What Is Account Intelligence & How Do Sales Teams Use It?
Unlock the potential of account intelligence for your sales team. Understand its impact on strategy and performance to boost your sales results.
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Imagine you’re on the verge of closing a significant deal, but a new competitor enters the scene, catching your prospect’s interest. Instead of panicking, you access your account intelligence dashboard and discover that this competitor has a long-standing relationship with your prospect. With this insight, you quickly adjust your approach to address potential concerns before they arise. This scenario illustrates how account intelligence can help sales and marketing teams secure more deals, even in challenging situations. This blog will guide you through understanding and implementing sales intelligence tools in a B2B setting to achieve similar success.
Aomni’s sales intelligence software is an invaluable tool for this purpose. It enables you to uncover and utilize account insights to refine your sales strategy and improve your chances of success.
What Is Account Intelligence?
Account intelligence is a secret weapon for sales and marketing teams to improve their understanding of prospects. In today's complex B2B buying environment, decisions are frequently made by large groups of stakeholders. Accessing the right information can make all the difference.
Capturing Attention in the B2B Buying Journey
According to Gartner, a typical B2B buying group includes six to ten decision-makers, each contributing their perspectives. Meanwhile, sales reps only get a tiny slice of their attention: about five percent of the buyer's journey. This small window of time makes every interaction count. That's where account intelligence comes in.
What Does Account Intelligence Do?
Account intelligence takes primary data to the next level by enriching it with detailed, relevant insights. It helps sales and marketing teams move beyond generic prospect information to understand their target accounts and what they care about fully. For example, account intelligence covers:
- Demographics: Who your prospects are as individuals
- Firmographics: Details about the companies they work for
- Technographics: The tech tools they're already using
On top of that, you have intent data, which reveals what topics or solutions they're actively exploring.
How Account Intelligence Improves Sales and Marketing Outcomes
By combining all these data points, account intelligence provides a complete picture of your prospects. This helps your sales and marketing teams:
- Personalize their outreach
- Target the right individuals at the right time
- Prioritize their efforts for the best results
Instead of throwing out generic pitches, they can engage with each decision-maker in a way that resonates, which is critical given their limited time to influence the buying process.
Components of Account Intelligence
First-party data offers a direct window into target accounts' intentions, interests, and purchase readiness. Though capturing it can be more challenging, first-party data is highly accurate and focuses on the details that matter most to your organization.
Some of the most common types of first-party data include:
- Corporate email and calendar data
- Sales engagement data
- Website traffic data
- Social media engagement data
A comprehensive account intelligence tool can integrate diverse types of first-party data from platforms like:
- Google Analytics
- Chosen CRM and more
These sources collect information directly from people who engage with your organization, and first-party data is typically incredibly reliable.
Leverage Third-Party Data
Third-party data enriches accounts further by offering more profound insights into target accounts. Once you know from first-party data who is interested in your offering, you can zero in on those contacts’ day-to-day workflows and buying preferences. Key types of third-party data include:
- Firmographics
- Technographics
- Intent data
Other Insights Essential for Detailed Account Profiling
Enriching static account data with dynamic third-party data, including behavioral data and contextual insights, helps remove guesswork from account engagements. The actionable insights yielded by integrating diverse data streams enable sales and marketing teams to work cohesively, advancing prospects effectively through the buyer’s journey, thus enhancing their sales and marketing efforts.
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Benefits of Account Intelligence
Personalized Customer Engagement: The Secret to Winning Sales
Imagine entering a meeting already knowing what your prospect is interested in, their challenges, and how your solution can help them. That’s the power of account intelligence; it lets businesses personalize their communications in ways that genuinely resonate with customers.
Personalized Outreach for B2B Success
Instead of sending generic emails or pitches, you can tailor your message to speak directly to their needs and preferences. This level of personalization grabs attention and builds trust and long-term customer relationships, making them feel like you truly understand their unique situation.
Improved Sales and Marketing Strategies: Fine-Tune Your Approach with Account Intelligence
You can create campaigns that hit the mark whenever you know more about your customers, like their:
- Pain points
- Buying patterns
- Decision-making criteria
Account intelligence gives your sales and marketing teams deeper insights into what makes your prospects tick. With this information, they can:
- Craft more targeted campaigns, focusing on the specific needs of each account.
