If you’re like most B2B organizations, you likely have allocated some of your commercial team’s budget toward an intent data platform because of the promises you heard from the vendors selling these platforms: that your team would get bulletproof data on which companies were buying what, when.
The reality? We think MarTech says it best:
“Some false positives come from human error in how we choose which signals to monitor, and some of them come from the sole fact that research isn’t a guaranteed sign of intent. The research that prospects are doing around your brand may very well be the exact information that removes you from the consideration set if you’re not doing marketing to convince them.”
“Just because they’re looking at certain topics or even certain vendors doesn’t give any real indication of the timing of their in-market activity. The reasons that buyers come in-market are entirely situational, organizational, environmental and even emotional. The sole act of identifying vendors doesn’t mean they are in-market yet.”
Human Account Intelligence vs. Intent Data
At Emissary, we believe that highly nuanced, qualitative insights gathered directly from the people who know (because they work or have recently worked at the account being targeted) provide a more detailed, actionable prospect view. We call this human account intelligence.
Human account intelligence provides deep, personalized insights into client needs, pain points and business contexts that AI and data-scraping tools (such as intent data) often overlook. These insights are the true indicators of whether a target company is in-market for a solution like yours.
| Human Account Intelligence | Intent Data Providers | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to value | Immediate | Immediate |
| Outreach help | What, how and why tech buying decisions are made, biases organizations have toward certain tools, and the stakeholder alignment needed to get a deal done | Potentially personalized messaging and conversations based on search |
| Source(s) | Executives either currently or formerly working in target accounts | First-party and third-party data |
| Sales-specific intelligence | Organizational level | Vertical level |
| Ability to go beyond the data | 1:1 deal coaching | None |
Investing in human account intelligence such as Emissary can provide a significant edge over relying solely on intent data sources. By offering a deeper, more contextual understanding of target accounts, enterprise sellers can better target those who are truly in-market vs. those just kicking tires.
Talk to us today to learn how to get the information your sales team is missing.
