Introducing Executive Signals Platform, Audience Intelligence Platform for the B2B Sector


The Bliss Group first teamed with data science and analytics consulting firm, Ringer Sciences, on Audience Architecture, a tool that leverages machine learning technology, data analytics and highly targeted social listening to help clients identify, analyze and engage top influencers and decision-makers for optimized marketing strategies. Read more about Audience Architecture here.

On the heels of Audience Architecture’s success, The Bliss Group and Ringer Sciences continue to work together to bring innovative tools to clients. Our latest creation to emerge from this partnership is the Executive Signals platform. Sally Slater, Senior Vice President and Head of Innovation at The Bliss Group, joined Ringer Science’s Director of Analytics, Garrett Bond, and Senior Manager of Analytics, Taylor Schott, to discuss this exciting new offering.

What inspired Executive Signals? What was it designed to do?

Sally: Ringer and Bliss have been collaborating for a while on Audience Architecture and we found a need to create a solution that was more tailored to the B2B and professional services audience. Executive Signals built on some of the work that had already been done for Audience Architecture to focus on C-level and other senior business executives. We wanted to get inside their minds and bring clients insights on senior executives in a scalable way.

The platform not only brings insights to clients, but also to the Bliss team, who will have access to audience insights via an interactive dashboard. That means having data at our fingertips. Executive Signals aims to democratize data across the entire organization.

Garrett: Executive Signals keeps a pulse on industry news and world events through the eyes of C-suite folks and industry leaders. We can see what they’re discussing, what they’re engaging with and what they care about.

What are the biggest benefits for brands that use Executive Signals?

Sally: There are two main use cases that have emerged, and interestingly, one was not our original intent.

The primary use case is to help clients better understand and get in front of their target audience. One of the challenges many B2B organizations face is that you can, in theory, get intelligence on your prospects once they make it to your website. But what about before, when they’re just starting to do research, or they don’t know they have a need yet? Executive Signals can help close that gap.

With Executive Signals, we can learn what messages will resonate.  Similarly, we can discover the publications that are being shared by these senior executives most frequently, which is great intel from a media relations standpoint. We’re also learning who our target audience’s biggest influencers are.

The secondary use case is executive visibility. As we’ve built out our LinkedIn Accelerator offering, which applies the 1:9:90 model to methodically increase executives’ influence on the platform, we’ve identified some use cases around competitor benchmarking. With Executive Signals, now anyone with an executive visibility program can understand what competitors’ executive teams are saying on social media and quickly identify opportunities for differentiation. The data helps us grow executives’ visibility and influence faster because we know what works and what doesn’t.

Garrett: It’s competitive intelligence. You know exactly what’s going on from the competitive landscape. For executives in particular, this platform can let them know exactly what people care about online. Beyond that, Executive Signals can help them understand the language associated with different themes—words used and trending hashtags. What words or phrases are correlating with higher engagement or resonating with audiences online? This tool can guide you in the right direction.

Taylor: From an executive communication standpoint or corporate communications standpoint, you can really see the engagement activity of look-alike audiences of influencers in similar industries in similar C-Suite roles. You can learn a lot from that and look for best practices to emulate to increase your thought leadership and engagement.

What are some additional ways brands might benefit?

Sally: One benefit is Executive Signals’ ability to aggregate data. Let’s say the CEO of a company posts on social media. Many of their employees are going to like the post, which is a good barometer of internal influence but less so of influence beyond their own four walls. Because we’re already tracking this broader C-suite audience, if one of our clients is targeting CEOs or CFOs, they can quickly see which other C-Suite professionals are engaging with content outside their own organization. Assessing how many relevant decision-makers and influencers are engaging with social posts would otherwise be an incredibly manual and time-intensive process.

How can brands use Executive Signals to anticipate trends?

Garrett: All of this data is an indicator for what businesses should be talking about in the future. You can look at the content your target buyers or your competitive peer set are engaging with, before they start commenting or posting on it. If you look at what they engage with first and what they comment on, it’s an indicator of what they’re going to be talking about in the future.

Taylor: I also think it can help from a thematic standpoint. We’re tracking the different themes and subthemes that the executives are talking about, and we can change the listening period. We can see how shifts have taken place and how themes have changed, which ones have increased, which ones have decreased to keep tabs on what’s most important and trending for those in the C-suite.

How do you see Executive Signals evolving over time?

Sally: We’re going to continue to add audiences and new capabilities to the platform over time. It’s highly customizable. Ringer can layer additional analytics on top of the data that we have to deliver tailored insights to our clients.