5 Smart ways to look for B2B leads

Tracking buying intent is the most overlooked but effective method to do lead generation for a B2B SaaS. I recently created a database named 'Triggered', which guides you about the major buying intent signals of your prospects and matches it with spotting and tracking these signals effectively.

Below are 5 of these buying intent signals from potential customers which could result in sales opportunities for your saas:

1. Increase/Decrease in Customer Base: Cash flow management, responding to competition, customer service, etc becomes challenges companies will be facing at this phase.

HOW TO TRACK

Follow the founders on twitter for milestones. searching for Keywords like “crossed+mrr” on twitter search or mention.com is a good place to start.

Use builtwith(limited free plan) to understand mom growth for web technologies. With a paid plan, BuiltWith identifies websites/companies that are using specific software/ technology and analyses customer churn between competitors (watch this video: (How to see customer churn between competitors)

An increase in reviews in places like Shopify store could be a result of an increased customer base.

Mattermark’s algorithms (has a 14-day free trial) curates the fastest growing companies.

Ideal for: Recruitment saas, new tech, and IT saas, product developers, employee benefit saas

2. Increase in Hiring Velocity: Any major shift in hiring including a hiring spree can be a worthy trigger event - depending on what you sell, of course.

HOW TO TRACK

Track company headcount growth using Linkedin Premium or Sales Navigator Subscription(1-month free trial). Or you can use Mattermark(14-day free trial) to track, say, for example, Saas companies with headcount growth of 50% in the last 6 months.

Use the hiring surge explorer in Glassdoor. (Top Companies in US)

Ideal for: Recruitment saas, employee engagement saas, HR and payroll operatives saas, IT office management saas

Reference: blog.hubspot.com/sales/types-of-trigger-events-and-how-to-track-them

3. Expansion/Relocation

Expansion usually happens as the result of rapid growth and with the aim of better access to the talent pool, customers, etc.

This could result in the need for equipment, supplies, furniture, new hires, and so on.

Or if the prospect’s office has relocated to your hometown, this can be the perfect excuse to get in touch and share some local know-how.

HOW TO TRACK

Set up search strings in Google Alerts(free) for “company plans to expand”, “announces new building” etc.

Use search strings to track listing changes in real estate sites like loopnet(free)

site:loopnet.com/listing #Address# or http://upsell.com (http://upsell.com)

site:loopnet.com/listing “new construction”

If your business is largely dependent on relocation, then it’s ideal to use a tool like visualping(freemium) to track changes in the contact section of websites(example in images)

Ideal for: Applicant tracking software, recruiting saas, payroll processing saas, etc.

Reference: youtube.com/watch?v=X0NTBK5DvfQ&t=116s

4. Funding Rounds: Probably one of the most overused ones, but always relevant. Since there will be many vendors reaching out, suggest you put more effort into other intent signals before making the pitch.

HOW TO TRACK

Use http://owler.com to fetch funding news from the web. They offer a basic free version(Pricing — Owler)

site: http://crunchbase.com/funding_round

GrowthList – Funded Tech Startups is a newsletter that curates and shares funding news.

Ideal for: Any business

5. Competitor Launched a New Product: An Action from a competitor almost always brings a reaction from other players. If your prospect belong to this group, then this can help them in: Develop (or validate) their Unique Value Proposition, Prioritize their product development, Improve their product by capitalizing on competitors’ weaknesses,Uncover market segments that aren’t fully served by competitors, etc.

HOW TO TRACK

Track “Your competitor” + product or “Your competitor” + launch using Google Alerts.

Set up alerts for competitors’ interviews and conference presentations. You can use the tool Awario (there’s a free 14-day trial available), create an alert for the names of your competitors’ CEOs or other key figures, and select YouTube as the source for the search.

For google alerts of third party comparisons featuring your prospect and competitor, use:

(intext:”prospect” OR intext:”competitor” - site:prospect.com- site:competitor.com ( to avoid mentions from their own sites)

If you’re a saas developer interested in analyzing these happenings and pitching solutions to prospects, this article by Mike Rubini on how he built a profitable product by analyzing data from people discussing a competing product can come in handy: blog.rubini.solutions/microdata

Ideal for: Developer saas, marketing saas, etc.

Reference: blog.visitorqueue.com/how-to-identify-your-competitors-customers

If you would like to know more about the rest 35 of these signals, feel free to checkout Triggered (gum.co/triggered)