Scalable Personalization: Challenging the Mass-Market Mindset
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Personalization (personalized marketing at scale) represents an important evolution in B2B digital marketing. It transforms our media approach from one-to-many to one-to-“one of many”.
Personalization Softens Marketing Automation’s Edges
Executing and iterating personalization across channels, content formats and touch points have revolutionized marketing. Automation still rings false. But the creepy factor is less off-putting when personalization delivers value. The strategy helps marketers overcome some of the discomfort people feel about computer-generated relationships.
In fact, the pendulum is swinging the other way. Modern audiences expect their casual online searches to trigger ads for complementary products. They even want this level of service. But like all automated marketing, retargeting can be intrusive and irritating.
Technology, automation, analytics, and advances in distribution make personalization at scale possible. There are four primary catalysts enabling the adoption of personalization at scale:
- Data enables targeting criteria used to trigger messaging
- Technology automates alignment between messaging and data
- Dynamic content is created at volume
- Distribution networks are more complex
Data-Driven Targeting Steers B2B Marketing
Targeting and personalization connect individuals with unique messages displayed in dozens of iterations. When you tailor interactions based on data, it’s possible to be relevant, interesting, and even helpful. Testing ideas with real customers, mined from your database, is the best way to achieve meaningful success with most new strategies, expecially this one.
There is immense pressure to improve the ROI of marketing spend. Performance data supports the efficacy of personalization. This is why 94 percent of senior executives believe personalization is critical (PWC’s Digital Services group).
Technology Enables Personalization
Personalized experiences get double digit returns—driving real results. For this reason, marketers have begun to personalize everything: from content to owned web, email, mobile, partner sites, and sales enablement. And CMOs are doubling down on investment in customer data, predictive analytics, and marketing automation solutions.
Marketers need to engage consumers with orchestrated resources. They must manage disparate activities as a cohesive function to leverage data and put insight into action.
Dynamic Content Fuels Personalization
The volume, cost, and complexity of managing data, content, and channels are justified by improved performance. But this has two sides. While getting a tailored message to the right person at the right moment has never been easier, the need for content is exploding. Creating massive quantities of personalized content has become a significant burden on marketing.
Across industries, the cost of content creation is growing alongside investment in personalization. This pressure challenges conventional marketing concepts. Potential customers are not part of a homogeneous group. Marketers can’t focus on similar markets with similar products and offers. Uniqueness drives messaging. And individual requirements drive offers designed to appeal to specific customer desires.
Using consistent taxonomies and customer profile databases improves content and relevance. This makes it easier to execute advanced strategies. Content is critical, and publishing is a first step. But the best personalization won’t overcome stale, irrelevant or low-quality content.
Distribution: Mass Customization in Marketing
The final key is distribution. With the right data, technology and content, marketers deliver personalized interactions at scale. Marketers can now plan specific experiences across channels–over email, display ads, mobile apps, and even targeted calling campaigns.
Experienced marketers are the backbone of personalization at scale. Implementation depends on marketers to design, test and manage. But IT, analysts and a troupe of creatives are also critical. The B2B marketing ecosystem must be flexible, dynamic, fluid and ever-evolving. And analytics are key to making sure the effects of personalization are helpful rather than creepy,
Let us know how we can partner with you in updating existing content with personalized experiences or creating fresh pieces, tailored to your niche audiences with crafted messaging.
-By Kellie Peterson, Senior Director of Marketing