Intent marketing, the latest word on many a marketers’ lips – but what exactly is it?
In plain terms, intent marketing is marketing something and having a clear intention for doing so; it’s all about knowing your end goal rather than just doing something for the sake of it.
Keeping it relevant
When it comes to content, the content you share should be helpful to your customers, not just something you find interesting. While funny videos, animated GIFs, polls and games are all great sources of content, if they are not relevant in any way to your brand, then you are not helping your audience.
This is particularly true when it comes to social media. People follow your brand for a reason and that reason isn’t usually to see amusing but irrelevant content. It’s a known fact that the majority of people follow brands – A, to get discounts on products/services and B, to receive information on said products/services.
More often than not, customers know what they want to buy and they know who they want to buy it from (i.e. you), intent marketing is about fuelling this and encouraging them to purchase
Of course content should still be interesting but if you have a product or service to sell, everything you should be sharing with your fans/followers/subscribers should be relevant and shared for a reason.
What is your intent?
The first step in intent marketing is to find your intent. First of all, ask yourself why you are planning to share something. Next, you should ask yourself what it is that you should be sharing. Think about not just what you do, but why you do it, then create content around that.
It’s important to remember:
– Your customers are highly selective – people simply don’t have the time to read/watch/listen to every piece of content out there. Your content needs to have a hook to get their attention
– Competition is continuously increasing – With the amount of content being created and shared in social media more than doubling each year, but the number of social media users now remaining the same, you need to create content that is relevant but content that stands out
– Your content should answer a question – as mentioned before, customers don’t follow your company to see interesting posts, they can see these from their friends. Customers follow you to have their questions answered – whether that question is “can I get a discount?” or can I “get some information on your product/service?”, your content should reflect this
– Your content should say something – If you haven’t got anything interesting to say, don’t say it. The last thing you want to do is post something boring and irrelevant and cause your audience to unfollow you.
