Intent-based Lead Generation Strategies Part 3: Four ways to generate quality leads

Did you miss Part 1 and Part 2? Visit the first two installments of this blog series to learn more about lead generation strategies aimed at solving lead quantity and velocity challenges.

Have you taken our intent quiz?

This blog series is inspired by our intent data quiz, which is designed to help B2B marketers improve their lead generation strategies.

If you’d like to better understand your unique lead generation challenges and receive actionable steps to make the most impact, you can do so here.

Are you faced with low quality leads?

As a B2B marketer, few challenges are as frustrating as poor quality leads. No matter how many leads you generate, your sales team can’t convert them into customers if they are not qualified. Those who were named Quality Questers in our intent quiz should take steps to improve their lead quality before addressing other lead challenges.

The good news? Intent data can be your secret weapon for driving high quality leads.

Intent data helps drive quality leads

Intent data tracks online activity of your target accounts to identify companies that are actively researching solutions like yours. This includes keywords searched, content downloads, pages visited, and more.

By monitoring this research behavior, you gain actionable insights into accounts that are entering key stages of the buyer’s journey. Intent data alerts you to when target companies move from education to evaluation so you can engage them at the perfect time.

Our 2023 Marketing Data Impact Report found that 94% of marketers agree that intent data leads are higher quality than non-intent leads. So, if you need to improve lead quality—intent data is the perfect place to start.

Four ways to generate high quality leads with intent data

1. Identify new contacts at your target accounts

Intent data reveals additional contacts at target accounts who are conducting relevant research. It can open the door to identifying your buying group so you can target the right buyer at the right time. Sometimes the initial contact you have isn’t the most involved in the buying process, so in order to make a bigger impact with your outreach, you can find more active leads at these accounts with intent data. Even if they haven’t directly engaged with your brand yet, you can add them into a nurture campaign, like a LinkedIn ad campaign, to start building their awareness.

While reaching all of the involved members of the buying group is important, if you’re missing your more engaged or influential members you may not be able to move the needle with that account. Using intent to find contacts who are actively researching within your target accounts can make sure you make the most out of your efforts and improve lead quality overall.

2. Discover new topics for content marketing

One reason you may have poor lead quality is that you aren’t giving prospects the right content. Even great assets can fall flat if they aren’t addressing things your audience cares about.  Intent data helps you fill this gap by showing you which topics your targets are researching, particularly the long-tail search terms. These can be extremely helpful for building your content strategy and optimizing your lead generation tactics to generate quality leads.

After you’ve used intent to build out content, you can get even more granular with it and segment accounts into topic-specific nurture streams. There you can tailor messaging to each group’s specific pain points and interests based on the content and keywords they’re engaging with. This increases their engagement rates and warms them up to a high-quality lead before you hand them off to sales.

3. Sales intelligence for cross-selling

Intent data doesn’t only apply to new customers. You can monitor your current customers’ intent data for spikes on categories related to other products or services you offer that relate to their current solution. If you see one account is spiking, this could be an opportunity to nurture them for a cross-sell or upsell opportunity. Perhaps you need to increase awareness and trust around other compatible solutions you offer that the customer isn’t as familiar with. Or, help the customer see how buying more of the same product or service could benefit their business.

If they’re actively engaging, you can then share this lead and their intent data with sales to help them understand the gaps the account may be trying to fill. This way they can be fully prepared to approach the lead with an upsell or cross-sell offer.

4. Market exploration

If you’re struggling with lead quality issues, you may not be reaching the right leads in the first place. Intent data can help you identify the right people by enabling you to conduct enhanced market exploration and target market identification and sizing.

Intent monitoring for market exploration can help you pinpoint the best audience for your campaigns—saving you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long run. Start by identifying keywords most closely aligned with your solution and then run intent monitoring to identify audiences that are searching for it. You may find that the current audience you’re targeting isn’t the best fit. If needed, pivot your targeting to reach the right prospects and generate high quality leads.

Use intent data to get high quality leads

Lead quality can be a challenging issue to address, but intent data gives you the insight you need to take action. By using intent to better understand your audience, you can identify contacts for targeting, build engaging content, find upsell cross-sell opportunities, and generate overall high-quality leads.

Lead quality isn’t the only thing that benefits from intent data. Learn how you can use it to improve lead velocity  and drive more leads.