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<\/figure>\nWhat would it feel like if you could chat with your prospects here and now from this article – or better yet, a third-party article on your product or service? No sitting around waiting for intent signals. No banner ads with pesky redirects.<\/p>\n
Well, it’s here – and not only is it the future of selling in saas, but sales teams are using it today to engage with prospects in the earliest stages of the Dark Funnel.<\/p>\n
The Dark Funnel explained:<\/strong> Did you know 75% of buyers are already halfway through their buying journey before they even speak to a salesperson? At that point, they’ve already completed their pre-purchase process – checked reviews, browsed comparison sites, and perused articles on third-party sites – before even reaching your site. In other words, all of these activities have occurred anonymously in what marketers have coined the “Dark Funnel.” <\/p>\n It’s the touchpoints a buyer experiences before they are tagged and identified in any marketing stack – whether through self-identification, or traditional methods like downloading a whitepaper, form fills or cookies. <\/p>\n The problem lies in that the digitization of the sales environment has marketers falsely believing that they can accurately track a customer’s journey. The reality? Much of the customer journey happens offline and when activities occur online, they rarely follow a linear path. Instead, the modern consumer meanders along a path that bends and twists, leaving sales teams\/marketers “in the dark” on intent. <\/p>\n Intent data isn’t a lead, nor are most intent signals actionable for sales\/marketing teams. Often, intent data comes in at the account level and not the contact level, making it challenging to action. In other words, intent data lets you know that someone at a particular company is possibly interested but isn’t detailed enough to identify who to reach out to. <\/p>\n On the flip side, if a salesperson can discover who the contact is, they can reach out quickly. In a world where speed to lead is everything, intent decays almost instantly. The chance of the user biting on an email cadence, picking up calls, or clicking on retargeting ads diminishes every minute that a salesperson is not in contact. <\/p>\n Most marketers believe a form fill on a website indicates the highest moment of intent. This does not<\/strong> appear to be true with recent research. <\/p>\n A study on 2000 B2B companies found that on average: it takes a sales rep 42 hours to contact a new lead, of which 38% will never respond. Additionally, 4.3 days go by before the first meeting ever takes place. In the simplest terms, timing is everything, and the longer you wait on opportunities, the fewer responses you will receive. <\/p>\nOkay… but what is the Dark Funnel exactly? <\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\nSo, why isn’t intent data enough?<\/h2>\n
![\"HeliumIntentDecay800x618\"](\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2022\/02\/HeliumIntentDecay800x618-777x600.jpg.webp\")