Guides

Chapter 1 | What is Account Scoring? 

Account scoring is not merely a process of assigning numbers to accounts; it's a methodology driven by the interpretation of signals. Imagine each account as a puzzle, and signals as the pieces that, when carefully pieced together, reveal a comprehensive picture of intent, engagement, and value. The crux of this approach lies in its ability to unify cross-channel data across multiple sources.
Now, think of your account scoring strategy as a grand orchestra, with each instrument playing a crucial role in creating a harmonious symphony of conversions. The signals in an account scoring strategy are like finely tuned instruments, each producing a distinct note that contributes to the melody of B2B success.

Chapter 2 | Decoding Signals: Your Gate Pass to High-Value Accounts

In account scoring, signals are behavioral indicators that shed light on an account's engagement, interests, and propensity to convert. They represent the digital footprints left by decision-makers and influencers as they navigate your website, engage with your content, and interact with your brand across various channels. These insights empower your marketing team to make informed decisions that guide your B2B ship through turbulent waters.

In other words, signals are breadcrumbs that your target accounts leave behind as they interact with your campaigns, website, mails, webinars, and brand in general. These breadcrumbs might seem insignificant on their own, but when unified and analyzed, they unveil a treasure trove of insights.

You can also think of signals as the clues left by a detective at a crime scene – each footprint, fingerprint, and piece of evidence contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the situation. Similarly, every click, download, email open, and webinar attendance paints a detailed portrait of an account's journey through the marketing funnel.

Chapter 3 | The Art of Prioritization: Focusing on High-Impact Accounts

Marketers are entrusted not just with reaching their target audience but also with pinpointing the accounts that hold the greatest potential for conversion. In this high-stakes game, one truth remains evident: success hinges on picking the right targets.

Imagine having a treasure map that leads to a chest brimming with treasures. The key to unlocking this treasure lies in identifying the right path and picking up the gems on the way, as you follow the path diligently. In the world of B2B marketing, your treasure map is built upon signals (read: gems) — the subtle cues that guide you toward high-impact accounts. By focusing your efforts on these accounts, you maximize your chances of successfully reaching high-impact accounts.

Enter account prioritization: a strategy that involves evaluating signals to identify accounts with a higher likelihood of engagement and conversion. This process empowers marketing teams to make data-driven decisions, ensuring that every ounce of effort is directed toward accounts that align with their offerings and exhibit genuine interest.

Chapter 4 | Types of Signals Driving Effective Account Prioritization

Each signal type contributes in a unique manner to the overall account-scoring exercise. 

Let's go over the key signal types that drive the process of account prioritization and decision-making:

Engagement Signals:

Engagement signals gauge the level of interaction or engagement an account has with your brand. In today's day and age, every click, scroll, and download carries a message. The signals of digital engagement reveal the level of interest an account holds for your offerings. This could include page visits, content downloads, video views, webinar signups, and more. 

The more engaged an account is, the higher its potential interest. High engagement, such as frequent visits to your website, prolonged time spent on your pricing page, and interactions with downloadable resources, indicate a thirst for knowledge and a potential readiness to move forward in the buyer's journey.

Imagine a scenario where a software company notices a surge in engagement signals from a particular account. This account has not only visited their website frequently but has also

engaged with multiple pieces of in-depth content related to advanced data analytics, and interacted with the brand’s LinkedIn ads. After that, the account also reads more about the software company’s product offerings on relevant review sites. Such signals hint at the account's keen interest in harnessing the power of data-driven insights. This information steers the marketing team toward tailoring their outreach appropriately. With all this information, the marketing team would now send a personalized message highlighting the company's expertise in data analytics, leading to a more meaningful conversation, instead of a generic email,
How do engagement signals help?
Engagement signals enable you to tailor your outreach, ensuring that your messaging aligns with what matters most to them.

