Intent data. Chances are, your team has heard this buzzword A LOT in recent years. One reason is Google announced an end to third-party cookies to strengthen and protect web user privacy, which left many marketers running scared for a solution that can enhance personalization while adhering to user privacy.
The solution is to purchase intent data from third parties while collecting your own in-house (if applicable).
That may have you wondering, what is intent data? And, what are the benefits of intent data? In layman's terms, intent data is behavioral data that provides insight into what your prospects and leads search for on other websites (and yours if you conduct in-house research). According to Statista, U.S. marketers reported using intent data to improve delivery of targeted ad content (52%), email marketing (47%), personalization (44%), crafting messaging/content (36%), and more. And that's just the tip of the iceberg on what intent data platforms can improve for you.
Here's how to use intent data in your marketing, with ten steps to help you get started.
The key is to start with the SMART goal(s) you're hoping to achieve — i.e., boost personalization, ad targeting, custom content, etc. — that include Specific details, Measurable results, Attainable objectives that are Relevant to your campaign, and achievable in a set Timeframe. For intent data, an excellent place to start your planning is a list of marketing and sales goals or strategies that would benefit most from the insight.
That will reduce any uncertainties about initiatives driven by intent data and ensure everyone is up to date on the best ways to leverage it in sales and marketing. Benefits like time-saving efforts, shorter sales cycles, and a much higher win rate will be optimized if everyone is properly prepped and prepared for integrating it into campaign strategies.
If you're unfamiliar with what an intent topic is, it refers to the nature of your digital content. For instance, the intent topic for this blog post would be intent data. It's the primary purpose of a piece and should align with the goal of your campaign. If you want to increase personalization, your intent topic must have a purpose specific to consumers in different segments and buyer journey stages.
Moreover, this insight into topic interests among certain groups can guide the best way for you to appeal to customers at each stage of the buyer journey. You'll find consumers research several general topics in the Awareness stage as they're just getting used to their problems and potential solutions. In that first stage, research is their key intent. However, the following stages, Consideration and Decision, typically call for more specific, often technical, and detailed content to teach and inform prospects as their intent becomes more nuanced as they try to fulfill their pain points.
Letting your prospects lead your targeting ensures that you're reaching and resonating with buyers on a personalized level. This data-driven marketing method helps you reach the right audience, create more consistent messaging, avoid ad annoyance, build meaningful relationships, and better communicate the value of your brand and products or services.
As you move into the seventh step of deciding who to call, use the insight you've gained on their level of interest in your brand or solution, as well as the topics they are interested in, to guide not only who to contact but what they need to hear and how to contact them to move them through the sales cycle efficiently.
Use intent data to monitor and track current customer interest in the competition's topics. Are they researching your competitors? Are they showing more interest in their topics than yours? That informs and influences your decisions in two ways because it either:
This step is crucial as it will give you a more holistic view of your current and potential customers, contributes to much deeper intelligence when combined with other data sets, and gives you the unique opportunity of leveraging intent data across the entire funnel.
Getting started with intent data can be challenging, especially without the experience, knowledge, and expertise of the best ways to leverage it in your marketing plan. When you partner with McClatchy, you partner with a group of experts who have extensive knowledge and experience with helping brands put their intent data to use and several local media platforms with the insight you need on your customers to get ahead of the competition.
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