If you’ve figured out the power of harnessing purchasing intent, you’re already ahead of the competition. Otherwise known as intent-based marketing, the concept is beginning to spread like wildfire for good reason–because it works. Having concrete insight into your customer’s mindset makes all the difference in marketing.
For those new to intent-based marketing, we’ve got you covered with all the basics below.
What Is Intent-Based Marketing?
Intent-based marketing (IBM) is the use of intent data to form prospect lists and marketing audiences. The idea is that when somebody shows purchasing intent, that activity means they are likely to buy something. Exactly when is another matter, but that’s something you can expedite with some savvy marketing and sales moves.
Types of intent signals vary between “high-scoring” and “low-scoring” intent classifications. Intent signals could be high-scoring, like the signals you get when people sign up for your emails. Or they can be low-scoring, like when the information comes from a third-party intent data provider and tells you companies that tend to buy products like yours but don’t show specific buying signals. All of this matters because the type of intent classification affects which marketing techniques you use.
Why Is Intent Marketing Important?
Intent-driven marketing ups the chances that there is a “coincidence of wants” between you and your prospect that results in a sale. Marketers and salespeople always look for ways to identify customers who are on the hunt for what they’re selling. Investing time and effort into courting leads that don’t have any interest is frustrating, not to mention a waste of resources. This is particularly true for B2B customers, who don’t give you the kinds of opportunities that you might get with impulse buyers. Instead, they go for long and intensive sales cycles.
This is even truer when the economy isn’t so great and a greater proportion of traditionally-sourced prospects don’t have a budget. Intent signals show that there is a higher chance certain prospects have a green light to buy something.
Intent-based planning for a marketing campaign is just another tool in the box. You always want access to as many lead generation sources as possible, because prospects search for vendors in all sorts of ways. Speaking of which, keep in mind that one such source is about to become harder to use as third-party cookies are on their way out.
How Does Intent-Based Marketing Work?
In physics, Newton’s law says that for every action, there is a reaction. The same is true with intent-based marketing. Here are the basic types of intent data (the “action”) and examples of marketing techniques that they might trigger (the “reaction”):
Search – Keyword search data is generated when prospects use a search engine (Google) and is made available through search analytics. Marketers use SEO to create and improve the keywords that trigger a website to appear.
Engagement – When a prospect browses a website, shares content, or fills out a form to receive emails, they generate engagement. Website optimization (e.g. heat maps, user experience design tools) and content optimization (CTAs, A/B testing) attempt to guide more people through the funnel and increase content engagement rates. Even better, when engagement results in the prospect leaving contact info, it gives salespeople the ability to reach out to them directly.
Profile – Profile data is the general data collected about various organizations and industries. By filtering this information, a marketer can create lists of prospects to nurture and create intent-based advertising campaigns. To make the most of this kind of third-party information, you’ll need to apply lead scoring and data insights.
Technical – Technical data about companies is related to the types of technologies they buy, like their CRM software or other business tools. Like with profiles, marketers can filter this information to create contact lists.
Intent-Based Marketing vs. Account-Based Marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) is used to identify and develop high-potential leads. For example, a B2B SaaS company with a specialized product will take an ABM approach to find and market to prospects that are most likely to want their software.
There’s a lot of skill involved with successful ABM – often, you’re selling complex stuff to people who work for big-budget, large organizations and who have the bandwidth for schmoozing. And that’s if you can find them.
Here’s where intent signals come into play. Instead of hoping that the person on the other end of the marketing campaign might be interested in your product, intent data gives a greater chance of success, particularly if it involves engagement signals. A great intent-based marketing campaign will divulge long lists of qualified prospects who have already entered the funnel and are primed for targeted content that could lead to a sales call.
Intent-Based Marketing Examples
As we learn more about intent marketing, you can be sure that many additional applications will soon be realized. Here are only a few:
- Designing an SEO-based campaign through GoogleAds
- Sending targeted ads to website visitors based on their IP address
- Identifying existing customers and giving them special offers when they revisit your website
- Using an AI chatbot to guide website visitors into the marketing funnel
- Setting up an automated, yet personalized, email campaign that is activated by certain user actions
Key Takeaways – Why Is Intent-Based Marketing the Future?
This probably won’t come as a shock, but we are spending more time online every year. That means an increasing amount of intent data is being generated all the time. It’s just waiting for new technologies that will sift it for business information.
A great example of this is intent-based targeting. The technologies behind it haven’t been around long, and even “pioneers” only opened their doors in the mid-2010s. But we are already seeing tons of innovation in the space.
Take predictive analytics, for instance. Companies have begun to use AI to analyze tons of data on customer behavior in order to give better indications of what and when they will buy.
At the same time, some inbound marketing methods are facing challenges. There are 600 million blogs in the world, and only the best (like this one, of course) get noticed, while others see diminishing returns. With intent-based marketing, particularly first-party, companies are opening a new chapter in lead generation and audience curation.
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