Business Signals

Beyond digital interactions, the context in which an account operates holds vital clues about its intent. Business signals encompass a spectrum of indicators that shed light on an account's industry trends, pain points, and aspirations. Monitoring these signals enables marketing teams to position their solutions as tailor-made answers to the account's specific challenges. For instance, news articles, press releases, and industry reports can offer valuable insights into an account's strategic priorities.

Let's consider a manufacturing company that notices a flurry of business signals within the aerospace industry. Reports indicate a surge in demand for lightweight materials, a clear indicator of the industry's focus on fuel efficiency. Armed with this information, the marketing team can craft targeted content that showcases their expertise in innovative lightweight solutions. By aligning their messaging with the industry's current needs, they establish themselves as proactive partners capable of addressing the account's evolving requirements.

How do business signals help?
By identifying accounts that align with your solutions and demonstrate a need for your offerings, you can tailor your messaging to address their unique pain points and position your brand as the solution.

Relationship Signals

Building connections with key stakeholders within target accounts can significantly influence the conversion journey and is at the heart of B2B marketing. Relationship signals encompass aspects such as existing contacts, interactions at events, and referrals from trusted sources. These signals

reveal the extent to which an account has already established a rapport with your brand or has been influenced by your network.

Consider a scenario where a financial technology company identifies a relationship signal indicating that a senior executive from a high-potential account attended their recent industry webinar. This connection signifies more than just attendance — it reflects a deliberate effort to engage with the company's thought leadership. Recognizing this relationship signal, the marketing team can extend a personalized follow-up, acknowledging the executive's attendance and offering deeper insights into how their fintech solutions can address specific pain points discussed during the webinar.
How do relationship signals help?
By recognizing these connections, you can initiate conversations with a level of familiarity, strengthening the trust and rapport between your brand and the account.
Effective account prioritization hinges on the synthesis of these signals. By weaving together engagement, business, and relationship signals, you create a multi-dimensional portrait of each account. This comprehensive understanding allows you to allocate resources strategically, focusing on accounts that exhibit a higher potential for engagement and conversion.

Chapter 5 | Navigating Intent and Interest: The Power of Engagement Signals

Understanding customer intent is akin to deciphering complex code, a code that holds the key to unlocking valuable insights and driving impactful strategies. Within this intricate code lie engagement signals, the digital footprints left behind by accounts as they navigate a heap of online interactions.
These signals are the heartbeats of intent, revealing the pulse of an account's interest, preferences, and potential conversion.

Diving Deep: Engagement Signals

Engagement signals reflect the multi-channel nature of B2B interactions. Let's delve into some key engagement signals that contribute to account scoring:

1. Website Visits:
   An account's journey often begins on your website. The pages visited, the time spent, and the content engaged with, provide a window into its interests. Such signals highlight the topics that resonate with them, paving the way for tailored messaging.

2. Content Interactions:
   When an account consumes your thought-provoking blog posts, eagerly watches your webinars, and subscribes to your newsletters, it's essentially raising its hand and saying, "I'm interested, educate me." These content consumption signals help shape your understanding of what topics resonate with each account, offering you a unique opportunity to tailor your messaging to their preferences.
   
   
3. Social Signals:
   In the age of social media dominance, accounts leave behind digital footprints on social platforms. Following your brand's social profiles, engaging with your posts, or mentioning your products in their content are all social signals. They reflect the account's willingness to be associated with your brand and can even hint at potential partnership opportunities. 

4. Email Responses:
   Signals related to email interactions include opens, clicks, and responses, each of which provides valuable customer feedback on an account's responsiveness. An opened email, a clicked link, or a response signifies not just interest but active engagement.
5. Event Attendance Signals:
   If an account has attended your webinars, conferences, or events, it showcases a higher level of engagement and interest, warranting special attention from your marketing and sales teams.

6. Interacting with Paid Ads:
   Engagement with paid advertisements, whether through clicks or interactions, signifies an account's inclination toward your offerings. Such interactions often reflect a conscious effort to seek solutions.

