Buyers prefer a personalized experience. Not by a little bit, either. They really prefer messaging, content, and experiences that speak directly to their unique needs.
80% of B2B buyers say they’re more likely to purchase from a company that delivers them a personalized experience.
What does a “personalized experience” look like? Something like this:
- The copy and landing page on your website reflects your buyer’s research stage and their interests
- Ads that show up in the channels they use most with messaging that resonates
- Emails land in a buyer’s inbox at the exact time they’re ready to hear from you
- Content offerings answer their direct questions and help them think about your product in a new light
But how is it even possible to deliver a personalized experience when your database is full of thousands of contacts and potential buyers? It might feel like you’d need an army of marketers, programmers, and analysts to achieve something of that scale.
But in reality it doesn’t take much to get a personalization machine up and running — and driving real results.
Here’s how you can start serving up personalized experiences to delight your buyers without hiring a cadre of specialists to do so.
Start Small — and Make an Impact
The first lightbulb moment for building personalized experiences is realizing this truth: you don’t need to boil the ocean.
Would it be great to speak directly to every single human on Earth so they feel a personal connection with your brand? Sure, but that’s when the panic sets in and the problem becomes too large to even attempt to solve.
What will allow your personalization efforts to be effective is only focusing on the buyers who are most likely to actually purchase from you. If you spend time and money personalizing a campaign for a buyer who just signed a long-term contract or won’t have budget for another year, then you’ve sunk the boat before it could even leave the dock.
Thankfully, your buyers are out there practically waving a flag that says “I’m interested in your services.” You just need the tools to decode their signals.
Buyers do 70% of their research online, and they do it anonymously. They read industry sites, search for topics related to your products, and sneak around your website dodging forms and CTAs. But while they aren’t filling out contact forms, they are leaving a digital trail that can be followed.
We call this shining a light on the Dark Funnel™. When you uncover this info you will find:
- Buyers that are a best fit based on historical deals
- A clear picture of the personas in the buying team at an organization
- Data on the channels your buyers engage with most
- Organizational information such as financial performance and tech stack
- Details about the types of information buyers are seeking
Suddenly, you’ve discovered a list of your buyers that are in-market, as well as details that are unique to them. You can use this info to create audience segments that constantly update based on the behavior of your target accounts.
Once you have these audience segments, you can focus on crafting personalized messaging and delivering it through the right channels.
Surface Personalized Content in the Right Places at the Right Time
Knowing which of your buyers to target, and the types of topics that resonate with them, is a huge leg up when it comes to creating personalized experiences. But it’s not the whole cannoli — you still have to actually serve up those experiences.
Here are two channels where you can personalize in a more efficient way than you might have thought possible.
Personalized Web Experiences
One of the most common, and impactful, areas for personalization is your company’s website.
Using the information you’ve uncovered from the Dark Funnel™, you can begin serving up different text components, headers, images, landing pages, or even home pages to your buyers based on what you know about them.
Combining your intent data with a platform that makes it easy to create personalized web experiences reduces the amount of time and resources you need to get up and running.
Craft Personalized Ad Campaigns
When you combine the intent data you’ve uncovered with a demand-side platform (DSP) you can quickly and easily spin up personalized campaigns that you know will hit the mark.
A DSP gives you the power to:
- Tightly control your spend
- Manage campaigns across multiple channels
- Track effectiveness of your campaigns
- Integrate internal data to improve targeting
Your advertising efforts become a lot more personalized — and effective — when you leverage deep audience insights.
Conclusion
Buyers don’t just want personalization, they expect it. Delivering those experiences to them might seem like a tall order, but you don’t need to try to personalize everything for everyone. Focus on the buyers you know are interested in your product and use the right technology to create those personalized experiences.
