Research shows that B2B buyers now complete 70% or more of their buying journey before they ever directly engage a vendor. That means by the time buyers interact with your reps, they’ve already educated themselves about your solution and your competitors, and they’re almost certain what decision they’re going to make.
So where is that 70% of the buyers’ journey taking place? And most importantly, how can you influence your potential customers’ buying decisions by providing timely and accurate information about your solution?
Gain an Edge by Deciphering Anonymous Buying Signals
The grand majority of buyer behavior takes place in an anonymous data-realm we call the Dark Funnel™. It’s where buyers are invisibly:
- Conducting their own research
- Monitoring third-party review sites
- Reading online trade articles
- Following social media accounts
- And more
Because this behavior is anonymous, it can be hard for revenue teams to:
- Identify relevant accounts for marketing
- Understand their needs
- Influence their research journey
- Reach out to them when they’re ready to buy
Thankfully, 6sense’s revenue AI platform helps B2B businesses shed light on the Dark Funnel to discover hidden opportunities, understand buyer behavior and intent signals, and improve outreach. Here are a few examples:
Zendesk
Zendesk, a SaaS company offering customer service software, needed a way to focus its attention on the accounts that would be most receptive to their outreach — and they needed an account-level view as they moved upmarket.
They found their solution in 6sense, which helped spot in-market accounts and their buying stages. BDRs could then focus their attention on high-intent accounts in the Decision or Purchase stages, dramatically increasing the efficiency of their outreach and their ability to close deals and book revenue.
6sense’s ability to light up the Dark Funnel also helped Zendesk see which keywords its prospects were searching for and what websites they were visiting. Zendesk’s revenue team used this information to personalize messaging and reach out at the right time. This resonated with potential customers, accelerating the sales process.
With the help of 6sense’s insights, Zendesk gained traction with accounts they attempted to get into for years. In addition, lighting up the company’s Dark Funnel™ exposed accounts that it never would have considered, giving the company opportunities to engage with customers that previously didn’t show up on their radar.
As a result of using 6sense, Zendesk has seen a 10% average increase in opportunity creation globally.
PTC
PTC is a global software company that transforms how companies create, operate, and service products. As a self-described “data-driven everything” company, it was looking for a solution that combined buyer intent data with AI to identify accounts that they weren’t already engaged with.
Enter 6sense, which combines buyer intent signals with AI-driven predictions about best-fit accounts based on historical sales data.
With more than 1,500 net-new accounts identified — and $18M net-new pipeline generated — PTC’s revenue team then used 6sense to orchestrate campaigns to warm up early-stage buyers while focusing sales’ efforts on ICP-fit accounts ready to buy.
The data and functionality 6sense provides also helps PTC get hyper-granular with its audience segmentation for display campaigns. It also personalizes content based on the company’s customers’ industries. Visibility into otherwise anonymous data helps PTC better understand their customers’ unique needs and provide helpful and relevant content and messaging.
Sage Intacct
Leading financial software provider Sage Intacct wanted to implement an account-based strategy to uncover hidden revenue opportunities, as well as break through the noise of traditional marketing methods and effectively reach desired accounts.
Before 6sense, Sage Intacct was working with a stitched-together tech stack with third-party intent detection, fit modeling, and display advertising platforms. But its revenue team was still missing out on opportunities.
With 6sense, the company brought its intent detection, fit modeling, and display advertising capabilities under one roof — which reduced the time and energy wasted managing tools. Having all the functionality within one platform also gave Sage Intacct a fuller picture of which accounts were the right fit for its solution.
Working off strong, data-backed target lists, the company was able to identify and focus efforts on accounts that matched its ICP. Having insight into intent and buying signals helped the revenue team know when accounts were in the Decision and Purchase phases. Targeting these accounts resulted in a 13x lift in engagement.
But Sage Intacct’s use of 6sense didn’t stop at sales and marketing. Peering into data hidden within the Dark Funnel also helps the company’s customer success team know when customers are researching competitors, presenting opportunities to discover why customers are considering the competition and prevent churn.
Conclusion
For B2B companies, the bottom line is this: Lighting up the Dark Funnel improves your bottom line.
Revenue technology platforms like 6sense reveal never-before-seen sales intelligence that can generate high-impact, actionable answers to questions such as:
- How many companies are in-market for what you offer?
- What does your ideal customer look like and how do you find more of them?
- Where should you focus your marketing spend?
- Where should your sales and sales development teams invest their energies?
- What are your potential customers searching for to find you — and your competitors?
- When is the best timing to engage with prospects?
Equipped with the answers to these questions, your revenue team can uncover otherwise hidden opportunities in accounts it had never considered to target, personalize messaging for more effective outreach, and focus sales and marketing resources where it matters most — on generating pipeline and revenue.
Ready to learn more? Read about the Dark Funnel and 6sense’s data-driven, AI-powered platform — or check out more customer stories.
