The feeling of FOMO… sucks.
If you aren’t familiar, FOMO stands for “fear of missing out”. It’s the feeling that whatever you are doing, you are missing out on something even bigger and better.
Maybe you were scrolling on social media and saw friends having fun without you. Or, you haven’t gotten around to seeing the Barbie Movie that everyone can’t stop talking about. Whatever it is, FOMO can manifest differently for everyone, especially B2B marketers who are constantly tasked with staying ahead of industry trends and competition.
However, it’s not about if we have FOMO (we all do), it’s about whether or not we choose to embrace that FOMO and use it to get ahead in our marketing strategies.
FOMO in B2B marketing
Quite a few businesses are sticking with old-school methods for capturing leads and generating demand. But here’s the thing – they’re missing out on a whole bunch of potential customers who are super interested, and just haven’t raised their hand yet. In fact, 57% of the purchase journey remains anonymous, meaning marketers lack visibility into a huge repertoire of purchase-related activities and are most definitely missing out on opportunities.
That stat should give any B2B marketer major FOMO.
But what if that FOMO isn’t necessarily a bad thing? What if FOMO in marketing is actually a good thing, and something we should all be embracing? Well, I’m here to argue that it’s time to embrace this fear of missing out. Because when we do, we unlock incredible opportunities that were previously hidden from view.
Embracing FOMO begins with intent data
How can we start embracing the FOMO in B2B marketing?
Perhaps the most obvious way to tackle FOMO in B2B marketing is starting with intent data. Intent data is a goldmine of information about potential customers’ interests and activities. It includes both first-party data (collected from your own platforms) and third-party data (gathered from external sources).
As mentioned earlier, a significant portion (57%) of the purchase journey remains anonymous. This is where intent data becomes invaluable. It allows you to identify and engage with potential customers who are actively researching solutions, even if they haven’t filled out a form or subscribed to your newsletter. This data reveals what your previously invisible target audience is researching and where they are in their buying journey.
Embracing FOMO ends with actions
While intent data is a great start, it doesn’t come without challenges – the principal one being the difficulty of efficiently converting data to actionable insights. 67% of marketers say their number one challenge with intent data investments is making intent data actionable.
To avoid this problem, it’s best to have a clear game plan in place for using intent data effectively and achieving your goals. For example, say your objective is to identify potential opportunities for your sales team. In that case, you might want to consider implementing an orchestration process that automatically identifies accounts showing intent and guides them through various strategies at each stage. For instance, if an account clicks on a display ad and then engages with a website call-to-action (CTA), you can set up a system that triggers a targeted sales campaign for timely outreach. This way, you’re not just collecting data; you’re actively using it to drive your marketing efforts and convert potential leads into valuable customers.
Conclusion
While yes, FOMO sucks when you’re the one who got sick and can’t go to your best friend’s birthday party. As a marketer, FOMO is something to embrace. We should be afraid of those missed opportunities and should take proactive steps. The first step is with the help of intent data, to identify opportunities and act on those before we’ve already missed out.
