Imagine you are selling electric hairbrushes. Would you rather focus on selling to someone who’s never heard of your product or someone who has frizzy hair and has enquired about other hair care products? Naturally, you’d pick the latter simply because they would have a higher intent to buy.
Knowing buyer intent is critical in marketing because it helps you analyze who really needs your product and who’s likelier to purchase it. Using buyer intent data can help you focus your marketing efforts and create the content your ideal buyer seeks.
In this post, we’ll explain how you can use buyer intent data to fuel your content marketing engine.
Understanding Buyer Intent Data
Buyer intent data helps businesses understand what their potential customers are likely to do next online. It gives insights into whether someone is considering buying a product in your category or switching to a competitor.
Simply put, you get a sneak peek into your prospect’s mind, allowing you to determine if they’re in their research phase or if they’re ready to buy.
These signals can be subtle, like searching for industry-related keywords, or more apparent, like scheduling a product demo or downloading a report. Businesses can use this data to better position their products or services to meet the needs and desires of their target audience.
In B2B, buyer intent can be either visible or hidden. Visible intent is when potential customers explicitly show interest by visiting your website, filling out forms, or engaging with related content like competitor websites or product reviews.
On the other hand, hidden intent refers to anonymous web traffic where potential buyers visit your site or explore other relevant content without leaving identifiable information.
The Role of Buyer Intent Data in Content Strategy
Buyer intent data helps marketers identify the topics, formats, and messaging that will resonate with their audience. It helps ensure that every piece of content is purposeful and effectively addresses the audience’s needs and desires.
For instance, imagine you’re selling a project management tool called Example.io. You discover that your ICP frequently visits your blog, “10 Best Project Management Tools,” before booking a demo. Now, you need to create similar listicles and comparison guides highlighting your product’s unique features and use cases.
You can also craft an SEO strategy that targets keywords with commercial and informational intent and attracts prospects and qualified leads ready to buy.
Collecting and Analyzing Buyer Intent Data
Several sources of intent data can help improve conversions. Here are some of the most common ones:
1. Ads: Ad platforms collect data on the keywords users search for before clicking on an ad. You can use this data to target ads at users interested in your software and create content tailored to them.
2. Search engines: You can use search engines to target buyers through keywords. This will help optimize your website for the keywords buyers use when searching for software solutions like yours.
3. Marketing content: Provide targeted information about your software offering to different buyer lists based on the content they consume. This increases the chances of user engagement, which helps boost conversions.
4. Web traffic: Ensure your website’s content and information are relevant to software buyers’ needs. This will allow you to target and segment your prospects better.
5. Third-party sources: Software directories such as Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp provide comprehensive product profiles with reviews, product comparisons, and educational material. Since their data sources are owned and operated properties, they provide meaningful intent signals covering the top-to-bottom funnel.
Tips for Interpreting Buyer Intent Data
Businesses that engage in intent-based marketing often find identifying trends among their leads challenging. However, the solution lies in combining deep behavioral data analysis with individual activity observations to create personalized and predictive marketing strategies.
For instance, an e-commerce website notices a trend where customers spending more than five minutes browsing a specific product category are likelier to purchase. By analyzing this deep behavioral data alongside individual activity, such as the number of times a customer revisits the website, the business can tailor its marketing efforts to engage these high-potential leads more effectively.
Businesses can also identify patterns supported by sufficient evidence.
Perhaps a software company may observe that users who engage with their product demo videos for over three minutes are more likely to request a free trial. This insight allows the company to prioritize resources to create more engaging demo content and refine the trial signup process. This comprehensive understanding of lead behavior facilitates targeted marketing actions.
Content marketing analytics tools can help you understand the ROI of your marketing activities and ensure you’re targeting the right audience and keywords.
Leveraging Buyer Intent Data for Content Creation
To effectively market content, it is essential to use intent signals. Here is a breakdown of the different ways in which intent signals can be used:
1. Choose the right message or content: To create content that resonates with your target audience, segment them based on their challenges, pain points, or interests.
2. Identify the prospect’s buying stage: Use intent data to determine where prospects are in their buying journey. This will help you choose the appropriate content assets and follow-up tactics. For example, if a prospect is researching competitor brands, provide content highlighting your product’s benefits over your competitors.
3. Choose the right email nurture path: Segment leads into various email nurture tracks according to their research activities and interests identified through intent data.
4. Personalize websites and landing pages: Tailor landing pages based on the specific product categories or topics a particular account is researching.
5. Provide competitive intel and content to sales teams: Equip sales teams with relevant content, such as tailored talk tracks and case studies, to persuade prospects to research competitor offerings.
6. Identify customers at risk of churning: Use intent data to detect dissatisfaction early and provide appropriate content to address issues before they escalate. Also, identify customers researching solution categories you offer but haven’t yet bought, and focus on delivering relevant content to encourage cross- or up-selling opportunities.
Conclusion
If you want to generate high-quality leads and revenue from your marketing initiatives, you cannot ignore the power of intent data. Marketing teams must embrace buyer intent data as a cornerstone of their strategy to drive meaningful connections and deliver impactful results.
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