The most successful company would have a mind-reader in their midst. Someone who could tell sales and marketing what prospects wanted and how to get them engaged. Unfortunately, this isn’t something you can utilise just yet (unless the big companies are keeping secrets). So you have to try and find another way to predict your prospect’s behaviour.

Although you might not have a crystal ball at your disposal, you do have access to the wonders of intent marketing. This is a way of looking at behaviour history and using it to predict what prospects need in order to consider becoming a client. Eventually, as this method develops, you might not even need mind-readers at all.

But where is intent marketing at right now, and how can you use it?

Firstly, you have lead scoring 

Lead scoring technology is the equivalent of your crystal ball right now. It’s the first step to understanding how interested your prospects are without them telling you. By assigning a score to each of your prospects based on how much and what they interact with on your website, you can predict the next level of their interactions.

For example, if they started looking at your blogs but have accrued points by then looking at feature pages, it would be reasonable to predict that they could be interested in looking at a demo of that feature. Using lead scoring to build tiered lead nurturing campaigns that reflect this journey is just one of the ways you can predict, and prepare for, the future.

Which ties into CRM integration

Naturally, you’d look at a prospect’s behaviour directly from your CRM. Unfortunately, this can often just tell you what the sales teams have been up to. So, tie it in together with what each lead has received from marketing and what they’ve done on your website. This is going to give you a much more robust picture of what one lead has experienced from your company as a whole, giving you a clearer idea of what they need in the future to be convinced.

Finally, remember that everything is a test

Everyone knows that the trick to a mind-reader is narrowing down possibilities, testing the water with wide questions and making educated guesses. That’s how intent marketing should be used. It’s impossible to know exactly what prospects want and don’t want because most of the time even they don’t know. Gathering as much information as you can and then split testing possible future scenarios is the best way to know what works best for your prospects and just might turn some of them into believers.