Do you want to know why some companies are up to 59% more likely to get their customers engaged? I will give you a hint: it’s not about the price.

It’s about the ability to understand customer intent and then offer relevant and highly personalized content. 

In this article, I’ll explain what customer intent is, and how to identify it and improve your marketing efforts.

What is Customer Intent?

Customer intent, also known as buyer-level intent, is what drives a customer or lead towards a specific call-to-action, like making a purchase or signing up for your email list.

It’s an important marketing concept since it provides insight into what a prospect or customer is likely to do next, based on their behavior patterns, underlying motivations, search queries, or expressed interests. When you understand the intent behind a specific action, you can then tailor your content and communications to meet prospects and customers where they are.

Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation. You are a first-time parent with a formula-fed baby. Since you enjoy hiking, you would love to take your baby out in the wild, but you’re unsure how to have a ready-to-go formula while you’re out.

You open your laptop and type “how to make formulas while traveling,” and, voila, you already have dozens of articles advising you on how to prepare it on the go.

You dig deeper, and you discover there is something called a bottle warmer, a simple device you can use to keep your newborn fed, while you’re doing what you love.

So, what is the customer’s intent to buy?

People usually confuse customer preferences with customer intent. However, these two things aren’t the same. Customer preferences include the preferred variables of a certain shopper, and while they influence purchasing habits, customers can still make unpredictable decisions.

But, why is customer intent so important?

To put it simply: customer intent is important because it allows businesses to cater their sales and marketing strategy to meet prospects and customers where they are currently. This typically means shorter sales cycles and more closed-won deals.  

Going back to the baby example, Google found that around 40% of baby product purchases are made by households without children. If we assume that people with children are the only ones who’re buying such items, we’re missing out on a huge percentage of potential customers.

Based on this example we see how demographics and intent don’t go hand in hand always. So, it is a good idea to not rule out potential customers simply because they don’t fit previous buyer personas. 

Awareness

The first stage of customer intent is awareness, and we define it as the moment when customers first hear about your brand.  

For instance, let’s imagine we have an operations manager at a manufacturing company, who recently opened up its 5th warehouse. And it is the first one in this particular state. They stumble upon a piece of content from a brand documenting the most common plumbing quality issues for large businesses in this state. 

Interest

In this stage, customers become aware of a potential problem. Then, they are either educating themselves or learning more about these issues. 

To continue with the previous example, this person just discovered there’s an issue with hard water at the new warehouse. Besides the mineral buildup on plumbing fixtures’ that downgrades their lifespan and look, hard water can be considered a potential health hazard. So, they are now reading different articles on hard water, the problems it creates, and how to solve it.

Consideration

The third phase in a customer intent journey is consideration. In this stage, customers know about different solutions for the problem and consider which one to go with.

Going back to our hard water problem, this prospect realizes this might be an issue in more than one of their warehouses and is starting to look for software and services to solve this issue.  

Intent

In this stage, the person is fully aware of the problem and is searching for solutions to fix it.  

Going back to the hard water problem, they are now actively evaluating a handful of plumbing quality software that specializes in working with large-scale suppliers.  

Evaluation

During this stage, the person is evaluating different potential solutions. They may be comparing features, pricing, etc.  

For instance, going back to the hard water problem, they might turn to comparison guides, check out reviews, and seek out customers for references. 

Purchase

Once an individual has reached this point, the person is ready to buy their product or service 

It’s important to mention this is not the last stage in the customer intent journey. Brands still need to focus on customer experience and customer retention, if they want to drive word-of-mouth referrals and/or repeat sales.

How do you identify customer intent?

Now, that we know the stages of the customer intent journey, here’s how marketers can start to identify customer intent. 

Leverage first-party data 

When we’re talking about first-party data, we’re referring to info that users knowingly give us. 

A direct example would be if requested a piece of content from NetLine. To access the asset, you’d fill out a form with your name, title, email, industry, and a good deal more. That’s a conscious action you’re taking to share some details about yourself.

As we move to a cookieless world, first-party data becomes even more valuable. This applies to both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) data. At NetLine, when we collect first-party data, we’re not just interested in who the person is. We’re digging deeper to understand the person’s role at work, including their job area and level. This can also include info about the company, the industry they in, and more. . 

Use social listening tools

By monitoring conversations, keywords, and hashtags, social listening tools can help marketers determine which platforms their ideal customers use the most, what their likes and dislikes are, and uncover their pain points.

Furthermore, these tools can help marketers capture demand by allowing them to be in front of prospects and customers at the right time to respond to questions related to their product or service. 

