Speaker Introduction
Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd.
General Manager, Inside Sales Department, Business Development Division
Mr. Kazuhiko Cho
With approximately 15 years of experience in the contact center industry, he possesses extensive expertise, particularly in outbound operations, and has been involved in launching new B2B and B2C business ventures. Until the previous term, he contributed to business expansion as the general manager overseeing outbound operations, and he currently leads a team specialized in inside sales.
uSonar Co., Ltd.
Master, Marketing Team, Sales Enablement Group, Sales Division
Takuya Tozaki
After working in sales for an advertising agency and a machinery manufacturer, he joined uSonar Co., Ltd. in 2015. He has been engaged in event marketing and digital marketing, having planned and managed over 500 events. He also participated in the launch of inside sales and customer success initiatives, and leverages that expertise to implement cross-functional marketing strategies.
Part 1: uSonar Co., Ltd.
Current Status and Challenges in New Business Development Sales
Tozaki highlighted two common challenges in new business development sales: (1) the inability to secure new appointments, and (2) failing to convert meetings into orders, often ending with the prospect saying, "We will consider it."
He pointed out that the underlying cause of these issues is often approaching prospects who have no actual need for the service.
For example, he noted that while traditional targeting methods—such as "construction companies in Tokyo with annual sales of 5 billion yen or more"—allow for a more refined talk script by narrowing the target, they also present significant problems.
First, the needs of the target companies are unclear. You are simply listing companies you want to sell to, without visibility into their actual needs or timing for purchase.
Second, the competition is intense. Because competitors are using similar targeting methods, sales efforts are concentrated on the same companies, resulting in a "race to be first" or falling into "price competition."
Changes in the Purchasing Process and the Importance of Intent Data
Citing a research report by Gartner, Tozaki emphasized the importance of understanding buyer behavior.
(Reference: Win More B2B Sales Deals｜Gartner, Inc.)
According to an analysis of the process B2B buyers follow when adopting products and services, the following time allocation has become clear:
Meetings (contact with sellers) account for approximately 17%, and when considering comparative evaluations with multiple companies, this drops to about 5–6% per company. On the other hand, online information gathering accounts for 27%. This is the stage where the buyer takes the lead in collecting information through articles, media, and manufacturer websites.
This data indicates that buyers spend far more time gathering information online than they do in meetings. In other words, capturing their movements during this information-gathering stage is critically important.
What Is Intent Data?
Intent data refers to behavioral data that indicates a customer's purchasing intent or signs of interest. Tozaki refers to this as "Interest Data" and focused his explanation specifically on behavioral data collected online.
Intent data is broadly classified into two types.
The first is first-party data, which is data collected directly by your own company. uSonar offers a service called "Live Access," which identifies companies visiting your website. By utilizing fixed IP information of companies, it visualizes the organizations visiting your site. With "Live Access," you can gauge the level of interest based on the hierarchy of the pages visited.
For example, as a user progresses from a simple service page visit to a pricing page visit, and further to a comparison page visit, it can be inferred that their level of consideration is increasing.
The second is third-party data, which is data collected from third parties, particularly from media access logs. uSonar provides this as a service called "Interest Sign." By setting specific keywords, you can extract companies interested in those keywords based on their page-viewing behavior on external media.
Even for companies that have not yet visited your website or are unaware of your services, you can identify them as potential customers because you know they are interested in the category.
Intent Data Use Cases
As a use case for intent data, Tozaki introduced a targeting strategy implemented by a cloud accounting software provider that combined both "Interest Sign" and "Live Access."
This company created a list by filtering companies extracted via specific keywords to include only those that had also visited their own website. Compared to their previous targeting methods, the appointment acquisition rate improved by approximately three times.
This demonstrates that by focusing on companies showing clear purchasing signals rather than relying on simple targeting, sales efficiency can be dramatically improved.
Part 2: Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd.
Current Status and Challenges of B2B Sales
Mr. Zhang from Nihon Total Telemarketing summarized the challenges occurring in B2B sales into four points.
The first is the decline in lead quality, where inquiries are received but do not lead to business negotiations. The second is the mismatch in approach timing, where the consideration phase is difficult to read, leading to many missed opportunities. The third is the personalization of sales activities, where results tend to be skewed toward specific sales representatives. The fourth is the insufficient utilization of inside sales, where the intended efficient division of labor is often not functioning effectively.
Mr. Zhang explains that intent data, which indicates a customer's purchasing intent and signs of interest, is effective in addressing these challenges.
Actions such as product comparisons or downloading materials on the web suggest a high probability that the prospect has entered the consideration phase. The greatest value of utilizing intent data lies in capturing these signals to optimize the timing and prioritization of sales activities.
Intent Data Utilization Scenarios and Results
From this point, actual examples from Japan Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd., including their results, were introduced.
Case Study 1: New Business Development Utilizing External Web Browsing Behavior (Interest Sign)
Product: "Akarui Mirai" (Health Support Service)
"Akarui Mirai" is a comprehensive service aimed at promoting employee health. It supports employee well-being through a multifaceted approach, including risk prediction based on health checkup results, the provision of a meal management app, and the planning and operation of walking events.
