Intent Data + Partner Marketing: Six Innovative Ways to Accelerate Pipeline Growth
While many demand generation marketers have successfully adopted intent data to optimize campaign performance, integrating intent data into partner and channel marketing strategies has been more challenging. However, 8×8, a leading unified communications and contact center cloud provider, has cracked the code on how to leverage both account- and prospect-level intent data to supercharge partner-driven demand generation. We recently spoke with Dan Streeter, Channel Marketing Manager at 8×8, to learn about their approach.
8×8’s Path to Success
The partner ecosystem is a key growth driver for 8×8, and the company began exploring how intent data could enhance their channel marketing strategy back in 2020. With the help of MarketingVogue’s Priority Engine platform, 8×8 provided its partners with tools to identify and engage with in-market buyers, making it easier for them to pinpoint sales opportunities.
Over the past four years, 8×8 has evolved from simply providing intent data to partners and hoping they act on it, to developing turnkey programs that partners can deploy at scale. The results speak for themselves—8×8 has generated $1.5 million in monthly recurring revenue from intent-based initiatives alone.
Six Innovative Use Cases for Intent Data in Partner Marketing
8×8’s journey with intent data has uncovered several creative ways to use it to build a stronger partner pipeline. Below are six key use cases that channel marketers should consider.
1. Account Targeting
One of the simplest ways to leverage intent data in partner marketing is account targeting. Account mapping—where partners share their customer lists and collaborate with the vendor to create a joint target account list—is a common approach. Intent data takes this to the next level by helping you pinpoint the most relevant in-market accounts.
With account-level intent data, you can focus efforts on accounts showing active purchase intent for your solutions. Prospect-level intent data enhances this process by identifying individual buyers at those accounts who are conducting pre-purchase research. This provides partners with insights on who to engage and how to tailor their outreach.
Dan Streeter emphasizes the importance of enabling partner sellers with this information:
“Partners are an extension of your sales team—treat them that way. Don’t just give them data without context. Help them understand where the data came from, how it was generated, and how to follow up.”
You can also use intent data to build targeted lists for joint marketing campaigns, such as co-hosting field events for contacts at in-market accounts in specific regions.
2. Account Re-engagement
Intent data is also valuable for re-engaging dormant accounts. If a partner has registered an opportunity that has stalled or moved to closed-lost, you can compare this list against accounts showing current purchase intent. By providing this insight to your partners, you can help them identify accounts that may be ready to re-engage.
Dan notes:
“Partners may have opportunities that have been rejected or stalled. If we can see they’re actively doing research, it might be time to re-open that conversation.”
3. Pipeline Acceleration
Another key use of intent data is to accelerate the sales pipeline. Beyond identifying top-of-funnel leads, intent data can help move opportunities through the middle of the funnel. By identifying additional contacts at target accounts and uncovering their specific areas of interest, you can adjust your messaging to better resonate with decision-makers and accelerate the sales cycle.
4. Personalization
Personalization is one of the most powerful applications of intent data in partner marketing. By sharing intent signals with your partners, you can help them tailor their outreach to prospects with highly relevant messaging. 8×8 goes a step further by automating co-branded, personalized content that speaks directly to the topics being researched by buyers at key accounts.
Using tools like MarketingVogue’s Priority Engine and IntentMail, 8×8’s partners can easily create customized emails that are relevant to the specific needs and interests of each contact.
Dan elaborates:
“We’re hitting all the right points—using intent data to identify who’s interested, finding the right contacts, and providing content that speaks directly to that customer’s interests.”
5. BDR-as-a-Service
A common challenge for partner marketers is converting top-of-funnel interest into registered opportunities, especially when working with partners who lack marketing and sales resources. By collaborating with your business development team, you can fuel outbound activity with high-quality intent data.
8×8 provides intent data to both its partners and its business development representatives (BDRs), enabling them to effectively engage top-of-funnel leads during virtual blitz days. This strategy has generated impressive results, including a week’s worth of registered opportunities in a single day during their first event.
6. Cross-Sell and Upsell
Finally, intent data can be used for cross-sell and upsell opportunities within your partner ecosystem. If your company offers multiple products or solutions, you can use account-level intent data to identify customers researching additional offerings. Combining this with prospect-level intent data helps your partners engage the right contacts with the most relevant messaging.
Dan advises:
“When we tell partners that their accounts are actively researching new technologies, it sparks more interest because it looks like a real opportunity for expansion.”
Getting Started with Intent Data
To help you start integrating intent data into your own partner marketing strategy, consider adopting 8×8’s “crawl-walk-run” approach. Whether you’re just beginning or looking to scale your efforts, intent data can provide powerful insights to fuel your joint campaigns and drive pipeline growth.
For more insights into how 8×8 leverages intent data to drive success, check out our Resource Center, where we offer a wealth of educational content on intent-based marketing strategies and best practices.
