Three words I wouldn't mind not hearing again for about a year or so.
- Conversation
- Strategic
- Recession
Yeah, I know...good luck with that.
By contrast, one word I can't stop thinking about after attending the Online Marketing Summit earlier this month in San Diego:
- Intent
For obvious reasons, one of the overriding themes at this year's OMS was efficiency. Doing more with less, or, if you're a very lucky marketer, doing more with a budget that looks a lot like last year's. Discussions about better conversion rates on landing pages, more relevant engagements with prospects, and improving your ability to measure what you're doing were all very hot topics, because they all speak to the idea of working much, much smarter.
In the very first session I attended, Olivier Chaine, CEO of Magnify360, got me thinking about the concept ofintent. That is, understanding the intent of your prospect and customer when they visit your Web site or read a communication you've sent them, and, most important, making sure you provide content that matches that intent. Because if it doesn't...that's pretty much a wasted effort, isn't it?
Sounds simple, but it's amazing how often content doesn't match the intent of the visitor. Even more amazing is how much additional traction you might be able to get from your own marketing efforts if you take some time to ensure your content matches your prospects' intent.
Intent Lesson #1: Yes, Those Kinds of Cookies
In his session, "Never Lose Another Prospect: Proven Strategies to Maximize Conversions and Revenue," Olivier talked a lot about the experience of landing pages supporting online initiatives. He got me thinking about intent right off the bat when he pulled up an image of the home page for a company called Snookies. This company delivers cookies, brownies and other gifts door-to-door.
The Snookies home page features a mouth-watering cookie with calls to action at the bottom of the page to explore the gift options. As we all drooled (maybe that was just me), he asked a question that should have been obvious. "If you're visiting this site, what is your intent? Is it to have a cookie right now?"
Well, probably not. If you want a cookie right now, you go buy one right now. You don't wait three days for it to be delivered. So a picture of a big, tempting cookie, designed to make you hungry, doesn't match your intent.
Rather, if you're on the Snookies Web site, said Olivier, it's most likely you're buying a gift for a family member or a colleague or a client. So wouldn't it be more appropriate to show visitors how much the recipient will enjoy this cool and unusual gift? How happy they'll be when they receive it? How fondly they'll remember you?
Intent Lesson #2: Does Your Web Site Suck?
My thoughts about intent were reinforced later that morning in a session enticingly titled "Does Your Web Site Suck? Let Your Visitors Guide the Way." Very hard to resist a title like that.
Michael Whitehouse, a senior marketing analyst for iPerceptions, used a case study of a technology company that had solicited feedback from its site users. Turned out many of them were customers who were visiting the site in search of technical support. Yet the documents to help them use the product weren't easy to find. The site didn't match the intent of many visitors, and they left unhappy.
This discovery led to a revamping of the site to make technical support easier to find.
Intent Lesson #3: One Word Can Make a Big Difference
I was musing over the concept of intent and how often we marketers get seemingly simply basics wrong as I took a seat the following day for Business.com VP of Marketing Ben Hanna's discussion of "Tools, Bids and KWPs: Oh My: How to Stay on Top of Your PPC Game Without Losing All Your Hair."
During this very insightful session about pay-per-click strategies, Ben talked about the importance of the words used in PPC ad copy. To illustrate the point, he showed a screen shot of what you get when you Google "pumps." Go ahead and try it.
You get offers for industrial pumps. Water pumps. Trash pumps. And right at the top: Women's shoes. Thus, the copy you choose becomes really important in sussing out which of those very different intents the visitor might have and avoiding a lot of waste on useless clickthroughs.
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