If you are able to effectively implement intent marketing, you may just convince consumers that your company is magic. Intent marketing enables companies to predict what consumers need and their likelihood to purchase – and to pop the right marketing at the right time to enable a purchase. It’s as though you get into their heads and offer up your product exactly when they need it. 

We have provided some information and insights on intent marketing below, including the powerful ways voice search will change and improve intent marketing.  

What is Intent Marketing?

According to Allerin, “intent marketing is an act of identifying a customer’s purpose over that of the brand, and accordingly targeting them, which helps marketers determine what their customers want or need at any point of time…. It enables marketers to find audiences showing interest in a particular brand by leveraging big data strategies.”

It is expected to produce better ROI because you don’t need to create awareness about a product or service in the consumer’s mind before promoting it, you’re simply following their lead. Like Wikipedia states, “consumer’s intent for consuming a product or service may either be predicted based on behavioral data or captured explicitly when the subscriber tries to purchase a product and the transaction has been aborted for some reason.”

Why Should I Care About Intent Marketing?

Intent marketing is focused on analyzing a consumer action to glean their intent to purchase a product or service – and then offering up that product or service in your marketing. This type of marketing allows companies to prioritize consumers whose behavior indicates they are ready to make a purchase. Effective intent marketing allows businesses to focus their marketing efforts on the right customers to turn interest into sales.

How Do You Determine Consumer Intent?

While predicting consumer intent may sound difficult, most businesses have the information they need right at their fingertips. There is one important thing necessary to start understanding your customers and their purchase plans: data. Harnessing the power of data will allow you to analyze the trends and behaviors of your customers over time. 

First, you should focus on data specific to your customers. This data could take many forms, but will likely include:

• Search engine queries
• Social media data
• Campaign traffic driving consumers to your website
• Whether website visitors are first-time visitors or whether they have visited multiple times
• Dwell time on specific content on your website
• Number of clicks on website content

Second, you should pay attention to a broader analysis of consumer intent trends. Given the prominence and effectiveness of intent marketing, significant information is surfacing regarding cues to purchase intent. For example, a search query that includes the words "buy" or "purchase" might be more likely to lead to a conversion than those that include statements like "what information do I need" or "how can I learn about."

The Potential of Voice Search in Intent Marketing

There is no doubt that voice search is exploding in accuracy and popularity. The accuracy rates for voice search queries are improving rapidly, with 90% accuracy reported on major platforms.  Adoption is also on the rise, with 67 million voice-assisted devices predicted to be in use in the U.S. in 2019. Given the prominence of voice on mobile devices, it is also important to note that nearly 60% of searches are now being performed from mobile devices.

With the increase in voice search, it is important to consider how it might provide new cues to consumer intent. Voice search naturally alters consumer search behavior. When a consumer uses speech for search, they are more likely to use their natural speaking pattern. Consider a consumer who wants information on New York Times bestselling books. In a search engine, they might simply type "New York Time bestseller list". If they were to speak this query, you would be more likely to hear something like "What books are on the New York Times bestseller list?"  The mechanism for the search has altered their behavior.

With the use of more natural language comes the ability to understand more about consumer intent. Every additional term used by the consumer is a context clue to their purchase intent. Think of the types of data discussed above. We noted that language like "buy" or "purchase" are more likely to lead to a conversion. In what type of search is a consumer more likely to use that language? The odds are much higher in voice search.