The world around us is changing every day and with modern technologies, marketers have more opportunities to create b2b marketing personalization for better lead generation campaigns to maximize ROI. Thanks to the internet and all the modern technologies people giving up on their private data which hide gold nuggets for marketers.
Therefore, create personalization in marketing was never easier before.
you can look around yourself, many services already using it.
Look at Google, they create personalize ads to show you based on your interest. Whatever you were watching, browsing, and downloading, they take this piece of information and turn it to a personalized message.
For example, have you ever wondered why you start seeing ads from an e-commerce store you have visited last week and the exact product you were looking at? That’s because of cookies and remarketing, they know you have looked it and you trigger that.
Also, look at Netflix, they create total personalize streaming online portal, everything is tailored to your needs, the movies, and series you like.
What is Personalization in Marketing?
Using personalization in marketing is actually becoming common, and it is creating specially tailored marketing messages to your target audience determined by their behavior. The behavior is monitored by collecting data from your customers and prospects. These data are called cookies on the website and they are used to collect personal data like for example what website they visited, how they found you or what product they have abandoned in basked.
It’s effectively used in b2c marketing by companies like Uber, Starbucks, McDonald, and so on to create a special offer for their customers to bring them back every time they need.
It doesn’t work as pushy tactics but as a recommendation for your prospects and customers to offer them exactly what they want at the right time!
So, you can always catch warm leads when they are ready to buy.
Why B2B Marketing Does Needs Personalization?
People want to have personalization in everything they do, whether it is shopping online, in the supermarket or for their organization. They expect the best minimum standard from everyone including your company.
You might wonder why I have only mentioned B2C companies when I want to actually talk about B2B marketing which is different, isn’t it?
Well, to be frank with you, your decision-makers are b2c customers too and they have been trained by b2c marketers, so they expect a level of standard.
What does that mean?
The last best experience anyone has anywhere becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere
Warren Tomlin, Chief Innovation Officer at IBM
That means that people expecting that you also as a b2b marketer offer specially prepared messages to everyone you are targeting. And this is truer than ever before.
No more cold calling is that effective especially with raising millennials in charge of companies. (They don’t like to pick the phone)
How to Make Work Personalization in Your B2B Marketing?
So, let’s discuss how you can actually make work personalization in your b2b marketing, so you start tapping into this blue ocean.
Yes, I have mentioned that it is becoming common, but still, there is tons of space, especially for b2b marketers who are a little bit behind with this new trend.
So, thanks to Artificial Intelligence Big Data and the Internet of Things we have a massive chance to collect data marketers couldn’t even dream about before.
Recently I have visited a marketing workshop and one of the older gentlemen at the workshop said, that we are living in the world of abundance of data about our customers. We are not short of data but only the usage.
“There’s a language of tech—‘scalable,’ ‘secure,’ ‘stable,’ etc.—and there’s a language of business—‘acquisition,’ ‘retention,’ ‘churn,’ ‘ROI,’ etc. It’s amazing how noninteroperable those groups can be.”
Warren Tomlin, Chief Innovation Officer at IBM
We are entering a new level of marketing where everyone will get only what they want even before they know it and they will actually expect you to know it. It is not only CIA or FBI knows everything about you, but we as marketers can know too. We have to!
4 Important Elements of B2B Personalization to Make it Work
Data
Recently there is a big noise around the data and how you can collect and use the data for your benefit. As I already said, people are giving up their private data freely or merely freely and therefore things like GDPR have come as some companies have used that data for illegal activities.
There are many types of data like for example first party, third party, contextual, static, and intelligence data.
- Static data you can usually get it from your Google Analytics for reporting and understanding what is happening on your website and how many people are coming in. But it is very hard to work with those data. It gives you an idea of what is happening online on your website but that’s kinda all.
- Contextual data are already a bit more personalize like for example Dear Sasha in email marketing. This already makes the marketing a bit more personalized, you are using their name and it feels warmer.
- First-party data are a collection of all data from your customers whether it is from an online or offline source and use in remarketing, marketing campaigns and etc. This data determines how well you are using your own first-party data to be more personalized.
- Third-party data are collected by a different entity to determine customers’ interests, demographics, purchase intention, and other pieces of information that can help you to create a better marketing personalization in your b2b marketing.
- Data with Intelligence are data when you collect all the data from these different data sources and combine them with machine learning and artificial intelligence to create a valuable insight for your company and leverage it in your marketing.
All these data can be accumulated by companies but only around 10% of companies can effectively use that for their own benefits.
Why is Data So Important for Your Business?
Data are essential for your business as they give you a real understanding of your customers and the power to know exactly what they want. With data, you can predict customer behavior and what is the next trend.
Thanks to data you are having so many opportunities that you do not need to guess what works and what doesn’t.
The largest companies leveraging the data in their very best they can do as they know the data is the most important asset nowadays.
That’s why it’s so important to use data as it gives you a competitive advantage to be ahead of your competitors. The data are the first element of personalization as it gives you the possibility to create it.
