Account-based strategies can be particularly resource intensive for your sales and marketing teams. When this is the case, it is crucial for your teams to focus only on the accounts that best match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and thus have the highest propensity to buy. To do this, they must use meaningful account intelligence that goes deeper than surface-level insights.
FIRE data is game-changing account intelligence that optimizes the process of defining your ICP. FIRE (Fit, Intent, Recency, Engagement) consists of four parts which, when applied together, enable your teams to build powerful ABM campaigns that target the right accounts at the right time. According to Daniel Day, Account-Based Marketing Director at Snowflake, “FIRE is about account intelligence. When you have strong intelligence informing you on which accounts are the best fit for your business, you can apply your marketing dollars where they’ll get the greatest return.”
Each of the four parts alone are not strong indicators of an account’s interest in buying, but when combined, they indicate a much stronger likelihood. When determining whether you should target an account, you must consider its:
FIT — Is the account a good fit for your product or service? Determine which accounts are most likely to seek your solution by analyzing their industry, market, firmographics and technology stack. It is important to utilize as many data points as possible to produce the most accurate ICP.
INTENT — Even if the account is a good fit for your solution, do they want to buy your product right now? It’s one thing to identify the accounts that potentially would buy your product, but it’s quite another to identify the accounts that are currently in the market to make a purchase decision in the near future. Of course, you could spend your time trying to convince the account that they need your product, but it’s a much better use of time to target those that need your solution now.
RECENCY — How recently did their contracts end, and/or begin signaling intent to buy via engagement with your channel? Long recency times probably mean you missed the boat. So, it’s crucial to stay on top of your accounts activity so you can market and sell to them during their peak buying times. You must strike the iron when its hot for FIRE to have a significant impact on your campaigns.
ENGAGEMENT — Is the account engaging with your website, social media, webinars or other channels? No matter what, engagement is always a good sign. You may need to market more to accounts that are high FIR but low E as they’re probably unaware of your product.
Add Fuel to your FIRE
By using a FIRE-based ABM strategy, your team can focus on quality leads that are both a good fit for your solution and are actively in the market to buy. This will allow your sales and marketing teams to confidently focus on nurturing their high-value and ideal customers.
While FIRE is a superior go-to-market strategy for any B2B business, the process can be enhanced with the help of technology intelligence from HG Insights. Technology intelligence provides you detailed views into the technology stacks of your accounts worldwide, allowing you to identify your most valuable opportunities by using:
- Installed Technology data and IT Spend Intelligence that tell you what technology products your accounts are using and how much they are spending on them. This allows you to accurately define your ICP based on which accounts would benefit from your solution and if they have the budget to pay for it.
- Contract Renewals Intelligence tells you what IT software and services contracts your accounts have and when they are up for renewal. This invaluable information gives you insights into when your accounts would be entering their peak buying time.
Technology intelligence will accelerate your company’s growth. It enables you to build more effective marketing strategies and campaigns that generate higher-quality SQLs and thus more closed deals.
To see how HG Insights can accelerate growth at your business, visit our Technology Intelligence page.