Intent-based marketing uses the behaviour of a person online to craft personalised messages that capture probable buyers who most likely will purchase from them. Customer intent can be found by examining each factor of the consumers, like how many seconds or minutes they spent on a certain webpage, the next page they visited, and overall browsing activity. Through digital platforms, one is able to reach more people for one’s brand and engage more consistently with the consumer. Real-time data analytics offer businesses a competitive advantage.
Customer intent may be broadly classified into two categories: active intent and passive intent. Active intent, also called transactional intent, involves a set of actions where potential customers seek specific information about a product or service. This type of intent shows a high likelihood of purchase, often resulting in a quick decision.
Passive intent, known as informational intent, is more focused on gathering knowledge. Prospects in this phase are still exploring their options, indicating that they are still being prepared for an immediate solution.
For instance, customers exhibit active intent when they look up product reviews, details about specific features, or pricing information. In contrast, they show passive intent when exploring product categories or browsing daily or weekly promotional pages.
Why is this significant? Passive intent suggests that a customer is in the initial stages of the buying journey. Active intent, on the other hand, indicates that a customer may be close to selecting a specific product and making a purchase. Marketers can tailor advertisements and communications to match a particular stage of the buyer’s journey, guiding customers closer to completing their purchase.
Businesses can implement intent-based marketing in various ways, depending on the information and resources available to them.
Here are some examples of intent-based marketing techniques and how companies can apply them:
Targeted advertisements utilise customer data and purchase intent to craft personalised offers based on an individual customer’s search patterns and preferences. For instance, Google’s ad targeting leverages cookies that track past behaviour to identify consumer interests.
A travel site might use intent data to develop content customised to a customer’s interests, such as hotel recommendations in a specific city or activities in the area they are exploring.
An e-commerce platform can use customer information to create personalised emails and social media content featuring discounts and offers on products the customer has previously purchased or shown interest in through their search activity.
An online store may use customer data to create ads aimed at users who have recently visited their site but still need to complete a purchase.
The appropriate intent marketing strategy for your business will vary based on your industry, the type of product or service offered, competition, and how you categorise customer intent.
A notable 71% of customers anticipate personalised offers and experiences when visiting a website. Intent-based marketing facilitates this level of personalisation automatically.
These advantages of intent-based marketing include but are not limited to, improving the user experience. Another major positive aspect of intent-based marketing is improved SEO; it aids in determining the keywords and topic trends that your audience relates better to. Such knowledge helps in composing content that will captivate your audience and increase organic traffic.
Another significant advantage is better targeting. With intent-based marketing, brands can communicate with each customer at the right moment with the right message; that is what makes them convert more. Customers will more often dive into offers and content that exactly meet their needs, which is why personalisation plays a huge role in offering experiences that keep consumer interest intact.
Additionally, intent-based marketing also empowers higher customer engagement. Amidst the application of such marketing philosophy, businesses can outline more accurate customer preferences and interests, thereby creating highly engaging and relevant experiences to grow their audience base.
The other important aspect of intent-based marketing is cost-efficiency, which will enable a company to manage its marketing resources more efficiently. Businesses should invest money only in those customers who would have a higher interest in their product or services, hence minimising unnecessary expenditure on campaigns.
This leads to the final point: intent-based marketing drives higher marketing returns on investment. Businesses are able to see more profits and better utilisation of their marketing budgets since there is more conversion and less waste.
While the benefits of intent marketing are legitimate, there are a few potholes this kind of marketing creates for companies of every scale in the first place at the beginning of their campaigns.
The first problem is data quality; for intent-based marketing to work, the capture of data should be correct and pointed at the right activities. Poor data leads to poor targeting and poor offers.
Other concerns involve the integration of pre-existing data with intent data. While desirable and recommended, the integration of intent data within the current lead-scoring systems implies that multiple data source integrations render the process cumbersome, leading to major headaches for any business. This dilution of data decreases the accuracy of analyses, impeding personalisation and the qualification of lead intent.
The other factor is cost, given that intent-based marketing demands superior technology and data for keeping tabs on and finding out about user activity. This typically translates to investment in newer software and systems.
There are further concerns related to privacy because intent-based marketing relies very much on personal data, which may be a concern to some consumers.
Of course, all of these are not impossible to breach. It’s good that you are aware of these concerns so that you will know how to deal with them once you actually start rolling out your marketing plans.
Intent-based marketing tools can assist businesses of all sizes in implementing these strategies. All these tools, when used together in a very structured process with data in order, have the potential to give you the full advantage of intent-driven marketing without being at the mercy of some common mistakes.
This section will walk you through how to build an intent-based marketing campaign to promote your product and grow your audience through hyper-targeted ads, content, and communications that speak to every stage of the buyer’s journey.
The first step is to define customer stages. Identify the various factors that will help you determine which stage a user is in within the buying process.
Next, target your offers and content. Create marketing materials or develop offers designed to appeal to users at each stage of the buying journey.
It is also important to analyse competitors. While your offers and content should provide value to customers, it is essential to evaluate what your competitors are doing to ensure your promotions and branding stand out.
The next step is content optimisation. Utilise the gathered information and research to craft optimised content and marketing campaigns tailored to your intent-driven categories. Alongside targeted content and ads, emphasise the unique features of your product or service, enabling potential customers to see how you differentiate from competitors.
A successful intent marketing campaign relies on the right tools and services.
In other words, intent-based marketing provides organisations with deep insights into customer behaviours that will, in turn, help craft effective messages, drive more conversions and reduce customer churn. If implemented correctly, intent marketing is one of the best ways to ensure loyalty and build relationships with customers for a longer period.
It comes with a number of intent-driven marketing solutions, among others, to drive customer engagement for sales and marketing teams of all sizes. For example, Mailchimp marketing automation classifies customers based on the action taken. You can create segments using different activities that will fall into one category or another for each customer. Our tools also enable you to add names and other elements to make your content personal.
In turn, these intent-based tools provide the capability to fine-tune your campaigns and better utilise the high return on investment potential that intent marketing has to offer.
Applied correctly, intent-based marketing allows businesses to understand the requirements of their customers better, therefore building stronger relationships that lead to long-term success via optimisation of their marketing efforts. Thus, by targeting customers with personalised messages on the basis of their behaviour while overcoming challenges in regard to data quality and privacy concerns through the application of precise, up-to-date tools and strategies, a business can safely yet efficaciously broaden its reach and thrive as a result of the approach if utilised appropriately.
Author: Sabrina Hassan
