Generating qualified leads is crucial for driving predictable pipeline and revenue growth. Many sales organizations rely on Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), but at 6sense, and within the 6sense platform, we use 6sense Qualified Accounts, or 6QAs. These are accounts identified by 6sense’s AI-powered platform as being likely to buy, and soon.
Challenges can arise when working qualified accounts, whether they’re MQLs qualified through traditional manual means or 6QAs determined in unbiased ways by machine learning and algorithms. For example:
- Inaccurate contact data or misidentified stakeholders can lead to outreach landing in the void
- Engaging with interested prospects too late can result in lost opportunities
- Improper qualification criteria can cause you to miss opportunities you never knew you had
Within 6sense’s revenue team, we use an internal strategy called “No 6QA Left Behind” to eliminate such confusion and loss. We use automation and other technologies to streamline the process of working qualified accounts, ultimately driving success and maximizing opportunities.
You can learn more about our approach in the video below or keep reading to take a deeper dive.
Identifying the Qualifying Criteria
The first step of our approach is to determine the qualifying criteria for accounts. Your organization may have different criteria, but for 6sense, we consider the following:
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Accounts
These accounts match the characteristics we see amongst our most favorable customers, suggesting they are good fits for our business and likely to convert.
6sense aggregates data from multiple sources — including firmographic, technographic, and demographic information — to build a comprehensive understanding of ICPs. AI analyzes historical sales data and customer interactions to identify patterns and characteristics common among our best customers.
Tier One Accounts
These are high-value accounts of significant strategic importance and should be qualified and prioritized for outreach.
6sense employs predictive analytics to assess and prioritize accounts based on their likelihood to buy and their potential value. This can help identify which accounts should be classified as Tier One, especially those predicted to be in-market.
Inbound Accounts
Accounts that show active interest or engagement, such as inbound leads or hand-raisers, are essential to qualify and are potentially easy wins.
6sense captures intent signals from accounts showing active interest or engagement, such as website visits, content downloads, and product inquiries. This intent data can be used to qualify accounts that have demonstrated interest through their online behavior but haven’t officially raised their hand.
Intent Data from G2
Intent data from review platforms like G2 provide valuable insights into accounts that are actively researching or showing intent to purchase.
6sense pulls in intent data from G2 and other second-party sources and processes these intent signals along with other engagement data to identify accounts with a higher likelihood of buying.
Enriching Data and Running Orchestrations
Once these qualifying criteria are established, we next enrich the data within the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This includes enhancing contact and account data to ensure our information is accurate and up to date.
6sense integrates seamlessly with leading CRM systems (like Salesforce) and marketing automation platforms. This integration enables the direct flow of data between systems, ensuring account and contact records in the CRM are automatically updated with accurate data.
Orchestrations are then implemented to automatically acquire, enhance, clean, and sync this data. This can include updating contact details, adding missing information about accounts, and providing insights into the technology stack used by a company, their growth trends, and their industry classification.
This all ensures that outreach goes to the correct stakeholders, and empowers sales reps to use the robust account data provided to personalize their messaging.
Persona Mapping
To further optimize the working of qualified accounts, personas are mapped out, which involves aggregating title-level details and categorizing them into persona buckets. By understanding the different personas within the target accounts, marketing and sales teams can tailor their messaging and approach to effectively engage with each persona.
6sense’s account-matching capabilities not only identify ideal accounts based on buying behavior but also uncover potential members of the buying team. Then, with a clear understanding of the different personas within target accounts, 6sense helps marketing and sales teams develop and deploy content strategies tailored to the interests, pain points, and decision-making criteria of each persona.
This personalized approach increases the relevance and impact of the messaging.
Implementing Automation and Touchpoints
Automation helps BDRs ensure that each account receives ample, timely attention. Prioritization dashboards, for example, are full of AI-powered features that keep BDRs focused on working qualified accounts.
The prioritization dashboard uses AI to score accounts based on their buying signals and fit with the ICP. Real-time insights into account engagement, intent signals, and journey stages reprioritize accounts based on evolving data, so sales efforts are always focused on the most promising opportunities.
Automated alerts notify sales teams of significant account activities, changes in account scores, or when accounts are entering new stages of the buying journey. AI-driven recommendations also suggest the next best actions for sales reps to take with each account.
Prompt replies to prospect emails are also made easy with automation. Conversational Email automates the creation and sending of personalized emails based on account and persona insights, enabling personalized engagement at scale. Automated workflows can trigger emails based on specific behaviors or engagement signals, ensuring timely follow-ups and engagements, and preventing interested, qualified opportunities from falling through the cracks.
Conclusion
Our “No 6QA Left Behind” approach is a testament to the power of using automation to make the working of qualified accounts a breeze by eliminating many of the challenges of working qualified accounts. Leaning on technology that identifies qualified accounts and helps with traditionally tedious, manual, time-consuming, or time-sensitive processes keeps sales reps focused on outreach and confident that no prospect is left behind.