- Deliver content that’s not only relevant but also timely.
This approach dramatically increases the chances of moving prospects through the sales funnel faster because you give them exactly what they’re looking for when needed.
Efficient Resource Allocation: Maximize Your Return on Investment
Account intelligence doesn’t just help with personalization; it also helps businesses work smarter. By identifying high-value accounts most likely to convert or make significant purchases, you can focus your resources on where they’ll make the most important impact. This means your sales team can spend less time chasing cold leads and more time on accounts ready to buy.
It also helps streamline marketing efforts, ensuring every dollar spent works toward converting the right prospects. Ultimately, it’s about maximizing efficiency and getting the best return on investment.
Better Forecasting and Predictive Analytics: Stay Ahead of the Competition
One of the most exciting benefits of account intelligence is how it can supercharge your ability to predict future trends and customer behavior. By leveraging AI and data analytics, businesses can anticipate customer needs and market changes before they happen.
Predictive Insights for B2B Success
Whether identifying which accounts are likely to churn or spotting emerging market demands, account intelligence helps you stay one step ahead. This forward-thinking approach enables better decision-making and allows businesses to adapt their strategies proactively, keeping them ahead of the competition.
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10 Best Account Intelligence Software and Tools
1. Aomni
Aomni is an AI agent platform designed specifically for B2B sales intelligence software. Our solution empowers enterprise and strategic account executives to execute account-based sales and marketing strategies with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness.
Key features include:
- AI-powered prospect and account research
- Comprehensive account mapping and planning
- Data-driven sales strategy development
- Automated call preparation
- Personalized AI agents for sales optimization
- AI chat interface for streamlined sales processes
- AI-assisted Account Based Sales/Marketing campaign execution tool
Empowering Sales Teams with AI-Driven Insights
Aomni addresses critical pain points for sales managers whose account executives, account managers, and customer success managers must perform better and include quotas. By leveraging our advanced AI technology, sales professionals can significantly enhance their preparation for customer conversations, leading to more extensive deal closures and increased promotion opportunities.
For individual sales professionals, Aomni provides the tools and insights needed to:
- Elevate their performance
- Close more substantial deals
- Accelerate career progression
Aomni transforms how B2B sales teams operate, ensuring they enter every customer interaction fully prepared and strategically positioned for success.
Try our sales intelligence software for free today!
2. HubSpot Marketing
HubSpot Marketing is a comprehensive CRM integration tool that offers a wide range of features such as:
- Sales
- Support
- Chat
- CRM integration
This makes it the best choice for businesses looking for a complete solution for their customer relationship management needs. It provides:
- Seamless integration with various software
- Live chat
- Free forever options
This makes it a valuable tool for businesses looking for efficient customer relationship management.
HubSpot Marketing offers a comprehensive suite of tools for:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Customer service
This makes it stand out as an all-in-one solution.
The Ultimate CRM Integration Solution
Its seamless integration with CRM systems allows for a holistic view of customer data and interactions, making it the best choice for comprehensive CRM integration. Its extensive features, user-friendly interface, and documentation make it a top choice for businesses looking for a complete CRM solution.
3. DiscoverOrg
DiscoverOrg provides marketing teams with extensive human-verified data to guarantee updated and genuine information. Accurate data is paramount when working with intelligence of any kind.
DiscoverOrg uses an in-house team to verify all the data every 90 days while researchers communicate with companies in its database daily. This means it:
- Eliminates incomplete, embellished, or outdated data
- Guarantees correct information
Features include significant data accuracy thanks to DiscoerOrg’s team refreshing their data; they also verify the contact information available through rigorous testing and validation procedures.
Boost Your B2B Outreach with Organizational Charts
When working in a B2B setting, DiscoverOrg offers organizational charts displaying actual reporting structures to ensure you only speak with decision-makers. Integrations include native links with various tools, such as customer relationship management applications, to automate and append lead records. This includes connections with platforms, such as:
- Bullhorn
- Eloqua
- HubSpot
- Marketo
- Microsoft Dynamics
- NetSuite
- Outreach
- Salesforce
- Salesloft
- Zoho
- Other software options
4. LeanData
LeanData can help marketing teams develop robust pipelines faster by ensuring every potential account receives the most suitable action. The platform can help your marketing team transform intent signals and turn them into proper actions for every lead. With LeanData, you can move potential accounts along your customer journey faster and increase conversions.
