Intent data can transform cold sales outreach into personalized invitations to a conversation, but only if marketing integrates it into the sales team’s daily work.

As Michael Passanante, SVP of Marketing & Communications at Capital Rx, explains, “Our goal is to surround prospects with relevant educational content. We can only do that if we connect marketing insights about buyer intent to sales execution.”

Buyer intent data comes in two main forms:

• First-party data: This is company-specific.  It might include website visits, content downloads, event participation, and/or past conversations. 
• Third-party data: is available for purchase by any marketing team from 6Sense, Rollworks, or a similar intent provider data provider.  It can include keyword searches, competitive searches, competitive research as well as data on engagement with industry publications.

At Capital Rx, Michael developed four key strategies for embedding intent data into sales processes to support targeted, personalized outreach.

1️⃣ One Source of Truth

“We want marketing and sales teams to tailor content to buyer pain points,” says Michael. “We can only do that with one source of truth on buyer interest.” 

At Capital Rx, his team uses Salesforce CRM and Hubspot to capture and report on engagement across a wide variety of company-sponsored touchpoints. ZoomInfo is leveraged to identify potential in-market accounts while delivering additional clarity about account-level intent for in-flight prospects. Paperflite is incorporated to facilitate content sharing by SDRs/outside sales and to track additional engagement as prospects move through the buying process.

2️⃣ A Single Account View

A second key to embedding intent data in sales execution is a single account view.  Once a single source truth around buyer engagement has been established it needs to be made actionable at the account level for everyone touching that account.

In complex account-based sales, like at Capital Rx, with ongoing expansion and outreach to different buying centers, SDRs, sales, and CS teams might all be active in an account at the same time.  A unified view of buyer intent at the account level ensures more consistency in how each individual or team engages that account.” 

 “We centralize intent data—website visits, content engagement, events, and past conversations at the account level in Salesforce,” Michael explains, “so there is shared visibility and improved coordination.”

3️⃣ Real-time intelligence

A third key to embedding intent data in sales execution is to alert SDRs and the sales team about active accounts. Think of one-time email alerts when a buyer reaches a certain intent threshold or weekly email summaries of in-market account activity from target accounts.

These emails to the sales team can give a quick bullet point summary of content engagement, keyword or competitive search as well as opt-in or opt-out activity.  

These alerts can be consolidated on dashboards within Salesforce or Hubspot or delivered in real-time through email alerts to sales reps using Hubspot workflows, for instance.

4️⃣ Personalizing Communication

A fourth key to embedding intent in sales is creating the expectation for personalizing communications. The sales and SDR team have to take ownership of account-level information or the personalization snippets to meet each buyer exactly where they are.

At Capital Rx, SDRs refined their outreach by identifying target personas, tailoring messages to roles, and nurturing prospects over time. “While not all conversations convert immediately, continuous, personalized outreach using intent information often leads to opportunities,” Michael explains, “This approach has improved the quality of our sales pipeline.”

Final Thoughts

Michael Passanante’s blueprint for embedding intent data into the work of sales teams focuses on single account view and triggered personalization snippets while also holding sales and SDR teams account for the last mile of personalized communication. The integration of tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Paperflite, combined with real-time intelligence and targeted messaging, underscores how intent data can transform outreach efforts and improve sales outcomes.