Intent Marketing is the Preemptive Strike Your Business Needs

Intent Marketing

It’s as Simple as Giving the Consumers What They Desire

A high school psychology teacher hands out fortune cookies to each student and tells them to read their fortunes. Giggles and whispers abound. A few students even gasp. The teacher instructs anyone who feels like their fortune directly rates to their own life to raise their hand. Nearly everyone does so. More laughter. The teacher then reveals that they all have the same fortune inside their cookies. If the power of suggestion is that strong, imagine the power of intent when it comes to marketing.

Like virtual footprints, consumers express their intent through online searches billions of times per day. Intent marketing uses these footprints to note the intent to purchase said product or service, ultimately using this information as a targeting tool. What emerges after consumer behavior has been analyzed over time are trends, such as the same online search being conducted over and over again.

While this might sound almost a bit devious on the part of advertising companies, intent marketing does actually benefit the consumer, too. In this day and age, we are all about convenience. We have premade meals mailed to us. We order from delivery services like GrubHub and Postmates. Nearly everything we watch on TV is on demand. Delayed gratification is a thing of the past. So if we are making it easier for a consumer to make a purchase that he or she intended to make anyway, isn’t that really just efficiency at work? Huh. Efficiency marketing has a nice ring to it, too.

Why Do I Need Intent Marketing?

This type of marketing allows businesses to maximize profits by driving more conversions than they would get using targeting based solely on demographics. It also allows businesses to reach motivated consumers in just the right part of the sales funnel – when they are about to make a purchase.

The Different Stages of Consumer Intent

For Intent marketing to work, it’s necessary to understand that the consumer typically goes through three stages when considering a purchase:

The Awareness Stage

This is the stage in which the consumer has identified a problem or a need and he is seeking more information in order to fulfill this. There might be questions or broad queries about a certain product or product category.

The Consideration Stage

The consumer has begun to do some research on the best products to solve the problem, and searches have gotten more specific. In other words, the search has expanded from just the product to using words like “best”, “review”, and “comparison”.

The Decision Stage

As a marketer, this is the most important stage to identify, as a decision is going to be made and a purchase is all but imminent. Searches now include keywords like “purchase”, “buy”, “price” and “order”. Think of this as your last opportunity to influence his decision.

Quality is Crucial

Just as marketing isn’t about throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks, intent marketing isn’t just putting a bunch of mediocre content in front of the consumer in an attempt to influence. The quality of the content is obviously vital to getting this person to act. Here are some quick tips that will help your intent marketing result in more conversions:

  • First and foremost, use the right keywords, as you want the consumer to see that your content is relevant
  • As we mentioned earlier, people ask questions a lot during their online searches, so make sure you are providing thoughtful answers to these queries
  • If you’re driving consumers to a landing page, make sure it is easy to navigate, has a clean design, and provides the answer they need front and center
  • Make sure any CTAs can be prominently seen to remove any guesswork about what you need the consumer to do to solve her problem

If your latest fortune read, “Conversions lie ahead,” you’re in luck. Contact us today to find out how we can use Intent Marketing to grow your business.

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