Pull a little, push a little – just don’t get creepy
Imagine it’s a Sunday, and you’re lounging on your current sofa, looking for a new one on IKEA’s website. You’ve added the “EKTORP” and “KLIPPAN” models to your wish list, but then life gets in the way. Later that evening, you’re scrolling through Instagram and BAM! There it is: an ad for the exact same sofa you were ogling earlier. It’s like IKEA knows you’re still thinking about it and they’re not going to let you forget it until it’s in your living room.
That’s IKEA using what we call intent-based marketing (or “pull” marketing). You’re literally pulled towards your product of interest because of your intent to buy, and your active search behavior.
Now, imagine you’re an athlete who loves Nike (who doesn’t?). You’ve never browsed running shoes, but you often post about your races and training sessions.
One day, you see an ad from Nike saying, “Just Do It,” featuring their latest running shoes, and you think “Alright, Nike, you got me. Let’s check these out.” Nike’s pushing their message straight to you.
That’s identity-based or “push” marketing. It’s Nike identifying potential customers before they have expressed interest.
Then there’s what Coca-Cola does. Your friend tagging you with #ShareACoke, getting you to look for a bottle with your name on is the “pull”. Parallelly, we see the slogans we all love, such as “Open Happiness,” or “Taste the Feeling,” aka, the “push”.
For a business, each form of marketing by itself can work wonders.
Want to become unstoppable?
Do both.
Modern Marketing Strategies: Understanding Customer Intent For Better Ads
- Intent-based marketing, plus a dash of AI magic, has entrepreneurs seeing a 25% bump in conversion rates. That’s right, folks!
- AI tools are like data-crunching ninjas, sifting through mountains of information at lightning speed. Instant personalization makes it 40% more likely your business will exceed customer expectations.
- 70% of consumers want ads that speak their language—they literally just want stuff related to their latest online searches.
- With everyone shouting for privacy, zero-party data (the gold nuggets given to you by your willing customers) is opening up all kinds of opportunities.
- Google’s even given its ad targeting a snazzy makeover to help businesses with intent.
It’s all about listening to your users. Use the data they’ve handed over and serve them ads, content, and products they’ve already shown interest in—right when they need it most.
Simple as that.
There are loads of tools to help you: there’s Talkwalker by Hootsuite and Brandwatch for social listening, there’s Locobuzz for AI-powered brand monitoring, and of course, there’s Google AdWords, Facebook, and Twitter for sending targeted ads to your users.
Impressive or Creepy?
Depending on how it is executed, intent marketing can come across as extremely awesome or downright creepy (no one likes a stalker).
The good? Many entrepreneurs get caught up in what they want to promote; intent marketing forces them to get over themselves and listen to what the customer wants.
It’s marketing that will force you to be relevant, seamless, predictive, and efficient – which will get you more loyalty, cost savings, sales, and better ROI.
The bad? Your data needs to be really accurate for your ads to be really relevant. And you need to be careful as to how you use that data. If your customers start to perceive a threat to their privacy, you’re in trouble.
Intent-Based Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses
There are multiple ways to get you started with Intent Marketing NOW – which ones will you pick first?
- Switch your mindset: Get into the users’ shoes
- Reach buyers earlier in their search journey with better content
- Re-market, Re-target like the Pros
- Invest in personalized marketing
- Offer free shipping and incentives to those with a full cart
- Develop a loyalty program for repeat customers
- Study your data and leverage the benefits of predictive analytics in marketing
Mastering Identity-Based Marketing
Don’t want to wait around for your customers to show purchase intent? It’s time to push your brand out there.
Before you go put up that billboard though, think about what really makes identity-based marketing work: data.
If you’ve been doing your homework, you’ll have enough consumer identity data (occupation, interests, obsessions…) to reach your target audience in ways that are engaging, relatable, streamlined, consistent, and personalized.
Your customers want you to understand them, not be forcefully sold to.
The best push marketing is almost able to start a two-way conversation (think Skittle’s “Taste the Rainbow”, Snicker’s “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”, or McDonald’s “Our Food, Your Questions”).
Show your customers you get them, and watch your sales skyrocket.
Underrated Marketing Hack: Giving your customers what they want
The secret is that your customers (and everybody in the world), want to see identity-based marketing. Who doesn’t want communication that celebrates their uniqueness, respects their individuality, and aligns with their values?
Once again, just be sure of your data! This will help you stay relevant, for instance, by being able to verify the eligibility of certain customers for specific offers or their exact demographic background for a niche product.
When Marketing Backfires (aka, Nobody Likes to be Stereotyped…)
Let’s say you’re a razor company. At first, selling pink razors to women and blue razors to men might seem like a genius idea.
Think again.
What about women who can’t stand pink or purple?
What about men who don’t want to be stereotyped?
Remember the 2016 presidential election? Plenty of women rejected Hillary Clinton’s campaign rhetoric to vote for her just because she’s a woman.
Crafting effective push marketing requires small businesses to think beyond the norm. You’ve got to put in the effort to truly get your customers, especially if they’re from marginalized groups.
So, here’s the lowdown:
DO:
Know your customer. I mean really know them.
This will help you decide when to skip an identity appeal that might backfire. It’ll also help you build richer, more holistic personas.
DON’T:
Pigeonhole your consumer (or product) — to a single, stereotypical label, like my grandpa would (Oops. But then, I’m not a marketer).
Takeaways
In a vanilla world, more personalization means more connection and timely messaging means more conversion.
To make your brand stand out from the crowd, go for targeted ads based on customer intent.
Or try out some innovative campaigns rooted in accurate identity data.
Better yet, do both.
Just promise me you won’t get creepy.
