Target the right accounts, at the right time with intent-based outreach
B2B sales teams invest significant time and resources into reaching out to prospects who are yet to show any intention of buying. However, this cold outreach almost always yields disappointing results. Even the most comprehensive benchmarks indicate that the average response to cold-calls is only 2%.
And honestly, It’s not difficult to see why.
While it’s easy enough to find lists of companies and leads that fit your ideal client profile, it’s extremely challenging to convince prospects to consider your solution when they’re not yet ready to buy.
So what’s the alternative to reaching out to the right accounts at the wrong time?
Reaching out to the right accounts at the right time of course! Or more specifically, it’s intent-based outreach based on the pot of gold that is the anonymous, sales-ready companies already visiting your website.
The following guide explores how to identify and convert high-intent accounts with the combined powers of Factors’ accounts identification and Salesforce webhooks. We first discuss how this integration works, before delving into a handful of use-cases.
How It Works: Pushing website data back into Salesforce
Factors taps into industry-leading IP-lookup technology to identify up to 64% of anonymous companies visiting your website — without the need for form submissions. This includes company names as well as firmographics such as geography, industry, employee headcount, revenue range and more.
In addition, Factors auto-tracks website activity and engagement at an accounts level with advanced analytics. This includes page views, button clicks, scroll-depth, account timelines, funnels and more.
With this information, users can filter the total set of anonymous traffic down to ICP accounts that have expressed buying intent:
- ICP criteria: Filter down traffic based on firmographics such as industry, headcount and revenue-range to identify accounts that fit your ideal client profile.
- Intent criteria: Filter down traffic based on intent signals such as high-intent page views such as pricing, time-spent on page, and percentage scroll-depth to identify sales-ready buyers.
In short, access a list of high-intent ICP accounts that are already visiting your website but are yet to submit a form or sign-up.
Now, with webhooks and Zapier, it’s easier than ever to automatically push all this account data from Factors into any other tool your team uses. This includes ad platforms, marketing automation platforms, and, in this case, Salesforce CRM.
How will this help? Rather than going after cold leads with negligible chances of conversion, sales reps can view, segment, and target sales-ready accounts inside Salesforce. As we’ll see in the next section, this dramatically simplifies and improves targeted sales outreach.
Implementing Webhooks on Factors is easy as pie. See how here.
Use-cases: Making the most of your website traffic
1. Identify new business opportunities
Factors surfaces anonymous, high-intent companies visiting your website. As previously discussed, this data can be filtered down to high-fit, high-intent accounts.
Using webhooks, this data can be pushed from Factors into Salesforce. In other words, you can automatically create accounts inside Salesforce for companies that match your ICP and intent criteria.
For example, webhooks can be configured to create a new account when a visitor from a US-based software company with at least 250 employees is live on your website.
Here are a few more examples of what you can see inside your CRM with Factors:
- Accounts that visit a landing page through a search ad but fail to submit a form
- Software companies with at least 500 employees visiting high-intent pages like pricing
- US-based companies that have read through at least half a product comparison blog
Rather than relying on the 5% of website traffic that submits a form, teams can identify and target a deep new pool of potential pipeline — all within Salesforce. What’s more? Alerts can be relayed to sales reps in real-time through Slack or MS teams so they can immediately reach out to live prospects.
2. Stay on top of existing target accounts
In addition to recording new accounts visiting your website, Factors can be used to monitor and update data for target accounts that already exist within Salesforce.
For example, say an account clicks on a search ad, submits a demo form, but never schedules time on your calendar. While the account's data is available in Salesforce, it can be tedious to track and update their actions post the demo form submission.
To solve for this, Factors can automatically update CRM properties based on trigger criteria when leads return to your website. Let’s say that the same account is back reading a product alternatives blog or visiting the pricing page after a couple of weeks. This event can be updated within Salesforce, including their last active time.
Sales reps can be notified with real-time when high-intent events take place so as to be able to immediately reach out to leads and improve the odds of conversion.
3. Accelerate deals with behavioral data
Certain marketing material may or may not be relevant depending on the audience in question. For example, an enterprise-level account may be especially interested in security compliance related content. An early-stage start-up, on the other hand, may find content around cost-effective pricing more appealing.
Factors can track how various types of companies are interacting with your website to understand what visitors care about most. This data can be pushed back into Salesforce so sales reps can easily assess a prospect’s interactions, priorities and pain-points before jumping into a sales call.
For one, sales reps can accelerate deals by personalizing the customer experience. For another, marketing teams can gauge what resonates best with the target audience and fine-tune content efforts accordingly.
4. Rekindle lost opportunities
Use Factors to track how accounts that have dropped off the funnel or former customers are returning to engage with your website. For instance, maybe an account that churned a couple of quarters ago is back interacting with a page that highlights a new feature release.
This may be an intent-signal that the lead is reconsidering your product. It might be a good idea for sales reps to reach out and share some relevant information on what’s new. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee a conversion. But it’s far more effective than reaching out to an ice cold lead.
This guide has covered a handful of ways in which pushing account data back into Salesforce can be helpful. Ultimately, the goal is to align visitor data with relevant stakeholders and technologies in order to:
- Drive intent-based sales outreach
- Refine ABM efforts and spends
- Optimize retargeting campaigns
There are countless other use-cases with account identification working in conjunction with CRMs, MAPs, and more. With webhooks, Factors can push valuable account data to nearly any platform on the planet. How you make the most of that data is really up to you — the possibilities are endless.