For instance, these tools can help marketers discover when a competitor just raised prices. They can then respond to the customers complaining and sell them on why their solution is better. 

Do keyword research

Conducting keyword research, using tools like Ahrefs or Semrush, allow marketers to get better insights into customer intent, as you can learn what problems your ideal customers are trying to solve, how they are going about currently solving it, and the type of solutions they are looking for.

For marketers who are conducting keyword research for the first time, we recommend starting with bottom-of-funnel keywords (BOFU) first. These are the keywords or phrases that indicate your ideal customer is already problem and solution aware, and likely will be the easiest to close. 

For instance, an ERP software might go after a BOFU keyword like “NetSuite vs. SAP Business One, since it indicates that the person is likely looking for a new ERP and is actively checking out two of the market leaders.  

Conduct customer interviews

Whether you are conducting your own customer interviews or using a framework, like Jobs-To-Be-Done, the goal of these interviews is to understand the underlying motivations, goals, and pain points that your ideal customers have.

When you understand what they are trying to achieve and the “job” that they are using your product or service for, you can leverage that in the messaging you create.

For instance, if the problem is neck pain from sitting at a desk all day, companies should think about all the ways their product can solve this problem and advertise based on these features.

Use AI-powered tools

The exponential growth of AI tools, like ChatGPT, paved the way for a better understanding of consumer needs. These powerful tools can summarize a transcript, analyze sentiment, and help you pinpoint specific motivations or pain points faster.

For instance, you can feed the transcript of your latest customer interview into ChatGPT. Then, ask it to analyze the sentiment and summarize the key takeaways. Repeat that many more times and you can have a rudimentary buyer persona that can inform your overall content strategy.

How to use customer intent to grow your business

By understanding customer behavior and user intent, you can create and map out different customer journeys for all of your ideal customer personas. So, you can deliver an exceptional user experience from the moment they first hear about your brand.

Create content that meets prospects where they are at

Understanding customer intent goes hand-in-hand with understanding their motivations and pain points that have driven them to your company in the first place. Then, your content marketing strategy should reflect that by serving up the right content at the right times. 

Surface compelling offers at the right times 

Data shows that, on average, brands see a 20% increase in sales when using personalized offers, and 80% of customers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences.

One way to surface more compelling offers is through retargeting.

In fact, retargeted customers are 70% more likely to purchase the product and that CTR is 10x higher on them, we understand how important it is to understand customer intent in advertising.

Once businesses detect leads with these intent indicators, they should serve retargeting ads or emails based on what they last looked at on your site. 

Display social proof

Businesses can use customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies to show how their product or service solves a specific pain point that their ideal customers have. 

Why is customer intention important?

Understanding customer intention is crucial for making the most of your sales and marketing campaigns, including: 

• Allows for greater personalization.
• Drives down customer acquisition costs.  
• Makes your marketing efforts more profitable and efficient. 
• Improve open, click-through, and email conversion rates 

Top tips for understanding and researching consumer intent

Whether it is from first-party or third-party data, here are some tips to gain a deeper understanding of customer intent within their target accounts, allowing them to personalize their outreach, create tailored content, and drive successful ABM campaign

• Create buyer personas – Building customer personas that accurately depict your target accounts, including their objectives, challenges, pain points, and factors that influence their decision-making can help you tailor your messaging to close more deals.
• Leverage intent data platforms – Using an intent-driven data platform identifies signals of intent from your target accounts, such as content consumption and search activity. NetLine’s INTENTIVE, for example, delivers real-time insights into “who” is actively expressing intent in an account, “what” actions that person is taking, “when” those actions took place, and uniquely “where” those actions occurred.
• Analyze website analytics – Study your website data to gain insights into prospects and customers’ browsing and engagement patterns.
• Engage in social listening – Keep a close eye on the social media activities of your target accounts, looking for mentions, discussions, and relevant hashtags that indicate consumer intent.
• Collaborate regularly with sales – When sales and marketing are working together, it will make it easier to gather insights and close more deals.
• Leverage predictive analytics – Utilize predictive analytics to identify patterns and trends within your target accounts’ behavior, enabling you to anticipate their needs and align your strategies accordingly.
• Continuously refine and iterate – Regularly analyze and refine your understanding of customer intent based on data and feedback, adjusting your ABM strategies to better align with their evolving needs.
  

Bottom line

Understanding customer intent provides marketers with valuable insights into their target customers’ desires, requirements, and challenges, enabling them to develop effective solutions that meet their customers’ needs. Additionally, getting better at understanding customer intent enables companies to better prioritize their deal flow and concentrate on the strategic accounts that are most likely to close.