Think about the last time you bought a vehicle. You probably had an idea of what you wanted and what you needed it for: better gas mileage, greater towing capacity or (in my case) additional room for a car seat. Odds are that you weren’t the first to test-drive it. Maybe the person before you saw it in an online ad and loved that the larger cab offered more seating room than the family car. Maybe the person before that needed something to tow a boat and saw the vehicle’s online listing while researching models in the area. And with some great selling skills, the salesperson could make minor tweaks to the sales pitch to match each person’s demands, concerns and preferences.
Now more than ever, customers are considering content the same way. There’s probably a million reasons that brought them to your website, opened your email or clicked on your ad. So why should your content – your sales pitch – vary from person to person? Find out why personalized content is becoming more important than ever.
Personalization allows you to accomplish three major things with your content:
1. Deepen Relationships with Your Customers
Breadth and depth matter. As you know, customers like to know that you hear and understand their needs. When content doesn’t align to those two things, you start losing their attention or worse, make them actively avoid you. For instance, one study from Janrain showed that:
That’s like showing up to the car lot, wanting a new truck to haul a camper but getting pressured to look at sports cars.
Personalized content allows you to tailor messaging to fit your customers’ interests and needs. It helps them quickly find the right information to make a decision and increases the likelihood of converting. And when customers have a positive experience with a company, they’re more likely to tell other potential customers, too.
2. Increase Your Marketing Performance
Personalized content can have a significant impact on your marketing performance. One study by Forbes showed that:
So what does it take to hit those numbers?
- Put customer needs at the center of your strategy. Putting customers’ needs first can help prioritize specific channels and the type of content for each one. Think about how your customers research. Do some digging to find the best way to convey key information that pertains to them. And use the same language they use on a day-to-day basis to describe their projects, challenges and practices. After all, when was the last time you heard an automobile salesperson describe a sedan as a four-door, personal transportation device?
- Tap into the curation or content management mindset.
You can tell personalized content is stale is by checking insights for engagement and conversions. Some types of content, such as how-to videos, can live for several months or even a couple years without needing major updates and still receive steady engagement. But seasonal or pop-culture related content can go sour within a month. For example, do you still have that one webpage that calls out a product as “new and improved” even though it’s two to three years old?
3. Grow Your Bottom Line.
Since personalized content can increase marketing performance, it might come at no surprise that it can help with organic growth. Last summer, a Gallup study showed 71% of B2B customers are indifferent or actively disengaged. To explain the relatively high percentage, it said that customers might not be as excited about enhanced products or services. It also suggested that when B2B companies put too much pressure on customers to adopt new or upgraded services, it might make customers feel like their needs get sidelined. With a little strategy, personalized content could help balance the scale in that scenario. For example, you could use several pieces of content – such as including market-specific language on webpages or in videos – to demonstrate how a new product or service can solve common issues within that market. This can help reassure customers their specific needs are being addressed while growing awareness and your bottom line.
And If You Need a Hand, Just Ask.
So there you have it: three major reasons why personalized content is important. It can seem like a major shift or require a lot of work to do. But with the right team of experts and content enthusiasts, you can be the agile salesperson that adapts to your customers’ changing needs and provides the information they need to make smarter decisions.
