a person who took a picture at a trade show near a company
logo could provide tremendous new opportunities in predicting
purchase intent.
IMPROVED PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
You could fill a book with lists of various types of analytics available
today, and each type seems to harvest different types of data.
Individually, analytics can suggest purchase intent indicators, but
it’s the aggregations and applied data science that determine which
discrete sets of data in combination with others derive the better
sense of purchase intent.
And, while basic analytics can identify patterns and trends, they
might not be able to help predict the future. You probably noticed
that the attributes discussed in this brief—business conditions along
with firmographic, buyer profile, temporal, and behavioral data—
are all highly interconnected. Future advancements in connecting,
aggregating, and analyzing this data to provide a single picture will
be extremely valuable in predicting purchase intent.
The Secret Handbook of Purchase Intent
08