MARKETING
Using search and email to recognize customer intent
I have COVID-19. Luckily I’m vaxxed and boosted, so the effects have been mild. But in the brain fog that inevitably accompanies COVID, my thoughts have naturally turned to email marketing.
Why would I think of email and COVID together? Browse-abandon emails made me do it.
For years I have railed against browse-abandon emails (read my most recent rant) because they’re based on an outdated idea that browsing a website signals purchase intent.
Granted, web browsing was a stronger intent signal 20 years ago when browsing was confined mainly to desktops. So, an email that reminded a customer about the browse session, offered help and linked back to the page had some merit.
Today, people can pass links easily, share them on social media and check on their phones. Merely looking at something no longer indicates intent.
I mean, my wife scrolls products endlessly on websites every night. Thank goodness there’s no intent there, or I would be broke.
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In marketing, intent is the name of the game. Growing and recognizing intent, messaging and acting on intent – are critically important for email marketers. Email’s job is to qualify and action intent in email.
Because, as we all know, email can do only so much. The full conversion experience happens on the website. We, as email marketers, need the mindset to understand how to create, recognize and act on intent.
So this brings me to the link between COVID and intent and browse abandonment.
I have been searching on the web for COVID-related things, like my closest Walgreens, where I can buy in-home testing kits, tissues and Robitussin and everything I need to get through this.
In these searches, I’ve had a high degree of intent. I have COVID, and I want to feel better fast.
Search is one of those tools to recognize intent. It makes me wonder how many marketers think of using searches on their own sites to recognize and act on intent. Then it made me wonder how marketers use search and other tools on their websites to recognize intent.
So I came up with a new email program called “intent abandonment.” That’s more accurate than “browse abandonment.” But it means ways you can use search and other things on your website to recognize and act on intent.
Let’s look at how you can recognize and act on intent.
1. Use search to reveal intent
Unless your website was built on static pages, you should be able to track and manage search so you can discover what your customers are trying to discover on your site.
This recalls the urban legend Target sniffed out that a teen shopper was pregnant based on her site search, connected to her identity, and sent her coupons for baby things, much to her surprised father’s dismay.
This has since been disproved, but the point remains that many marketers have the technology to make this happen via email. If I’m on your site and you can see I’m searching for tissues and testing kits and cough syrup, I probably have COVID, or someone close to me does.
Those are all high-intent keywords. When you string them together, you can see something is going on.
As a marketer, can you connect or correlate those search terms to a particular user at a moment in time? See if you can answer these two key questions:
- Which of your search terms signal strong intent rather than idle browsing?
- What’s the search path that follows?
You might notice, for example, that someone searches on these high-intent keywords, goes to a results page, clicks on a link and spends time on a product page, goes back to the results page, clicks on another link, and so on. That shows high intent.
This is where browse abandonment fails today. Just looking at a page doesn’t tell you much. Maybe they clicked a Facebook ad or Pinterest pin by mistake, looked at what was on your site for a minute, and then bounced out. That’s not intent.
My idea of intent abandonment means your browser showed a high degree of intent through search but didn’t purchase. That can trigger a follow-up message with wording along the lines of “Is there something we can do to help? Did something go wrong? Were we out of stock?”
Here’s where you can use customer-service outreach messages that resemble abandoned-cart emails. As email marketers, we’re so busy getting campaigns out the door that we overlook genuine intent signals through search. Maybe it’s time to do that.
2. How do we know search works?
Well, there’s that little industry that makes gazillions of dollars every year with pay-per-click ads, but let’s look at a better example on the B2B search.
It’s account-based marketing or ABM. One premise of ABM is that you have a named account of people at companies you want to pursue as customers. You add their names to an ABM account tool, and surround them with ads and content that leads them to ungated pages with articles, white papers, webinar invites and the like in the hopes they will reach out.
ABM also has another component: recognizing search through systems like Bombora, which can ferret out the keywords that spell intent.
As head of marketing for an ESP, we used ABM to recognize high-intent search terms and then surrounded our prospects who used those terms with advertising. We wanted to avoid people doing a generic search for ESPs. We wanted someone who fit our specific target market and was actively searching. We used search through Bombora and its technology to target advertising that would grow and action intent.
[Pause while I sneeze.]
Search works. We know it works in PPC, but there are other use cases. You also own the search box. If your users are logged in, you can maximize your search intelligence to look for your high-intent search and send them relevant messages.
Read next: How Planful uses customer intent to speed up the B2B buying cycle
3. Where should you start?
By now, I hope I have persuaded you that intent abandonment is the direction you should go to capture your serious browsers. Remember, I have COVID, so my persuasion skills might be a little off.
To get started, look at the raw search results on your website. Learn what people are searching for. If you have a great data team, ask them what users ended up buying. Look for correlations between searches and purchases. Then pick a search term you can use to message users and motivate them to return to your site.
Next, create an email similar to your abandoned-cart email but don’t be overly creepy. You’re not including data that your browsers wouldn’t expect you to know. Ask if they need help, and include a customer-service phone number.
