Imagine you’re on a date. First date.
With someone, you met on a dating app.
5 minutes into the conversation… they ask you to marry them.
How would you feel?
Now, imagine you’re on another first date.
With someone, you met on a matrimony app.
5 minutes into the conversation… they tell you that they are not looking for marriage but rather just “friends with benefits”.
How would you feel?
In both situations, not too good, I suppose?
You’d feel like:
Because your intent was something different.
This is what happens in marketing as well… when users don’t get what they intended to get in the first place.
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‘Intent’ in Marketing
Imagine you’re a solo founder and you’re going through the comments on a LinkedIn post which was about email marketing.
You see the word “ESP” and now you’re curious.
You Google “What is an ESP?”.
You get two results:
- Company A: Buy XYZ for just $19/mo
- Company B: A detailed article on “What an ESP is and if you need one”
Which one would you click?
The second one.
Why?
Because it clearly aligns with your intent.
Now, once you have read the article, and know that you actually need an ESP, what does company B do?
They link to another article… where they compare themselves with the competitors showing they are the best choice.
You are certain that company B is your choice.
But they make it even simpler for you.
By giving you a free tutorial about how you can grow, nurture and monetize an email list using their platform.
That’s the power of understanding your customer’s intention behind any action.
Now, the question is…
How do you understand your customer’s intent?
Two Keys to Knowing Your Customer’s Intent
I don’t like to complicate things much.
So, keeping it simple, here are the two keys that you need to master:
1// Understanding your audience to the core – the more you know the better
2// Mapping out your customer journey
- Where they are
- Where they wanna be
- All the important steps in the middle
For the above example? (ESP)
The customer journey would look something like this:
Remember One Important Thing Though
You are not going to get it perfectly right the first time.
Even this example can be extended into a longer version with more steps. (eventually, the endpoint being “a successful email marketing strategy”)
You’re gonna have to keep tweaking it as you get feedback.
That’s not the point.
You just have to start with something.
Keep improving with customer research, feedback, and data.
And then everything you do related to your marketing, connect it with your customer’s intention using the customer journey.
See where that element is fitting in the journey.
Ask yourself…
Why are you doing what you’re doing and does it align with where the customer is in the journey?
And then, you’d be marketing with a purpose leading to far better results.
Final Thoughts
If your marketing’s ‘why’ does not align with your customer’s intent, it will fail.
Precisely why it’s really important to understand your target audience to the core.
Then?
Map out your customer journey. (It doesn’t have to be perfect)
Link each of your marketing activities to the customer’s intent using the customer journey.
And see the magic.
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