Achieving Personalization at Scale- Webinar Summary
Last week we’ve hosted Avishai Sharon-TrenDemon, Daniel Bleichman- Audiocodes, to discuss the challenges and benefits of Personalization.
Marketers today face a unique challenge. Many of the traditional marketing channels (like live events) are on hold, and most of the activity takes place online. This results in more traffic, which then lands on “less-than-perfect” websites. And this is where we lose our audience because most websites are built with the company or product in mind and not the visitor.
As such, they rate very low on one very important aspect- user experience. By “User experience” I don’t mean the visual appeal of the site or ease of navigation. I mean the ease of which the visitor can find the information relevant to her. Think about the user experience when signing-in to Spotify or the way that Netflix identifies and presents you with new, relevant content. You might dismiss these are B2C platforms, but the fact is that B2B and B2C buyers aren’t that different anymore- as far as your website is concerned, they are both anonymous users who make emotional-based decisions. The more you could personalize your site, you improve the chances of them staying, browsing, and consuming materials. Again- think of Netflix. You rarely need to search for something because the system is so good at predicting what you would like that it recommends it to you before you can even search for it. And that’s how our website should strive to be- intuitive, effortless, and offer adaptive experiences.
In order to personalize the experience, you must be able to identify who the user is. There are “3 levels of who”
- Identity – who?
- Journey- When/which?
- Attribution- What?
Statistics show that younger audiences will be reluctant to leave contact details, so we should rely on other means to identify our visitors (like company, location, etc.( and try to craft the best possible experience accordingly.
A company that does a great job in personalizing this experience is Audiocodes. Audiocodes is a leading vendor of advanced voice networking and media processing solutions for the digital workplace. However, they have an extensive portfolio, sell to many types of buyers (enterprises, partners), and involve many stakeholders in the buying decision. This means their website is very comprehensive, and without proper personalization, visitors could easily get lost (or simply leave). Daniel, who leads digital marketing and marketing automation, explained that they discovered over time that the journey their users were experiencing was anything but linear. In fact, they found out that users visited the site several times, engaged with various pieces of content, flirted with the company reps (request for demo), then returned to consume more data, and only later converted into actual customers. In Daniel’s eyes, personalization is required in order to make this journey, smoother, not shorter. Being an enterprise B2B technology, he recognizes that the cycle is bound to be a long one, but he could deliver a better experience for the user. An example of that would be not to ask for contact details from returning visitors. Another would be not “reach out” to the user in an aggressive manner before the user has asked for such interaction.
An of course- show the user what’s relevant for him in the most effective manner. One simple way to do this is to ask the user about his role. There’s no point in showing technical data to business functions, and similarly, if the visitor is a would-be partner, its’ best to direct him to part of the site that delivers partner-related information.
Daniel also found out that not all interactions have to happen on the site. Once you know enough about the user, you can continue the dialogue (dialogue - not bombardment!) offsite, by email or targeted ads and content. It helps to think of yourself as the visitor and remove all the things you hate as a visitor to such sites (my personal most hated item are pop-ups that hide the screen with miniature “x” buttons). Daniel suggests starting small and experiment with one “personalization feature” at a time. This will give you a chance to measure and improve. You should start with one with small, trivial things that have an impact on the user experience, such as loading time, logical flow of the website, removal of annoying features, even localization to different languages.
Then- choose one product offering and one user type/ role, incorporate a mechanism to identify that role/ user and offer her only relevant information. Once you are done, check with your users to see if they felt an improvement. Yes- this is an ongoing process, but one that is certain to optimize your website, and make your visitors happy. By the way, the process shouldn’t stop once that person is engaged in the sales process. Research shows that enterprise procurement is often committee-based and that people will visit your website right until, and sometimes even after, the actual decision to buy. Therefore, you should be able to offer a personalized experience to prospects and even past-buyers (it will be easier, you will know which company they came from)- and who knows? Maybe even persuade them to buy an upgrade? The buyer journey never really stops, and neither should you.
As marketers, we have all built websites that were beautiful, filled with information, and utter misery for visitors. Now it's time to think about how we can change that. Think intuitive experience.
Think Netflix. You get the idea…
You can find a link to the recorded session here and a link to the deck shown here