Personalization is no longer just a buzzword in marketing. It’s becoming table stakes as more buyers expect relevant messaging that caters to their business needs. Personalization also is one of the biggest ways to gain audience attention and make your business stand out among a sea of incoming sales and marketing messages.
While I could go on and on about the benefits of personalized marketing, what’s more important is emphasizing the “how.” We all know personalization is important and that’s precisely the problem. Everyone — including your competitors — is going to be personalizing their marketing in 2018 and beyond. So, here are two ways to stand out and make your personalization strategies different.
Get Personal With Video
New developments in video are allowing B2B marketers to take their content to new heights. With ABM on the rise, marketers are challenged with figuring out what will grab their target accounts’ attention. Personalizing videos with a target’s name and interests is possible, and in turn, can generate more engagement from the recipient.
“We find time and time again that people are more likely to respond to video content because it’s more engaging, it’s more personal, it’s more interactive and it puts a human face on your brand,” said Tyler Lessard, VP of Marketing at Vidyard.
Lessard presented an awesome session during Demand Gen Report’s Buyer Insights & Intelligence Webinar Series (#bii18), titled: “Using Personalized Video To Get More Attention And Gain More Insights On Key Audiences,” where he shared the best ways to incorporate video into your ABM strategy and across marketing programs.
Get Smarter With Interactive Content
While static content — such as PDF-based white papers and E-books — still has a place in the content marketing mix, interactive content (a.k.a smart content) enables organizations to not only create unique experiences for buyers, but also gain new insights into their needs. Static content is a one-sided conversation, while interactive content encourages engagement. This two-sided conversation positions marketers to learn from the buyer and then create even more relevant and personalized experiences for them.
“When we leverage content to solicit feedback, we, in turn, gain insights into our buyers,” said Jessica Baum, VP of Marketing at Content4Demand. “With these insights, we can adjust our messaging, topics and draw strong alignment between our products and our buyers. Smart content can utilize interactive questions and assessments to segment our target audience, enabling us to provide relevant follow-up content based on industry, job function and more. It also can enable us to embed content rabbit holes that enable our audience to go down a defined path to continue across multiple content pieces without ever leaving the first page.”
Smart content was a key theme during Content4Demand’s webcast at #bii18, titled: “Developing Smart Content: How Interactive Content Helps Identify Buyer Pain Points & Paths For Continuing The Conversation.” Baum and her colleague Dana Harder discussed tips and best practices for developing smart content that encourages interactivity and user engagement, ways to best leverage personalization in the overall content equation and much more.
The Buyer Insights & Intelligence Series is now available on demand. See the full agenda here.
