THE LEAD-CENTRIC SALES FLYWHEEL
The traditional sales funnel approach adopted by B2B sellers cannot produce the same results they generated in the past. Focusing efforts on developing top-of-funnel pipeline growth that does not translate to high-quality leads, or a viable mechanism for converting leads, leaves a hole in revenue operations that sales teams struggle to reconcile. This dissatisfaction with traditional sales funnel approaches is exemplified in a 2021 study on marketing attribution and analysis conducted by Ruler Analytics, which found that 37% of business leaders surveyed reported lead generation as a significant challenge.
A “sales flywheel” places the lead at the center of the sales process, maintains a continuum, and positions companies for end-to-end success rather than short-term flashes of metric growth. Companies are positioned for success because a buyer-centric model builds off the momentum from actions taken to convert a lead while delivering a better experience and relationship with target audiences. Centering sales processes around the buyer addresses another critical issue identified by Wpromote in their 2021 study on the “State of B2B Digital Marketing”. In this study, 37% of professionals surveyed reported “aligning marketing and sales” as a significant issue hindering lead generation efforts. The image below depicts the “sales flywheel” relationship Aptivio facilitates for lead generation and conversion:
Aptivio’s insights describe buyer intent at every stage of the lead's purchasing journey. These insights elucidate a straightforward process for following up on leads with high conversion potential at whatever stage they are found in. By guiding lead generation and conversion efforts with specific insights, Aptivio mitigates lead generation fatigue syndrome’s three defining symptoms: Time and Effort Misallocation, Team Burnout, and Budget Misallocation.
Time and Effort Misallocation
The lead generation company Cience has found that “It takes up to 30 minutes for an SDR to make additional research on the company, up to 30 minutes to write a follow-up, and up to 8 dials to get to a prospect.” Aptivio eliminates that time and effort misallocation by delivering all this information in a single dashboard.
Team Burnout
When sales reps encounter ill-fitting lead after ill-fitting lead, they become discouraged. Discouraged by rejection and lack of results, sales teams begin to exhibit signs of burnout and avoid using sales platforms they know deliver poor leads. Aptivio’s buyer intent AI produces the highest quality leads that sales teams know they can rely on.
Budget Misallocation
Marketing budgets spent targeting the wrong audience contribute to poor lead generation and low conversion rates. With Aptivio, marketing messaging targets audiences that exhibit the buyer intent signals that match our client’s go-to-market strategy.
Buyer intent serves as the glue that holds this flywheel together. Accurately capturing buyer intent marks the difference between winning or losing leads, particularly in dynamic B2B markets.
How Aptivio Simplifies Salesforce Use
Users navigating Salesforce’s applications are engaging with the very same pull model of information we describe. Salesforce’s applications, including Sales Cloud, Pardot, Einstein, and a catalog of Data Enrichment Widgets, generate vast data pools that ameliorate CRM, Sales Engagement, and Sales Enablement objectives but data is not communicated between applications. Digital adoption platforms train end-users and supplement experiential learning with educational content, but to extract the most value from existing sales stacks, buyer intent AI succinctly distinguishes noise from material signals. Aptivio Assistant, available in AppExchange, performs this task by alerting Salesforce users to hidden revenue opportunities and leads with high conversion potential directly in the Salesforce workflow. New opportunities are packaged in the Salesforce classification context of Account, Contact, Lead, or Opportunity for users to review and follow through on the recommended call to action directly in the Salesforce stack. Actions including saving leads to the Salesforce dashboard, creating opportunities in Salesforce, creating campaigns in Salesforce, and engaging leads or contacts in the platform are simplified with Aptivio’s action cards.
Instead of combing through data noise for potentially relevant signals that uncover salient knowledge, Aptivio’s buyer intent AI acts as a smart filter identifying 1 out of every 10,000 data points that are legitimately significant. Aptivio automates simple tasks, such as sending a set of outreach messages to prospects, freeing users to address more high-value tasks. The images below illustrate how various users in sales or marketing might navigate Aptivio with Salesforce to simplify lead outreach and campaign development.
WHY BUYER INTENT IS A MUST-HAVE FOR LEAD GENERATION
Buyer intent refers to the data generated by online activities that reveal the “intent” of a potential lead towards purchasing a product or solution. The primary function of buyer intent is to determine whether the user behavior of a lead classifies them as “in-market” or not. “In-market” leads demonstrate buyer intent that reveals they are ready to buy or are considering purchasing a product or service. When captured and conveyed succinctly, buyer intent ameliorates revenue operations by producing high-quality leads and describing their position within a sales flywheel. The graphic below illustrates a segment of the digital signals Aptivio monitors to synthesize buyer intent:
Buyer intent is not universally the same, so lead generation software solutions that leverage buyer intent are not all the same. What some qualify as buyer intent, others might not. Aptivio’s buyer intent AI is one of the most comprehensive vendors for identifying in-market leads and elaborating their position within a sales flywheel. Because Aptivio’s array of buyer intent signals is established to reflect our clients’ organizational go-to-market strategy, lead generation efforts are honed to achieve the most impact from end to end of the buyer journey. Competitor vendors deliver insights for some relevant buyer intent signals, but Aptivio is the only AI-powered revenue growth engine that conveys salient buyer intent signals and automates mundane tasks in a single platform.
LEAD GENERATION VENDORS IN THE MARKET
Some of the most prominent players in the lead generation market are ZoomInfo, 6sense, D&B Lattice, and DemandBase. ZoomInfo, which holds the largest market presence, is a “comprehensive business database with best-in-class technology to fuel your go-to-market strategy from start to finish.” 6sense is an “ABM/ABX platform that helps B2B organizations achieve predictable revenue growth.” D&B Lattice’s Customer Data Platform helps revenue teams “combine siloed customer and prospect data with 3rd party insights.” Lastly, we have DemandBase, which is an “Account-Based Marketing (ABM) solution that connects everything that matters to win in today’s changing B2B landscape.”
While various vendors are able to convey insights for one go-to-market signal or another, Aptivio is the only AI-powered revenue growth engine that captures all relevant go-to-market signals in a single platform. In the same vein, Apitvio is also the only platform able to automate low bandwidth tasks and deliver highly actionable insights in a single platform. In contrast, other vendors only facilitate a few revenue operations tasks.
Aptivio easily integrates with existing sales tech stacks with advanced connectors, avoiding complicated and lengthy builds associated with traditional buyer intent vendors. Aptivio quickly works to grow high-quality leads in the first 48 hours of integration instead of throughout an 18-month build period. We measure our success by the results we produce for our clients, so we work hand in glove with clients to troubleshoot any use or implementation issues and reoptimize our platform to achieve revenue growth through an intelligent lead generation and conversion process. This boutique-level attention to detail and care are impossible to replicate at a larger vendor. Aptivio’s services also come at a transparent price point large vendors cannot meet.
Reveal opportunity blind spots, inform revenue operation actions, increase sales pipelines and conversion rates, unify sales and marketing efforts, and eliminate misallocation of time and budget with a single AI powered revenue growth platform. To view the results we have driven for our clients, explore our case studies page on our website here. For more information about buyer intent AI, discover our buyer intent AI whitepaper here. We look forward to impacting change for clients as we continue to pioneer the future of B2B selling and lead generation.
