The moment B2B marketers set their eyes on intent data, many immediately think of using it  to generate qualified contact lists. What’s your stance on the use of intent data? If your brand currently uses intent to bring new leads into your system, you’re really missing out on numerous  opportunities to  gain deep, strategic intelligence about your targets, customers, and even competitors. It’s time to check out the top 10 ways that current B2B marketers use intent monitoring in the areas of demand generation, marketing, and sales and how these methods can make a difference for your brand! 

Top 10 Ways to Use Intent Monitoring In B2B Marketing and Sales

1. Discover prospects – Use intent data to not only discover when prospects are ready to buy, but also  monitor competitors’ online behavior. 
2. Anticipate behavior – Competitive intelligence derived from intent monitoring helps brands anticipate and respond to a competitor’s next move before it’s made.
3. Combine intent and Martech – Intent management combined with marketing automation is the perfect pairing. When it’s executed properly, it solves the age-old question of how to get in front of receptive buyers and offer relevant content at a decent cost. 
4. Automation – Intent data helps enhance a brand’s automation strategy because it provides deep insights into consumers and their position within the sales funnel.
5. Retargeting – If a target’s search activity spikes for certain keywords or key phrases, an intent monitoring platform could trigger a nurture and retargeting campaign in addition to the possibility of an inside sales representative reaching out.
6. Go deeper – Once you’ve determined how to make data effectively flow and the  behaviors data could significantly influence, the next step is to define these business behaviors. Then, determine what a triggered nurture campaign looks like and go from there.
7. Monitoring – Intent data isn’t just about new leads and prospects. Brands can also monitor their existing customers’ activity and even set up alerts for when specific actions or behavior take place.
8. Shorten your sales cycle – Not only does intent monitoring provide details about a  target’s interest in a company’s solutions, it also offers important clues regarding where various targets are within the buying cycle. When brands  target content appropriate to a specific stage in the buying cycle, it often helps buyers move through the process more efficiently. 
9. Change management plan – One option worth considering is to create a change management plan in order to bring intent into one’s marketing journey. Otherwise, intent data can easily turn into noise. If interested, brands can partner with sales to create a detailed plan that includes service-level agreements and a timeline for incorporating intent monitoring into day-to-day sales and marketing efforts.  
10. Monitoring platform – Leveraging intent data through the use of  an intent monitoring platform makes it easy to take immediate action. This is especially because all the relevance and regression analysis has already been performed, and the end result is having the right data that’s ready to go. 

So here’s one final tip to keep in mind—be open to new and different ideas and keep a fresh perspective. The simple act of reading through this list often may spark some ideas regarding use cases or data flows that’s different from the ones you started with. Overall, getting off to a productive and efficient start is one secret to fast-tracking ROI and revenue.

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