Companies which leverage data and analyze them are the one who will succeed in the new age of information.
Personalization Strategies
In marketing, it used to be when we targeted just almost everybody to get the leads, just because you did not have enough data and technology to put it together and remove silos. I called this strategy the “shotgun Approach”
But nowadays people do not want to be called by random numbers and sold on a product they never heard of and don’t need.
Nowadays this approach sunk deep into the ocean hope never comes back and we came up with a new idea of segmenting customers into a different group with similar patterns and behavior.
Also, because customers know that they are giving up a lot of data, they expect you to actually use it and be on top of the game. They expect that you have a customer profile where all their information is saved and read by your representative to effectively communicate with them.
That means you need to have an integrated good quality CRM or ERP system within your company to remove the silos and share the customer information to deliver a good quality experience.
The customer doesn’t want to introduce himself to each of the departments they have been transferred. They expect you, that each department is absolutely aware of the situation.
Why Personalization Strategies are Important?
There are plenty of strategies we should be using with personalization, but question is, should we use it within every marketing move?
The answer is no because even personalization has its place and time when we should use it.
Remember, personalization strategies are important for b2b marketing to deliver a seamless experience across multiple channels because people love to connect on their terms.
We, as a seller need to adapt to all of these needs and still deliver the same experience whether it’s on the phone, live chat, or email.
Personalization Strategies will give you the guideline to be able to deliver the personalization thanks to collected data.
Personalization Tactics
There are a lot of personalization tactics you can use once you start collecting data to deliver a seamless and pleasant experience.
But I would like to start only with the basic 3 personalization tactics where we as marketers still make a ton of mistakes and can’t make it seems right, even though you would think that we already got hang of it.
The 3 personalization tactics are:
1. Email
2. Website
3. Advertising
1. Email
Email is still one of the most effective marketing platforms to use. Still, plenty of people are reading emails and spending a lot of time on it, therefore you should be using it.
But how do you personalize it?
You can find plenty of examples, let’s look at this email
Look at the first line: Hey Eduard
This is one of the very basic what we should be using when we sending emails. It is a very basic personalization within the email. It doesn’t take many settings as most of the email providers have already forms to easily opt-in and automatically sort this information as the prospects fill up the information.
The second you can find the link, where you want them to go. These links are easily trackable and you should use the email sequence depending on their behavior. Let me give you an example.
Email automation gives us a lot of options to create personalize information to really find out what they are actually interested in and what they looking for, thanks to that you can see it and give sales information, so they know what to talk about.
2. Website
The next is personalize the website, I have already touched upon this as we are going through. Right in the beginning, I bit talked about Netflix how they create totally personalize content depending on you.
The problem is that most of the website is just static, nothing change, collect only a few data which is poorly used.
But people expect modern technology to go a bit further. Personalize website, should be able to connect to LinkedIn or Facebook and read the information and tailored the specific content depending on that.
This Dynamic website can create a true real-time experience for customers and prospects. As I already mentioned, there are companies already using it, but still, we can’t find it on the website.
And you can go even further if you connect this Dynamic website with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence you can create truly personalization.
B2B Companies should have moved to smart websites to create opportunities to generate leads stronger than ever before.
3. Advertising
Personalize advertising is one of the easiest nowadays with remarketing and targeting a certain group of people like mothers living in San Francisco and so on.
This is not hard anymore with tools like remarketing and targeting thanks to modern systems Google, Bing, and others are using to determine these segmentations.
But what about specializing content when you want to target CFO or CMO with different content for each of them, depending on the position and industry?
Of course, there are such opportunities you can even tailor these messages, so you contact only people who you are interested in.
So, ask yourself where you at these 3 tactics are and try to think about what you can improve within your marketing to get these basics for your marketing.
Because as I already mentioned people are expecting the minimum best experience and therefore, I have mentioned these 3 personalization tactics for you to benchmark where you are and where you should aim.
Sales & Customer Service
Last but not least, we have sales and customer service and personalization within these departments.
As I already mention the technology gives us to create opportunities to ease our job and do more with less manpower.
For example, look at the bots on online chats, which can listen and respond depending on the customers’ question. They can record and connected with a customer profile. The Bots give us the opportunity to quickly respond to any enquiry and not let customers wait for their solution.
Summary for Personalization within B2B Marketing
I have described all this personalization and why you should be using it, but I want you to remember that b2b marketing is mainly about creating a relationship with your prospects and customers.
Think of how you can create a personalized experience for each of your client and prospect so they can start trusting you.
Because you want to show that you are genuine and really care about their problems and believe that your products and services can really help to solve their problems.
The old pushy selling and marketing tactics are gone and we as a marketer need to think, how to make our prospects and customers happy so they keep coming back.
Because it is so easy to switch nowadays so we need to do our best that they will stay with us and become our raving fans who will be promoting us without t even us asking for it.
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Disclaimer
Some of my links are affiliate links, which means if you purchase something, I might get some small commission as a reward for reference. Of course, I am actively using all these services and products, and I only affiliate products or services I have full trust in their quality!
