Recent research completed by CEB Marketing in partnership with Google and Motista reveals that B2B buyers are more likely to purchase from companies that provide personal value over business value. Why? The risk lies with the buyer, that person who most likely wants to retain his job, make good decisions, get promoted, and be held in high esteem for what he knows and what he’s achieved for the company. That’s the person who reads your content. How do you reach him or her?
Getting personal is not about manipulating people. It’s a way of offering a good customer experience. Something we all appreciate. Here are three ways you can personalize your B2B content marketing.
Content consumption
Historic demographics is not the best way to understand your audience. Look at their content consumption habits for better insight. It is a signal of interest. From there you can measure what they share, how many leads are generated and ultimately who purchases. Content consumption is incremental and doesn’t stop at an initial response, page view or click through. Sourcing leads and tracking conversions will familiarize you with how prospects and customers behave online. What are their brand preferences? Interests? What online channels are they on and what are they sharing on social media? Knowing this you can personalize your approach by adding context when introducing new products or services. You can also make recommendations based on their known preferences and past purchases.
Email marketing
Most people subscribe to an email list to get deals, information and values. Behind every email address is a person who has shown interest in your company and its products. Segmenting your email audience by industry, title or whatever category is relevant is the first action to take. This guards against buyers of construction equipment receiving your promotion for automotive widgets.
You can personalize the subject line with your subscriber’s name or company name by inserting a [first name] dynamic tag. You can use tags in the body of your text as well. Use any field in your marketing database. For example, include the brand name of a product that the recipient recently purchased (John Deere), their industry (construction) or reference the town in which they live (Bloomington). Refer to your Google analytics behavior stats or CRM system to reference an action they took. Service providers such as MailChimp, Office Autopilot and InfusionSoft can automate triggered emails based on a subscriber’s activity on your website.
Direct interaction
Ask people to rate your products. Include polls and surveys on your website, blog, social sites or newsletter. This can help you get into your audience’s mindset. In this way you can make a unique product offering. Think of Amazon’s one-to-one target marketing or Netflix. They make offers and recommendations based on visitor interaction.
Are you willing to customize your product or at least personalize your content marketing approach? Put your customer knowledge into practice. Hold onto what is known about them so you can indeed deliver a good customer experience.
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