How Intent Data Aligns B2B Sales and Marketing

Intent data has a special role in promoting B2B sales and marketing alignment — a priority for most B2B companies. A disjointed sales and marketing strategy doesn’t benefit anyone. Never has. Never will, so any attempt at improvement only benefits. 

Don’t ignore misalignment. These numbers explain why.

• B2B companies that align sales and marketing tactics gain 27 percent faster three-year profit growth and 24 percent faster three-year revenue growth. 
• Aligning sales and marketing leads to 38 percent higher sales win rates. 
• Organizations with poor sales and marketing alignment see a seven percent decline in growth. 

Despite these numbers and years of nudging, sales and marketing alignment continues to be a struggle. In fact, only eight percent of companies have a strong alignment between their departments. 

Connect the Dots with Intent Data

Sales and marketing teams do better when they go hand-in-hand to attract, convert and retain customers. Intent is the cornerstone of a unified team setting off on a single path.

Intent data has evolved beyond the basics of demographic, firmographic and geographic details. Today, it’s capable of enabling a higher level of quality demand generation by revealing which topics are of most interest to targeted audiences. It provides valuable clues about their roles and stage in the buying journey. 

Find Common Ground and Common Language 

We know B2B buyers begin their research online, and conversations with a sales representative (if any) occur only toward the end of journey. Sometimes sales people rely on the efforts of digital marketers to shorten the sales cycle and get them into conversations faster.

However, there’s just one problem — sales and marketing teams struggle against one another because they often speak different languages. By putting intent data into action, you have an opportunity to change that. Intent data serves as a common language that brings sales and marketing together.

With access to the right intent data, marketing professionals don’t have to play a guessing game to understand potential customers. Instead, they work with sales to create complete profiles of target accounts. And with those profiles, B2B sellers can personalize marketing efforts effectively and consistently. Intent brings sales and marketing together over the best targets.

Bridge the Gap Between Sales and Marketing

If you’re not already thinking about aligning data, marketing and sales, this article may have started some ideas in that direction. Many successful B2B companies have already put sales, marketing and data collaboration into action. Wherever you are with this strategy, this article will give you guidance for extending intent intelligence across marketing and sales — “7 Tips: Operationalize Intent Intelligence Across Marketing and Sales.”