After that, set up and test simple automation so you can see your data immediately. Set up a control group. Half of your browsers get the message, and half don’t.
Let it run for a while, then take a reading. Did the test group show a lift over the control group? If so, expand the test. If not, don’t give up. Tweak the copy. Tweak your search terms. Test it again and again until you find the right combination.
This is what intent is. Someone searching for something and then taking a series of actions. If I search and click around, then I have intent. Those are the levers you have to play with to determine what indicates intent and what doesn’t.
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Wrapping up
We all want to get more revenue and keep our customers engaged. Is my intent-abandonment program a revolutionary new thing to keynote on? Maybe not – maybe someone has already come up with this. The premise is what’s important. We email marketers need to change our mindset from just selling to discovering, growing and acting on intent.
If Walgreen’s had sent me a helpful follow-up email suggesting things people buy when they’re coping with COVID or colds, I probably would have acted on that.
That’s how we can use email to be more helpful to our customers and meet our business goals. Let’s look for intent. It’s out there, waiting for us to discover it.
And now, back to my Robitussin and lotion-coated Kleenex.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
As the co-founder of RPEOrigin.com, Ryan Phelan’s two decades of global marketing leadership has resulted in innovative strategies for high-growth SaaS and Fortune 250 companies. His experience and history in digital marketing have shaped his perspective on creating innovative orchestrations of data, technology and customer activation for Adestra, Acxiom, Responsys, Sears & Kmart, BlueHornet and infoUSA. Working with peers to advance digital marketing and mentoring young marketers and entrepreneurs are two of Ryan’s passions. Ryan is the Chairman Emeritus of the Email Experience Council Advisory Board and a member of numerous business community groups. He is also an in-demand keynote speaker and thought leader on digital marketing.
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MARKETING
Microsoft unveils a new small language model
Phi-3-Mini is the first in a family of small language models Microsoft plans to release over the coming weeks. Phi-3-Small and Phi-3-Medium are in the works. In contrast to large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, small language models are trained on much smaller datasets and are said to be much more affordable for users.
We are excited to introduce Phi-3, a family of open AI models developed by Microsoft. Phi-3 models are the most capable and cost-effective small language models (SLMs) available, outperforming models of the same size and next size up across a variety of language, reasoning, coding and math benchmarks.
What are they for? For one thing, the reduced size of this language model may make it suitable to run locally, for example as an app on a smartphone. Something the size of ChatGPT lives in the cloud and requires an internet connection for access.
While ChatGPT is said to have over a trillion parameters, Phi-3-Mini has only 3.8 billion. Sanjeev Bora, who works with genAI in the healthcare space, writes: “The number of parameters in a model usually dictates its size and complexity. Larger models with more parameters are generally more capable but come at the cost of increased computational requirements. The choice of size often depends on the specific problem being addressed.”
Phi-3-Mini was trained on a relatively small dataset of 3.3 trillion tokens — instances of human language expressed numerically. But that’s still a lot of tokens.
Why we care. While it is generally reported, and confirmed by Microsoft, that these SLMs will be much more affordable than the big LLMs, it’s hard to find exact details on the pricing. Nevertheless, taking the promise at face-value, one can imagine a democratization of genAI, making it available to very small businesses and sole proprietors.
We need to see what these models can do in practice, but it’s plausible that use cases like writing a marketing newsletter, coming up with email subject lines or drafting social media posts just don’t require the gigantic power of a LLM.
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MARKETING
Navigating the Video Marketing Maze: Short-Form vs. Long-Form
Are you torn between using long-form or short-form videos for your small business marketing campaign? Well, you are not alone. Despite 89% of consumers wanting to see more brand videos, there is no one-size-fits-all answer about the ideal video length.
However, this should not deter you from creating an effective video strategy. In 2023, people watched an average of 17 videos per day, highlighting the influence of video content in today’s digital landscape.
Both short-form and long-form videos offer unique advantages and come with their set of challenges. Join me as I uncover the benefits and limitations of each video format to help you make informed marketing decisions.
What are Short-Form Videos?
Short videos typically range from 30 seconds to less than 10 minutes long. They are popular on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube.
Short-form videos deliver brief yet engaging messages that quickly capture the viewer’s attention. Here are some popular types of short-form video content.
- TikTok Challenges
- Instagram Reels
- Snapchat Stories
- YouTube Shorts
- Twitter Video Ads
Benefits of Short-Form Videos
A previously cited report shows that 39% of marketers find short-form videos, ranging from 30-60 seconds long, more successful. The same study reports that 44% of customers prefer watching a short video to learn about a brand’s offerings.
So, it is evident that short-form videos have their benefits. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
Attention-Grabbing
Short-form videos capture attention quickly, making them ideal for the fast-scrolling nature of social media platforms. Your audience is more likely to watch them in their entirety compared to longer content.
Cost-Effective Production
Creating short-form videos requires less time and resources compared to longer videos. As a small business owner with a limited budget, using short-form videos can be cost-effective.