Optimizing Sales Processes
You can also use this intelligence to fix broken processes preventing you from delivering qualified accounts to your pipeline. Features include tools to help your team recognize and respond to intent signals across the buyer journey and engage with high-intent buyers.
LeanData also helps marketing and sales teams handle selling complexity and accelerate sales cycles. Integrations include native connections with tools to help you eliminate rigid processes. These include links with systems such as:
- 6sense
- Clearbit
- Cloudingo
- Cognism
- Crossbeam
- Kronologic
- Microsoft Teams
- Outreach
- Salesforce
- Slack
- Other software options
5. Bombora
Quickly execute account-based marketing strategies by incorporating in-depth data to reach target accounts across multiple channels. Bombora is an intent data platform that empowers marketing teams to identify and engage with potential customers. After analyzing behaviors it can help your marketing team focus on the best target accounts. You can use Bombora’s information to get insights into which accounts are actively researching specific topics.
Targeted Outreach
Bombora uses natural language processing to organize intent data, making it easier to locate relevant accounts to focus on. Features include tools to help you know which messages will connect with your target accounts by specifying their research content, allowing you to customize your content to match their interests.
Integrate Bombora for Churn Reduction
Bombora also provides features to help you reduce customer churn by picking up on when accounts research other solutions and alerting you before they leave. Integrations include connections with the tools you’re likely using to help make them better and more effective. Tools that integrate well with Bombora include:
- 6sense
- Cognism
- Demandbase
- HubSpot
- Marketo
- Outreach
- RollWorks
- Salesforce
- SalesIntel
- Terminus
- Other software options
6. DemandBase
Dynamically create audiences for account-based marketing campaigns with robust filters to create in-depth segments. Demandbase enables marketing teams to create and manage ideal customer profiles and target account lists based on several parameters to create new audiences.
When creating account-based marketing strategies, it’s beneficial to create ideal customer profiles to help you develop relevant audiences to target.
I wanted to add Demandbase to this article because it provides account intelligence capabilities you can use to find new accounts when they’re looking for products or services like yours. Your sales team can use this information to enhance and personalize interactions with these targets.
Features include measuring account engagement across the buyer journey to ensure that go-to-market programs provide leads when needed. Demandbase can help you find new upsell and cross-sell opportunities quicker and get ahead of competitive activity. Integrations include applications such as:
- Adobe Analytics
- DataGrail
- Drift
- Google Analytics
- HubSpot
- Marketo
- Optimizely
- PathFactory
- Salesforce
- Slack
- Other software options
Demandbase also provides an API to create custom integrations with your current toolset.
7. 6sense
6sense can help marketing teams collect helpful insights into buyer behavior to help personalize outreach efforts. The platform provides in-depth intent-based data and robust insights to help you develop personalized outreach campaigns.
6sense offers tools to help highlight buyer research, allowing you to understand what prospects want and engage them most effectively. With 6sense, you can deliver consistent marketing experiences that scale and evolve as prospects move through sales funnels.
Features include tools to help you orchestrate entire account-based marketing campaigns, such as:
- Account identification
- Data Enrichment
- Audience-building capabilities
6sense also allows you to use predictive analytics tools to predict where buyers are in their journeys so your team can focus on those likely to buy. Integrations include native connections with the technology you’re most likely using to operate your business. These include:
- Bombora
- Bound
- Clari
- Eloqua
- Folloze
- Hubspot CRM
- LeanData
- Marketo
- Salesforce
- Salesloft
- Other software options
8. Lusha
Lusha helps B2B marketers establish authentic connections with leads, contacts, and candidates with third-party data to enrich and verify business profiles. Third-party data is a significant factor in marketing account intelligence; it consists of using data from another source to help you find specific information regarding relevant potential accounts and leads.
For this reason, I chose to add Lusha to this list because the platform is a data enrichment tool that will help you find accurate contact information for your business targets. Lusha’s database provides information to build ideal customer profiles, including:
- Email addresses
- Company details
- Phone numbers
Features include tools to help you discover which companies are looking for the solutions you provide and allow you to connect with the best decision-makers.
