If you read B2B marketing content regularly, intent data is all the rage.
Despite its relative affordability, it’s still rare to find marketing departments of mid-sized health IT companies using it.
While many companies are simply strapped for time and resources, there’s also the sentiment that intent data only works for larger enterprises with products that appeal to a broad audience.
Our recent experience onboarding leading intent data provider Bombora for a growing healthcare RCM data company has shown it can work … if you know how to use it.
So, let’s get the biggest objection out of the way: intent data isn’t relevant to my organization because our product is so niche.
Rubbish, I say!
Having gone through the onboarding experience with a client whose target audience includes RCM leaders at specialty practices that use three specific practice management software platforms, I was pleasantly surprised by the robust insights generated.
If the nichiest of the niche in health IT can find a win, you can, too.
4 marketing team use cases for intent data
Here are 4 ways the marketing team will utilize intent data throughout the year to reach their target audience more efficiently:
1. Know who to nurture and who to send directly to sales.
Sales wanted hot leads yesterday and with intent data, they can pinpoint who’s more likely to buy, or at least more likely open to a demo.
Here’s how it works: Target accounts are scored from 60-100. Updated weekly, those accounts with a Company Surge® of 90+ are handed over to sales for personalized outreach while the remaining in the 60-89 range are added to an existing LinkedIn audience (see below).
The sales team can also see what topics those accounts are researching and craft appropriate messaging.
Here’s a weekly snapshot:
Here’s a record for a target account:
2. Target the right audience on LinkedIn. Get a list of your potential prospects, the topics they’re interested in, and create a custom third-party audience in your LinkedIn Campaign Manager. It’s that easy.
Instead of manually building a LinkedIn audience, use the intent data list as the foundation for outreach campaigns that speak to the topics of interest and show how your company solves their known issue.
Intent data also provides insight into where target accounts are in the funnel. Accounts that don’t meet the minimum score of 60 are at the top of the funnel and should be served content that helps them recognize the problem your company solves.
3. Inform content strategy. Wouldn’t it be great to know which hot topics in the industry your target leads are actually interested in? Now you can.
From the weekly report, the marketing team can see that the retina practices on their ideal customer list are actively searching for information related to:
- Real-time billing
- Healthcare analytics
- EHR replacement
Writing a blog post on the confluence of these three topics is much more likely to resonate with the target audience and gives the sales team a great piece of content to share.
When combined with the LinkedIn audience list (see above), the marketing team gets that much closer to delivering the right information at the right time.
4. Drive SEO keyword research. Create an online experience that speaks directly to your prospects’ pain points.
Intent data enables the marketing team to use their prospects’ language and look for gaps in what keywords are being targeted on the website.
Intent data shows the target audience wants real-time reporting and healthcare analytics. Website SEO key phrases and the content calendar should deliver those topics to them in an easily searchable way.
Put intent data to work for your health IT products
The biggest surprise from the process was finding that the topic with the most interest among their target audience hadn’t even made the marketing team’s top ten list. Basically, they had missed what was most important to their prospects.
Partnering with a healthcare IT marketing agency that speaks your language can help your company uncover hidden gems like these.
And for everyone launching ABM campaigns this year﹣I can’t imagine doing account-based marketing without intent data.
Contact us today to get started with intent data.