Mr. Zhang pointed out that setting targets for such niche health management services is extremely difficult. While health management initiatives are receiving significant attention and any company could potentially be a target for such services, the challenge remained that the market for adopting these services is still niche.
In their conventional internal targeting, the company narrowed down prospects by industry and size; for example, they focused their approach on the transportation and logistics industry. Mr. Zhang reflected that they operated on the assumption that companies with employees in physically demanding roles, such as drivers, would have a relatively higher need for health management.
The turning point here was the utilization of uSonar's "Interest Sign." They set five specific keywords related to health management and extracted companies that were browsing web pages containing these keywords.
The essence of this approach is a shift from static corporate attributes, such as industry or size, to selecting companies that are actually showing interest in the topic. In other words, they became able to focus their sales efforts on companies with a high probability of having manifest needs.
As a result, while the sales meeting acquisition rate with their conventional internal targeting was 1.04%, the list extracted via Interest Sign achieved 1.24%, representing an improvement of approximately 120%.
He also stated that four elements leading to sales results have become apparent. First, by narrowing the approach targets to hot leads, sales efficiency per lead has improved dramatically, and the closing rate has also increased.
Next, they were able to build a repeatable sales process. Furthermore, by becoming able to grasp customer needs, there are cases where they can identify industries of interest by reverse-searching from keywords.
Finally, the ability to conduct sales activities based on objective data rather than hypotheses, allowing for evidence-based outreach, has also become a strength.
Case Study 2: Immediate Approach Utilizing Website Visit Behavior (Live Access)
Product: "Akarui Mirai" (Health Support Service)
Unlike Interest Sign, Live Access targets companies that have visited the company's own website.
Previously, they only approached companies that had downloaded materials from their website—in other words, companies that had filled out a form and were at a stage where consideration was quite advanced. In contrast, Live Access makes it possible to extract companies that are at the information-gathering stage, one step before the specific action of downloading materials.
While it is true that companies that have downloaded materials have manifest needs and are very hot as leads, the volume is not high. However, Live Access has the advantage of allowing them to create a list of potential target companies while they are still at the latent need stage of information gathering.
Regarding operational points, Mr. Zhang emphasized data extraction every three hours and immediate approach. Considering whether it is more effective to let browsing history accumulate for a day or two versus attacking immediately, Japan Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd. has established a system where Live Access data is extracted every three hours, and newly extracted hot leads are immediately assigned to the inside sales team.
As a result, while the sales meeting acquisition rate for conventional new business development was 1.04%, Live Access achieved 2.64%, a result more than 2.5 times higher than before.
Why Intent Data Drives Results
Mr. Zhang highlighted two key factors regarding why intent data leads to successful outcomes.
The first is the acquisition of valid data. It is essential to obtain multi-faceted intent data from both internal and external services, as this allows for capturing customer purchasing intent from multiple perspectives.
The second is the implementation of appropriate operational methods. He noted that even after acquiring data, the method of how to apply it to sales activities is crucial.
While Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd. has long provided B2B sales support services, they have also begun offering inside sales support utilizing uSonar's intent data starting this term.
Inside Sales Support Services
The support services provided by Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd. are divided into four categories based on service and structure.
The first is intent data acquisition and list generation. By leveraging the uSonar database, it is possible to design lists tailored to specific needs. Furthermore, they also support the reactivation of existing leads.
The second is the establishment and operational outsourcing of inside sales structures.
Third, they provide comprehensive support ranging from script design to sales talk improvement, and fourth, KPI design and performance monitoring.
There are three key strengths to their support services. The first is the reactivation of leads and the maximization of list value. With limited sales resources, maintaining a quantitative approach is difficult, and many companies struggle with stagnant, untouched leads; however, inside sales support maximizes the value of these precious list assets.
The second is the optimization of sales resources. To address challenges where sales teams cannot focus on core tasks or where activities become personalized and opaque, they support the creation of an environment that allows teams to focus on more essential duties.
The third is business design with a focus on data utilization. Rather than simply aiming to secure appointments, they provide all information obtained from customer conversations, such as real feedback and reactions, as actionable deliverables.
In terms of how the inside sales support service is utilized, Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd. handles everything from target selection to inside sales, allowing the client to focus on field sales.
In the target selection phase, they utilize the uSonar database. By having Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd. handle the areas of approach, issue identification, hearings, needs verification, and appointment acquisition, they act as a bridge to closing, while the closing and contract finalization remain the client's responsibility.
By advancing the division of labor in sales activities, clients can focus on closing, thereby maximizing sales results through this support structure.
Summary
Thank you for reading until the end!
In this seminar, Nihon Total Telemarketing Co., Ltd. introduced a case study on how they significantly improved sales efficiency by shifting from traditional attribute-based targeting to a sales approach that utilizes intent data to capture customer purchasing signals.
It is important not only to acquire intent data but also to determine how to utilize it for your approach.
We hope this seminar report serves as a useful reference for your sales activities.
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