How to Transform 3 Common Intent Signals Into Opportunities with AI

Most B2B companies have access to intent signals.

Thanks to tools like Clearbit, Bombora, and 6sense it’s easier and more accessible than ever to reveal clues about who’s interested in your company.

Revealing intent is one thing. Actioning it is another.

This guide will show you how to convert intent to opportunities using AI. 

It will cover:

• Intent behind the intent: What’s really going on with the person showing these signals and how you can tap into that underlying motivation.

• Trigger: The key event that should kick off outreach.

• Prompt: Instructions to feed into the AI of your choice.

• Output: AI-generated responses that you can edit and make yours.

• Use in outreach: The heavy lifting is tying the intent to how you help. Once you have that, with the help of AI, writing the rest of the email is fairly straightforward—especially with a solid template.

Intent Type 01 – Website Visitors

Understanding who’s on your website and what content & pages they view gives you a huge advantage in your outreach, if you action this intel quickly.

Intent behind the intent

Someone clicking around your site is problem aware and they’re researching your product/service to see if it’s a potential solution.

Because site visitors are revealed at a company level, you’ll need to do some digging to find the right person who fits your ICP to contact. Even if they’re not the ones on your site, you can reasonably assume they care about the same things.

Trigger 

Visitor views key pages—like product, pricing, or book a demo—but doesn’t convert. Or, they’ve returned to your website multiple times in a short period.

Timing is critical for this intent signal. Well-timed outreach transforms your email from annoying spam to “wow, it’s like you read my mind.”

Prompt

Someone from an ICP company recently visited key pages on my website but didn’t convert. These pages explain how my product solves the specific pain point of cold emails going to spam by using machine learning to warm up mailboxes. 

Please write the first line of a prospecting email subtly incorporating this context while avoiding direct reference to specific intent data. The tone should be casual but professional, and also helpful as you are sharing an insightful observation. It should not mention my product or service but instead focus on them and their pain point. The output should be no longer than 25 words, and should not include a greeting.

Output

Not bad! Easy enough to work into a first email.

Use in outreach

Hey prospect,

Reason for my note is I work with [title]s who are struggling with more and more of their team’s emails going to spam.

OneShot.ai uses machine learning to monitor email prospecting campaigns in the background, automatically optimizing so emails go where they’re supposed to.

Interested to see how we can help you get back to the inbox?

- You

Intent Type 02 – Topic & Keyword Research

Knowing what your prospect is searching for and incorporating it into your outreach is a powerful formula for insanely relevant and personalized messaging.

Intent behind the intent: Someone actively researching topics and keywords that matter to your business is looking for a solution to a problem. They may not know about you yet, but they feel the pain of the problem you solve.

Like website visitors, this intent is revealed at a company level. Successfully actioning it means first locating the person that falls within your ICP, then reaching out with messaging that summarizes the pain and introduces your product/service as the solution.

Trigger 

There are different categories of intent that help you understand where someone is in the buyer journey. They also indicate how hot a lead is by indicating how ready they are to buy.

🔥Informational – People are learning about a certain topic. Think searches that start with “how to”, “why is”, “benefits of”, etc.

🔥🔥Navigational – Searchers are trying to get to a specific website. They know where they’re going, and use a search engine to help them get there.

🔥🔥🔥Commercial – This indicates someone is considering a purchase. They’re actively comparing different options and looking for information to support a buying decision.

🔥🔥🔥🔥Transactional – They’re ready to purchase, using keywords that instruct them how to buy, sign up, or request a demo.

Prompt

“Someone from an ICP company is displaying clear intent signals through the keyword and topic research they are conducting. These topics and keywords are closely related to my business and the solution my product/service supplies. They include:

[List your keywords]

Please write the first line of a prospecting email that subtly incorporates this context while avoiding direct reference to specific intent data. The tone should be casual but professional, and also helpful as you are sharing an insightful observation. It should not mention my product or service but instead focus on them and their pain point. The output should be no longer than 25 words, and should not include a greeting.”

Output

Use in outreach

Hey prospect,

It’s fascinating to see the growing interest in AI-enhanced CRMs among the RevOps leaders I speak with.

We help automatically surface customers at risk of churn through our AI-powered CRM plugin.

As you’re using [prospect’s CRM], all you have to do is install the integration.

Interested to see how?

Best,

- You

Intent Type 03 – Attended an Event

Attending an event, whether online or in person, takes commitment. Savvy sales reps can convert that commitment into interest by tapping into the underlying motivations behind the intent.

Intent behind the intent

Taking the time to go to a virtual event means a prospect is serious about a topic or category. More than that, they want to learn about it directly from the experts.

This is especially the case for a tradeshow or conference attendee. Unlike the forms of intent above, you know the exact individual to target, meaning you can make your outreach even more relevant.

Trigger

Timing is critical here. There is a very small window to act on someone’s experience at an event before life takes over and they forget about it.

• Virtual events: Within 24 hours of the event concluding.
• In-person events: Within a week of the event.

Prompt

I am following up with attendees of [event] hosted by [names of hosts]. The topic of the event was [topic]. My company, [your company], closely aligns with the topics discussed, especially in regards to [specific pain point your product/service addresses]. The people I’m reaching out to are [high-level information on your ICP] dealing with [specific challenges].

Write a personalized opening line that incorporates the above context. The tone should be casual but professional, and also helpful as you are expanding on an area of interest to them. It should not mention my product or service but instead focus on them and their pain point. The output should be no longer than 25 words, and should not include a greeting.

Output

This uses an upcoming Sell Better Daily Show as an example, which you can check out here.

We can work with this!

Use in Outreach

Hey prospect, 

Reflecting on Kyle and Morgan’s insights, it’s clear that revitalizing diminishing outbound results is a top priority for sales leaders heading into 2024.

We help by using AI to locate intent signals so your reps are always reaching out to warm leads.

Then autonomously generate messaging to do personalized outreach at scale.

Curious to see how?

Cheers,

You 

Action Intent in Your Prospecting with OneShot.ai

Signal based selling is the future of outbound sales. 

Prospects have switched off to pure cold emails. Personalization and relevance are table stakes for successful outreach.

That’s why we’re automating intentful prospecting at scale with OneShot.ai

OneShot.ai uses AI to locate ICP leads displaying intent signals (including the three signals listed above) and incorporates it into hyper-relevant messaging.

Reps can conduct personalized outreach at scale with all of the manual work taken care of.

Wanna see how we do it? Grab your demo right here.