7. Review Sites:
   Exploring review platforms demonstrates an account's research-oriented behavior, indicating their evaluation of your brand's credibility and suitability.
8. 3rd-Party Intent Data:
   Signals from external intent data sources, such as Bambora and Leadsift, can provide invaluable insights into an account's activities and interests outside your own channels.
9. CRM and MAP Interactions:
   Interactions within your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and MAP (Marketing Automation Platform) offer a holistic view of an account's journey, bridging the gap between marketing and sales engagements.
10. Visitor Identification:
    Identifying anonymous website visitors and tracking their interactions allows you to engage with accounts that are already familiar with your brand.
11. Product Usage:
    Accounts that actively use your products or services signal a high level of engagement and satisfaction, often indicating potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities.
12. Customer Success Engagement:
    Interactions with your customer success team demonstrate ongoing engagement and a desire to maximize the value derived from your offerings.
13. Call Recording Keywords:
    Analyzing keywords used by potential customers during calls with sales teams can reveal their pain points, needs, and priorities.

Chapter 6 | Decoding Business Signals: Navigating the Context of Accounts

Business signals are the contextual cues that unveil the intricacies of an account's operational and strategic reality. These cues provide insights into an account's firmographics, growth trajectory, financial landscape, technological preferences, and more. Each business signal sheds light on a specific aspect of a prospect's journey, creating a comprehensive profile that aids in aligning your offerings with their distinct requirements.

Diving Deep: Business Signals

The world of business signals is diverse and multifaceted, reflecting the multifarious dimensions of modern B2B enterprises. Here are some of the key business signals that hold the power to illuminate an account's journey and needs:

1. Firmographics:
   Unveiling a prospect's identity through firmographics, such as company size, industry, location, and structure, offers a foundational understanding of their organizational context and helps assess the account's potential value.

2. Business Model Fit:
   Aligning your offerings with a prospect's business model—be it product-led growth (PLG) or enterprise-focused—ensures that your solutions seamlessly integrate into their operations.

3. Growth Indicators:
   Monitoring an account's growth markers, such as expanding ad budgets, team growth by department or region, and the addition of new features or technologies, provides insights into their evolving strategic standpoints.

4. Capital Signals:
   Tracking funding events, revenue numbers, customer counts, and recent funding rounds can reveal an account's financial health and trajectory.

5. Leadership Changes:
   Changes in leadership positions, such as a new CMO, CFO, CRO, or COO, can indicate shifts in a company's priorities and potential receptiveness to new solutions.

6. Key Priorities:
   Analyzing points such as dropping pipeline coverage, decreasing conversion rates, or escalating customer acquisition costs (CAC), gives a glimpse into an account's immediate challenges and focus areas.

7. Technographics:
   Understanding an account's technology stack and the key technologies they employ, along with the installation dates, provides insights into their preferences and requirements.

‍Hiring Activities:Identifying open positions and job titles in an account's recruitment drive reveals their evolving team structure and potential areas of investment.

Integrating Insights from Signals

Consider this scenario:
We identify that Europe-based enterprise companies exhibit a strong interest in privacy-compliance documentation, a business signal. Concurrently, we also learn that they engage with specific content pages, engage with particular ads, and interact with reviews, an engagement signal. By combining these signals, a vivid portrait emerges, revealing precisely who is intrigued by what aspects of your offerings. Similarly, US-based SME businesses may show a keen interest in pricing details, and this intelligence is derived by merging their business signals with their engagement behaviors.

This integration of business signals with engagement signals is the catalyst that propels account scoring beyond mere data points. It transforms raw information into actionable insights that enable your marketing and sales teams to approach accounts armed with a profound understanding of their needs and aspirations.

Chapter 7 | Decoding Relationship Signals: Understanding the Dynamics Between Your Business and its Potential Clients

Relationship signals, in the context of account scoring, encompass a wide array of interactions and associations. These signals provide a comprehensive view of how your business and your target accounts are connected, revealing critical touchpoints that can influence your marketing strategies.