Lusha also provides B2B prospecting tools that offer a library of the best decision-makers. Integrations include the ability to connect Lusha with your current toolset to save your teams from switching systems and work in a centralized area, such as:
- Bullhorn
- Gmail
- HubSpot
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Outlook
- Outreach
- Pipedrive
- Salesforce
- Salesloft
- Zoho
You can also use Lusha’s API or a paid Zapier account to create custom integrations with your current tools.
9. RollWorks
RollWorks uses machine learning algorithms to provide predictive analytics that help marketing teams score target account lists based on which are likely to close. RollWorks is a relevant addition to this list because of its proprietary data source and machine-learning algorithms, which will help you identify relevant target accounts.
The platform uses account scoring to quickly help you discover high-value accounts based on intent signals and fit. RollWorks also uses machine learning capabilities to help you locate new accounts matching your ideal customer profile.
Features include capabilities that allow you to engage high-fitting accounts via cross-channel account-based marketing campaigns. RollWorks also offers tools that help you measure the performance of your account-based marketing campaigns, allowing you to see what’s working.
Integrations include connections with standard tools used by many marketing teams, such as:
- Bombora
- Crossbeam
- HubSpot Marketing Hub
- Marketo
- Opensense
- Salesforce
- Wufoo
With a paid Zapier account, you can create custom integrations between RollWorks and your current systems.
10. Terminus
Terminus uses innovative features to help marketing teams find and engage their next best customer. One significant reason for using marketing account intelligence is to find your next best customer, so I started this list with Terminus to help you achieve this goal.
Personalized Engagement
Terminus provides comprehensive capabilities to help you identify, target, and engage with your following best accounts. It allows you to leverage the tool’s web personalization feature to create web experiences based on account data and intent signals. It also helps you build brand awareness and familiarize potential accounts with your brand.
Features include showing customers’ in-market buying signals, which you can use to control crucial conversations and milestones via campaign mapping. Integrations include connections with critical tech stack components to leverage your data from these systems. These connections include tools such as:
- Crossbeam
- Eloqua
- HubSpot
- Marketo
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Outreach
- PathFactory
- Salesforce
- Salesloft
- Slack
- Other software options
How Marketing and Sales Teams Use Account Intelligence
Account intelligence can influence your marketing and sales strategies, helping you meet your revenue goals. Data lets you quickly pinpoint qualified accounts and reach them with poignant messages.
Reach the Right Audience
If your marketing efforts aren’t producing MQLs, account intelligence may be the resource you’ve been waiting for. With account intelligence, you can quickly identify the types of content and campaigns your ideal audience will most likely engage with based on what’s worked (and failed) in the past.
Amplifying Your Voice with Account Intelligence
Whether you’re looking to retarget potential leads or market to people unfamiliar with your brand, first- and third-party data can help you know what to highlight and in what format. You have a powerful message worth sharing; account intelligence enables you to amplify your voice where it matters most.
Prioritize with Precision
Few things are more frustrating than spending time on the wrong leads. Even if you hit all your marks and emphasize every tantalizing benefit your service offers, it won’t matter if you’re talking to the wrong person. Sales teams, including sales development representatives, can leverage account intelligence to pinpoint high-priority accounts that closely align with their ideal customer profiles (ICPs). With account intelligence, you can find organizations that would benefit from your offering.
To go further, you can quickly identify who in your target organization holds purchasing power. When you know what leads to prioritize, your sales team can operate at an impressive efficiency level without sacrificing close rates.
Tailor Your Sales Efforts with Account Intelligence
Account intelligence takes gathered data and paints a clear picture of your buyers and what they’re looking for so you can tailor customer interactions. Insights into accounts’ recent activities, like mergers or product launches, allow you to address specific customer pain points. Comprehensive insights from account intelligence enable marketing teams to personalize their campaigns, from individualized outreach emails to custom pitches to engaging follow-ups.
Boost Retention
Chasing new leads is invaluable, but your current customer base should always be addressed. With account intelligence, you can:
- Identify upsell opportunities
- Spot the signs of a dissatisfied client before they act.
It can cost up to five times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer happy. Increasing efforts to retain your clients better can stabilize revenue, and with the right insights, you can flag potential problems before they have long-term effects.
How To Choose Account Intelligence Software for Marketing
Begin by identifying the specific marketing account intelligence feature gap you're trying to fill. This will clarify the features and functionality the marketing account intelligence software needs to provide to help improve your marketing efforts.
