User Intent – the Secret to B2B Marketing Success

The modern world revolves around data. Oftentimes the start of an online session begins with a simple search in a search engine. The way you search for things online, your search intent or user intent, has a drastic impact on the content that is created online, and the success of any business. The user’s intent when they enter a search term into Google or any other search engine has become highly valuable data today. Google’s Hummingbird algorithm changed Google search permanently in 2013 transforming it into a complicated product packed with plenty of algorithms made to promote search results that satisfy a searcher’s needs or user intent. Similarly, multiple search engines have updated the algorithms that populate their search result pages, like Yandex’s Korolyov.

What Is User Intent?

What you are looking for when you type a search term into a search engine is user intent. This information is highly valuable from a search engine optimization (SEO) perspective because if you can figure out what your potential customer is looking for you can customize it for them, thereby increasing traffic to your website. Getting readers on your website is step one for optimizing conversion for your business. When your SEO team has understood the significance of user experience that is when conversion optimization is at its peak. That is why user intent, user experience, and SEO are often spoken in the same breath in organizations that can convert successfully.

User Intent Marketing in B2B

Businesses like to see their organic traffic expanding and rank higher on search result pages which will inevitably increase leads and, in turn, sales. By tailoring and customizing information to provide a seamless shopping experience, the use of B2B intent data or behavioral data is making waves for user intent-based marketing B2B organizations around the globe. Gone are the days where demographics and age-old B2B lead generation was the primary option to find B2B intent leads. The awakening of digital disruption has brought user intent and customer intent to a stage where mastery over the marketing funnel will no longer work; and to really succeed, one must go beyond the funnel. B2B intent data analytics allows you to use intent data to strengthen your martech stack too. Even though the twenty-first century brought with it the age of data regulation, many ways to boost your marketing efforts remain, and user intent plays a key role in modern product marketing.

Think with Google stated that the adoption of user intent is expected to skyrocket, putting things in order for better and engaging strategies to reach out to prospects. B2B buyer intent has become an integral part of understanding the B2B buying journey. Unlike tracking a B2C consumer, the dynamics of tracking B2B buyer intent data are more intricate. Using intent data throughout the customer journey ensures that your content is fulfilling consumer intent the entire time a person sees your content, no matter which stage they are in the customer journey.

B2B user intent data is intrinsically linked to B2B purchase intent. It lets you understand how to best leverage B2B intent data and use customer intent and the various types of intent to its best potential. To know if someone really might buy your services or product is to know that they have the intent to purchase and this allows you to craft content that makes the customer's journey smooth.

To fuel growth, more and more B2B marketers are using B2B marketing intent data to personalize their content further and maximize conversion rates. The bottom line is – how well do you know your consumer?

The B2B intent database stored from your target prospects’ purchase history and browsing can be used for real-time customization of suggestions, promotions, and recommendations. Thanks to modern technology artificial intelligence has made its foray into B2B marketing with AI-powered search and machine learning now making it easy to handle millions of unique and personalized interactions.

The Importance of B2B User Intent Analysis

Understanding the data your company collects will not only give you leverage over what to offer but will also match with the intent of the target user. For instance, take a look at the interest-based targeting program launched by LinkedIn that integrates profile data with intent signals to improve targeting efforts. It aims to move towards objective-based advertising by serving relevant ads and content to align with a member’s professional interests. LinkedIn’s Director of Product, Abhishek Shrivastava says, “A lot of B2B targeting is based on reaching accounts or looking at job titles and so forth, and that is something we’re trying to change by combining profile data with expressions of intent to make the targeting more compelling.” With the help of its self-serve ad platform, it is now easier to strengthen your influence with the buyer group within your target accounts.

Intent-based advertising can do wonders for your business by unraveling who’s in the market right now and if they’re up for solutions like yours.  According to Brandon Redlinger, Director of Growth at Engagio, if multiple contacts within an account are found to proactively search for a solution over the past 1-2 months, that indicates buyer criteria and intent. Additionally, data sourced from intent vendors such as MRP, Bombora, The Big Willow, and TechTarget can translate into maximum targeting criteria. This is when the power of intent and user intent can reach its full potential.

If you’re looking to strengthen your martech stack, then user intent should be your weapon of choice. The fact that it has taken the world of B2B organizations by storm not only makes it the need of the hour but also the driving force of sales and marketing efforts.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you understand user intent?

When you enter a search term into a search engine like Google or DuckDuckGo, the motivation that drives you to click on a link on the search results page is called user intent. You can use components like word count, images, and any common characteristics among pages that rank for a specific search term on a search engine to understand the user intent that is being satisfied by that search term.

What is user intent in SEO?

In SEO, user intent or search intent has more priority than individual keywords. If your content can satisfy the intention of a person when they look for something online, then your chances of ranking higher on the results page increase.

What are the types of search intent or user intent?

There are three main types of search intent or user intent:

• Informational - looking for information
• Transactional - will perform an action online like buying something
• Navigational - trying to find a specific site