Increased Engagement
Short-form videos engage viewers due to their crisp and concise nature. This results in more likes, comments, and shares that boost your content’s visibility and increase brand awareness.
Integrating short-form videos into your influencer marketing campaigns can further amplify your reach to new and diverse audiences.
Highly Shareable
Short videos are highly shareable. This makes it more likely for your viewers to share them, increasing their virality.
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There are multiple benefits of adding video to your website including increased engagement, improved SEO, and enhanced user experience.
Limitations of Short-Form Videos
While short-form videos offer many advantages in content marketing, they also present some challenges.
Limited Message Depth
Due to their brief duration, short-form videos may struggle to convey complex or detailed messages. Longer videos might be more suitable if you need to communicate intricate information.
Competition for Attention
Standing out on platforms flooded with short-form video content can be challenging. You must create content that stands out to avoid becoming lost in the sea of other videos.
Shorter Lifespan
Short videos may lose their relevance with time. They can quickly get buried in users’ feeds, leading to a shorter visibility and engagement period than longer, evergreen content.
This means you must consistently create short-form videos to maintain audience interest over time.
Limited SEO Impact
Short-form videos may be more challenging to optimize for search engines than longer, more keyword-rich content. This can affect the discoverability of your content outside the social media scene.
What are Long-Form Videos?
Long-form videos are typically longer, ranging from a few minutes to several hours. They extend beyond a few minutes to several hours, providing ample time for in-depth topic exploration and detailed content.
These videos are particularly suitable for educational content, product demonstrations, and narrative-driven storytelling. Long-form videos are common on platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Common types of long-form video content include:
- YouTube Series
- Webinars
- Educational Tutorials and Courses:
- Behind-the-Scenes Content
- Interviews and Conversations
Advantages of Long-Form Videos
Long-form video content is the fastest-growing segment, with videos above 30 minutes experiencing tremendous growth over the years. Let’s explore some of the benefits behind this growth.
Establishes Expertise and Credibility
Long-form videos allow you to provide in-depth information about various subjects, establishing your brand as an authority. Potential customers will likely trust and rely on your insights when you consistently deliver valuable content.
Builds Strong Audience Connections
The more your audience watches your videos, the more they become familiar with your content and brand. This consistent engagement promotes trust and loyalty, helping you create deeper connections with your audience.
Provide SEO Optimization Opportunities
Long-form videos keep your audience engaged for a longer duration than short ones. This signals search engines that your content provides value, resulting in higher rankings and increased visibility.
Besides, these videos provide opportunities to optimize for relevant keywords. This Attrock guide offers more insights into the value of SEO for your small business.
They Are Sustainable
Unlike short videos, well-produced and valuable long-form videos have an extended shelf life. They can continue to attract views and engagement over an extended period, contributing to a sustainable content strategy.
Instagram reels are also a part of short videos and you can get benefits from this platform by integrating it with your website. You can learn how to embed Instagram Reels on websites and get extra benefits from your Reels.
Drawbacks of Long-Form Videos
Despite their benefits, long-form videos also have certain limitations, including:
Attention Span Challenges
Between distractions, juggling tasks, and information overload, user attention span quickly diminishes. Viewers may lose interest and disengage from your long video before its conclusion.
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Complex Production Process
Creating high-quality long-form videos requires more resources, including time, equipment, and skilled personnel. This can be disadvantageous, especially for small businesses with limited budgets.
Platform Limitations
Some social media platforms and video hosting sites may limit video length, making it challenging to distribute long-form video content. You may then be forced to repurpose your content to suit various platforms.
Short-Form or Long-Form Videos: Which Are Better?
Now that you know the benefits and limitations of each format, which one should you choose? Short-form or long-form videos?
Well, it all boils down to considering several factors, such as:
Content Objectives
What do you want to achieve from your video marketing campaign? Short-form videos are highly effective for quick brand exposure and generating buzz. Long-form videos, on the other hand, contribute to a more in-depth understanding of the brand.
Target Audience Preferences
Audiences with short attention spans likely prefer short-form videos, while long-form videos appeal to those seeking a more immersive experience.
Similarly, short-form videos may appeal more to younger audiences, while older demographics may prefer the depth of long-form content.
Platform Dynamics
Various platforms support different content formats. Short-form videos are well-suited for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. On the other hand, platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are better for hosting longer videos.
Industry Type
Short-form videos would be ideal if your industry thrives on trends, entertainment, and quick messages. However, long-form videos are effective for industries requiring in-depth explanations or educational content.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, choosing short-form or long-form videos depends on your business’s specific needs and goals. Since both formats have advantages and limitations, making a choice may prove difficult.
However, it doesn’t have to be an uphill task. The key lies in recognizing when to incorporate each video format into your marketing strategy. Understanding your audience and its needs allows you to combine both formats strategically, maximizing the benefits of each.
Continuously analyze performance metrics and adapt your video marketing strategy accordingly to ensure optimal engagement and conversion rates.
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