Consider Who Will Use Account Intelligence Software
Who will use the software, and how many licenses will you need to purchase? For instance, will the marketing team require access, or will the whole organization require it? When that's clear, consider whether you prioritize ease of use for all or speed for your marketing software power users.
Choose Account Intelligence Software That Integrates Well With Your Existing Tools
Clarify what tools you're replacing, which are staying, and the tools you'll need to integrate with, such as:
- Accounting
- CRM software
- HR software
You'll need to decide whether the tools need to integrate or if you can replace multiple tools with one consolidated marketing account intelligence software.
What Outcomes Are You Looking to Achieve?
Consider the result that the software needs to deliver to be considered a success. Think about what capability you want to gain or improve and how you will measure success. For example, an outcome could be greater visibility into performance. You could compare marketing account intelligence software features until you’re blue in the face, but you could be wasting a lot of valuable time if you aren’t thinking about the outcomes you want to drive.
How Will It Work Within Your Organization?
Evaluate the software selection alongside your existing workflows and delivery methodology. Identify what's working well and the areas causing issues that must be addressed. Remember that every business is different. Don’t assume a tool will work within your organization because it is popular.
3 Tips For Acquiring Account-Based Intelligence
1. Climb the Pyramid of Data Types to Improve Account Intelligence
When it comes to account intelligence, not all data is created equal. There's a hierarchy of data types; the higher you go, the better your insights will be. Firmographic data, for example, helps identify potential target accounts. But, this data type is static and only provides a snapshot of a company’s profile.
Tech Stack and Online Behavior Insights
Technographic data, on the other hand, shows what technologies a target account is using. The better you understand a prospect’s tech stack, the more you can tailor your outreach to their needs. Behavioral data takes this further by providing insights into a company’s online activity.
Targeted Outreach with Dynamic Data
Account intelligence tools with dynamic behavioral data can help you identify new opportunities as they happen. The more you glean about a target account’s technology preferences and online behaviors, the more contextual information you’ll have to personalize your sales outreach. Move up the pyramid of data types to improve your account intelligence and sales outcomes.
2. Why Dynamic Data Beats Static Data for Account Intelligence
Static data is like a book. Once you open it, you get a snapshot of information at a certain time. Dynamic data is like a living organism. It’s constantly changing and evolving. When using account intelligence tools to gather data on target accounts, always look for dynamic solutions that provide real-time information.
Real-Time Tech Stack Alerts for Targeted Outreach
Check if your technographic data solution offers event-based alerts if you’re using technographic for prospecting, account selection, or outreach. This feature will notify you when an account adds, changes, or removes a technology. This data is more than information. It’s intelligence that helps you spot new opportunities in real time.
3. Get Contextual Data for Account Intelligence
When gathering account intelligence, you want information as specific to your business and products. For instance, a company that sells cloud infrastructure won’t benefit much from a technographic tool that lists every piece of SaaS a prospect is using. It will benefit more from a tool that shows which hosting and CDN services a prospect uses and how it’s using them.
The latter solution provides information relevant to the company's product; the former does not. In summary, the more dynamic data you have pertinent to your selling, the closer you are to acquiring account-based intelligence.
Try Our Sales Intelligence Software for Free Today
Aomni is an AI agent platform designed specifically for B2B sales intelligence software. Our solution empowers enterprise and strategic account executives to execute account-based sales and marketing strategies with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness.
Key features include:
- AI-powered prospect and account research
- Comprehensive account mapping and planning
- Data-driven sales strategy development
- Automated call preparation
- Personalized AI agents for sales optimization
- AI chat interface for streamlined sales processes
- AI-assisted Account Based Sales/Marketing campaign execution tool
AI-Powered Sales Insights for Better Results
Aomni addresses critical pain points for sales managers must perform better and include quotas for:
- Account Executives
- Account Managers
- Customer Success Managers
By leveraging our advanced AI technology, sales professionals can significantly enhance their preparation for customer conversations, leading to larger deal closures and increased promotion opportunities.
For individual sales professionals, Aomni provides the tools and insights needed to:
- Elevate their performance
- Close more substantial deals
- Accelerate career progression
Our platform transforms how B2B sales teams operate, ensuring they enter every customer interaction fully prepared and strategically positioned for success.
Try our sales intelligence software for free today!
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