What Is Lead Intelligence?
Every business wants to attract, convert, and delight its target customers. But it’s not always easy to find out who your leads are, where they came from, and whether they’re qualified. Collecting this data—otherwise known as lead intelligence—is key to your revenue operations strategy. Insights on who’s seeking out and discovering your product help you better understand your consumer base, and prioritize the most effective marketing and sales tactics.
Keep reading for an overview of what lead intelligence is, why it’s important, and examples of how you can use lead intelligence at your company. Plus, tips on finding the best lead intelligence software for your needs.
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What is Lead Intelligence?
Any data about your leads that your company collects can be considered lead intelligence. But lead intelligence isn’t simply collecting lead data, it’s also being strategic about what data you collect, how, and why. Depending on your context, you might track any number of lead data points, such as:
- Contact information: Email address, phone number, or social media account.
- Demographics: Age, location, job title, whether they’re a decision maker, or any other relevant factors.
- Page views: Pages they’ve visited and how they’ve navigated your site.
- Company information: What company they work for, the company’s size, industry, and other details.
- Brand interactions: Whether they’re subscribed to your newsletter, following your social media profiles, and what emails they’ve opened, read, and clicked through.
Lead Intelligence is a Part of Data-Driven Revenue Operations
These days, most companies are leveraging customer data in some capacity to fuel their business revenue strategy. But even before prospects become paying customers, learning more about them can benefit your sales, marketing, and customer support teams.
Lead intelligence is an important piece of data-driven revenue operations, helping you build more personalized customer journeys and setting you well ahead of your competition.
Why is Lead Intelligence Important?
Gone are the days of throwing the same campaign drips at a wall of faceless email addresses, hoping some will convert. The rise of account-based marketing means businesses are instead aiming to tactfully target highly qualified leads with personalized experiences. In fact, it’s what consumers have come to expect.
71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen
McKinsey & Company
The key to this type of personalization is data. Strong lead intelligence equips your marketing, sales, and customer success teams to craft better experiences across all stages of the buyer and customer journeys. With more information about who your leads are, you can improve your lead management and lead generation processes, implement more refined lead scoring, and ultimately convert more leads into prospects and users.
5 Examples Of Lead Intelligence In Action
Here are 5 real-world examples to give you a clearer picture of how you can leverage lead intelligence at your company.
1. Targeted Lead Generation
First and foremost, you can generate quality leads much more effectively when you have insights into who your ideal buyers are and where they’re coming from. Lead data is fuel for your marketing team, and can inform things like:
- Which ad platforms you should invest in
- Your content marketing strategy
- The campaigns you develop
- Your distribution methods
2. Nuanced Lead Scoring
When you start gathering reliable data about your leads, your sales team will also be able to craft smarter, more accurate lead score calculations. You might even come up with a few different lead scoring tactics for segmentation and give your sales reps a more nuanced overview of leads as they enter the sales funnel.
3. Customized Lead Nurturing
A holistic view of your leads helps you nurture them more effectively. Lead intelligence supports your marketing automation, helping you build customized nurture flows and strategic retargeting campaigns. You can also use your lead data to personalize your outreach messaging and email marketing, showing prospects that you’ve done your homework and gained their trust.
4. Improved Customer Experience
Lead intelligence is core to how you shape your overall customer experience. You’ll have a clear view of how your leads navigate through your site, demonstrate their interest and engagement, and ultimately purchase or subscribe to your product offer. All of this helps you build a smoother customer journey and reduce friction in the buying process.
5. A Clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Your lead intelligence data can affect how you target, evaluate, nurture, and sell to potential customers. It can also help shape who you consider to be an ideal customer. The more information you gather on who’s demonstrating interest in your brand, the more insight you can gather.
The best part about lead intelligence is that it is unbiased data. Instead of making assumptions about who you think will be interested in your product, you can tap into who’s really showing up. These insights are really helpful in developing personas and ideal customer profiles, especially if your company is still new or you’re in an emerging industry.
Finding the Right Lead Intelligence Tool
You might wonder whether you’re able to take a data-led approach and still maximize employee time. Rather than bog down your RevOps team in the busywork of parsing through lead data, you can use a lead intelligence tool to fuel your team’s work.
The best lead intelligence software can collect, visualize, and even activate your lead data, bringing it directly into your RevOps workflow. But how do you know which tool is the right one for your needs? Here are a few tips to help you find the perfect fit:
- Clarify your lead intelligence goals: Outline how lead intelligence could inform your sales process and marketing strategy so you can seek out the functionality that will get you there.
- Determine core feature needs: You might be looking for a tool that offers real-time insights or something with specific attribution options.
- Look for data privacy and compliance: As we move towards a cookie-free future, you might want something that is compliant with GDPR or other important data laws.
- Consider your existing tech stack: Look for something that integrates with your CRM, helpdesk, POS system, or any other relevant platform your teams are using.
- Shop around for pricing options: It’s all about finding the best ROI. Make sure you’re getting something that will support your teams with the features that really matter.
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Lead Intelligence is Business Intelligence: Further Reading
Becoming a more data-driven business is a necessity for keeping up with the competition. Business intelligence is core to RevOps teams at B2B companies, professional service providers, and consumer goods businesses.
Looking for more ways to incorporate data into your work? Check out these resources for further reading:
- What Is Sales Intelligence And Why Does It Matter?
- 10 Steps To Building A Successful Business Intelligence Strategy
- How To Design A Smart Business Intelligence Dashboard That Works
- CRM & Marketing Automation: The Differences, Benefits & Why You Need Both
- 10 Best Lead Management Software in 2023
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