Diving Deep: Relationship Signals

1. Executive Connects:
   Like every other sector, in B2B marketing, the key executives hold the most power to influence decision-making. Relationship signals include connections or interactions between executives on both sides. For instance, if your CEO has had meaningful discussions with a prospect's C-suite, it signifies a strong relationship signal.
2. ‍Employee Connects:Moving from the executive level, the relationships between employees of both your company and your target accounts can offer valuable insights. Are there former colleagues in your company who previously worked at your prospect's organization? Such connections can serve as bridges for conversation and collaboration.‍
3. Common Customers:
   Sharing common customers is a robust relationship signal. It indicates that your solution aligns with the needs and preferences of similar businesses, increasing the likelihood of success with the new prospect.‍
4. Re-Engaged Accounts:
   Sometimes, accounts that previously showed interest but didn't convert can be reactivated. Relationship signals here involve identifying the reasons for the initial disengagement, such as funnel drop-offs, product limitations, or competing solutions. Understanding why an account disengaged is crucial to rekindling their interest.‍
5. Executive and Employee Awareness:
   Relationship signals also encompass the extent to which executives and employees at your target accounts are aware of your business. Higher levels of awareness indicate a stronger relationship and can influence their receptiveness to your messaging.‍
6. Potential Champions:
   Identifying potential champions within your prospects' organizations is another valuable relationship signal. These are employees who have previously worked at companies using your solutions and can advocate for your offerings within their new organizations.‍
7. Networking Events:
   Participation in the same industry events or conferences can be a relationship signal. Meeting prospects face-to-face at such events can help forge stronger connections.‍
8. Referrals:
   Perhaps one of the most direct relationship signals, referrals, indicate that someone within the prospect's network has recommended your business. This is a powerful vote of confidence.
9. ‍Past Interactions:
   Any past interactions, whether through emails, meetings, or other forms of communication, should not be overlooked. These interactions build the foundation for relationships.

Leveraging Relationship Signals with Factors.AI

Factors.AI understands the critical role of relationship signals in the B2B marketing landscape.

For instance, we might identify that Europe-based enterprise companies are interested in privacy-compliance documentation, while US-based SME businesses are seeking pricing details. These insights enable marketing and sales teams to tailor their approaches, focusing on the most relevant aspects of their offerings.

You can think of relationship signals as the bridges that connect your business with potential customers. They shed light on the connections and associations that can drive successful B2B marketing campaigns.

Chapter 8 | Factors.AI: Transforming Signals into Actionable Insights

The key to success lies in not just collecting signals but in deciphering their meaning and converting them into actionable insights. That’s where Factors.AI comes in. Our advanced technology specializes in turning signals into strategies. We don't just gather data; we translate it into informed decisions.

With Factors.AI, you're not merely looking at numbers and charts. You're unlocking the potential of signals to optimize your marketing efforts. Whether it's identifying the most promising accounts, tailoring your messaging to their specific interests, or understanding the dynamics of your prospect's business challenges, we enable you to make agile, data-driven decisions.

To learn more about B2B account scoring, you can explore our comprehensive blog on how to do B2B Account Scoring. It's a valuable resource that takes you through the practical aspects of implementing account scoring in your marketing strategy.Incorporating signals into your account scoring strategy is akin to opening a box of opportunities. It's about transforming your marketing efforts from guesswork to precision. Signals empower you to:

• Identify anonymous high-intent accounts accurately.
• Tailor your messaging to your prospect's specific interests and challenges.
• Forge meaningful relationships that drive conversions.
• Optimize resource allocation for maximum ROI.

The value of signals lies in their ability to guide your strategy with data-backed insights. They empower you to make informed decisions, adapt to changing market dynamics, and ultimately achieve B2B marketing success.

Still unsure of how you can implement Account Scoring for your business? Discover how Factors.AI can help you turn signals into valuable insight. Get in touch and let’s get started today.