7 Buying Signals for B2B Sales & Marketing Teams

We get it. 

The B2B sales cycle looks more like a roller coaster than a funnel. 

With numerous touchpoints, interactions, and channels involved, your potential buyers are getting lost in a sea of data and numbers. 

And your team? 

Is just as confused as you are… 

Without a clear understanding of what buying signals to look out for, your sales and marketing teams are probably losing out on the opportunity to close deals faster-

With the right approach, you can bring the customer acquisition costs down and eventually increase the bottom-line revenue. 

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So what are buying signals?

Buying signals are actions and behaviors that demonstrate a prospect’s purchase intent.  Buying signals play a crucial role in both sales and marketing endeavors. It helps identify customer needs and streamline the buying process, allowing your team to expedite the sales cycle. Analyzing buying signals also helps determine the most effective messaging and marketing campaigns, helping optimize your campaigns.

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Types of Buying Signals

Buying signals can be classified as verbal and non-verbal cues. Your sales teams should be trained to consciously look out for these signals during interactions with prospects:

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1. Verbal Cues

Here are some verbal cues to keep a lookout for- 

• Open communication - prospects freely express their needs and challenges, indicating a willingness to engage and explore solutions.
• Repeating or complimenting features - When prospects emphasize or praise specific features, it signals interest and a potential alignment with their requirements.
• Meaningful questions during sales engagement - Asking insightful questions during a product demonstration suggests an active interest in understanding the solution's applicability.
• Picturing themselves using the tool - When prospects inquire about specific use cases or imagine scenarios involving your product, it indicates a practical consideration of its utility.
• Enquiring about pricing plans - Explicit inquiries about pricing or discussions around budget indicate a transition from interest to serious consideration.
• Risk Minimization Questions - While objections may seem negative, questions about overcoming challenges or minimizing risks indicate a prospect's genuine interest in finding a suitable solution.

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2. Non-Verbal Cues

These non-verbal cues are often overlooked during sales interactions

• Nodding Head: Positive body language such as nodding signifies agreement and interest, reflecting a favorable disposition toward the product.
• Smiles and eye contact: Non-verbal cues like eye contact and smiling suggest engagement and comfort, indicating a positive reception to the sales pitch.
• Leaning Forward: Physically leaning into the conversation demonstrates active involvement, signaling a heightened level of interest in the presented information.

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These signals can help close a deal once you have the opportunity to interact with your potential customers face-to-face. However, as a recent Gartner study suggests, 80% of B2B sales interactions will happen through online channels by 2025. This suggests that marketing teams should also keep an eye out for buying signals to streamline their process and make sense of each customer interaction. 

Here’s how marketers can make sense of data to identify buying signals throughout the B2B sales cycle:

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3. Fit Data

Fit data encompasses firmographic and demographic information utilized to assess whether a prospect aligns with the characteristics of an ideal customer. This type of data serves as a potential indicator during the buying process, helping determine if a customer is well-suited for a company's products or services.

For instance, consider a company specializing in providing IT services to small businesses. Fit data elements such as company size and industry become crucial signals, suggesting a strong alignment with potential customers. Similarly, in the context of a company offering high-end luxury products, fit data, including income levels, proves valuable in identifying individuals likely to have both interest in and financial capacity for the products.

It is essential to note that being a fit alone does not guarantee a customer's inclination to make a purchase. Therefore, integrating fit data with intent data becomes imperative to enhance the precision of marketing and sales strategies.

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4. Opportunity Data

Opportunity data, on the other hand, pertains to information indicating a potential customer's likelihood to make a purchase based on specific events or circumstances. In the realm of B2B companies, this could encompass favorable situations within an organization that create optimal conditions for a successful sale.

For example, if a prospective company recently experienced a successful funding round, it may signal an expanded budget. This, in turn, suggests a higher likelihood of them being receptive to new business opportunities and facing fewer budgetary constraints. Again, opportunity data in itself does not indicate a willingness to buy and therefore should be viewed in conjunction with intent data.

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5. Intent Data 

Intent data focuses more on buying actions when your potential buyers are moving through the stages of the customer journey. Imagine a prospect navigating through your content, attending webinars, and signaling interest through various touchpoints. The power lies not just in identifying these signals but in understanding their nuances, their cadence, and their context within the larger buying journey. Intent data can either be behavioral or contextual: 

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6. Behavioral Data

Behavioral data refers to the way potential customers engage with your business. Say you’re running a travel agency. A website visitor interacts with a blog titled “10 places to visit in Europe” and then looks into the pricing of your Europe tour packages. This indicates intent and reaching out to the prospect with exciting discounts and offers on their preferred destination will certainly help them purchase from you. This is some behavioral data you should take into consideration: 

• Website activity and visits to specific pages
• Signups and activity for free products and trial accounts
• Content downloads
• Webinar signups and attendance
• Blog post and case study views
• Email engagement
• Ad engagement

7. Contextual Data

Contextual Data gives insights on who your website visitors are and how they are interacting with your website in the awareness stages:

• Referral sources (understanding what led them to visit your website)
• Marketing campaign source
• If they are a new or returning visitor
• Keyword searches and intent

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Understanding these queues helps streamline marketing functions. The ability to streamline processes is tantamount to progress in B2B. By aligning buying signals with the stages of the buying cycle, you can create repeatable and optimized processes. This not only eliminates noise but also offers insights into what works and what doesn't. The result? Time saved, resources optimized, and a clear pathway to building meaningful, personalized connections with your prospects.

The synergy of intent data and behavioral data is only possible within the ABM framework. Introducing Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is not merely a strategic approach but a transformative solution for B2B businesses, especially when empowered by the right automation software. Imagine having the ability to seamlessly track customer journeys across various touchpoints, discerning key buying signals in interactions over all channels. A robust ABM tool like factors.ai not only identifies these signals but also helps act on them at the earliest.

That's another reason to employ automation to identify buying signals. Studies suggest that businesses that respond to leads in five minutes or less are 100x more likely to convert opportunities. Using automation tools, teams can reach out to prospects instantly, and capitalize on every opportunity that presents itself through digital interactions.

Automating this process enables marketers to personalize communication and expedite the buying process.

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How Factors.ai helps identify intent-based buying signals:

Factors.ai has several beneficial features that help identify customer intent using behavioral and contextual data: 

With powerful marketing attribution, you can identify the referral sources with the highest ROI. it allows you to optimize your marketing efforts and spend to optimize all efforts aimed at increasing awareness. 

As far as behavioral data is concerned, Factors.ai allows you to identify website users and track their movement and interactions- right from the first touch to the last. With account intelligence and features that provide a clear overview of the customer journey, it is easy to understand how potential customers move through the funnel and employ the appropriate sales and marketing tactics to close the deal.

And that’s not all!

Factors allows you to employ filters based on demographic, firmographic as well as behavioral data to customize marketing campaigns and even personalize communications. This helps sales and marketing teams make sense of their data and act on buying signals with great ease!

Your teams can save time and effort while driving in more conversions!

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