B2B marketing can sometimes have the reputation of being impersonal, especially with the widespread usage of mass email blasts, generic copy and uninspired media usage. In reality, B2B marketing can be as personal as the best B2C marketing. While B2B marketing is focused on businesses, you are marketing to the people who make the purchasing decisions for those businesses. Therefore, having a personal touch on marketing and communications is still necessary. Personalization efforts are a crucial component to relationship building and improving your B2B marketing results. But, with an increased focus on personalization efforts for audiences, there can be questions as to what tactics your organization should implement to have the most impact. We cover why personalization in B2B marketing is important and what key steps to take.
B2B Marketing Personalization
Long gone are the days of generic messaging that gets distributed to audiences regardless of their unique characteristics. Today, personalization is data-driven. Data coming from various platforms and marketing efforts is presented as an opportunity for your organization to analyze and brainstorm ways to use that data to your advantage. In most cases, personalization is top of the list. Capturing particular interests or catering to certain characteristics of your audience will improve results in both the short and long term. These insights can help drive messaging, content and sales efforts as well. Consider these B2B marketing personalization strategies.
Segment Your Audience
To closely appeal to your audience members, it is essential to segment the audience into smaller, similar groups. These groups can be separated based on multiple factors such as industry, seniority, geography or area of interest. Doing this can help you outline what messaging and content will be most relevant to them. Delivering messaging and content that doesn’t match their pain points, industry or seniority won’t have a “wow” factor. Plus, this lack of personalization can hurt their ability to connect with your marketing efforts.
Utilize Targeted Messaging
Once you have segmented your audience properly, the next step is to develop targeted messages for each segment. This messaging should be based on comprehensive research you have conducted to determine the best language, offers and media to use to reach each segment. Personalization in messaging must go further than a personalized name token in an email. Messaging should touch on pain points, include industry language and speak to the person’s role in their organization.
Build a Solid Content Library
Having a full, backlogged content library is also a key factor for personalization efforts. If you’re struggling to find content to deliver to them as an offering or something that speaks to their pain point, this could indicate that your content library is lacking. Repurposing and rewriting previously created content pieces can help you deliver more personalized content to your prospects and leads.
Be Personable with Your Audience
When interacting with your audience, it is important to be as personable as possible, even when you are sending out campaigns to large audiences. This can be an opportunity to use personalized fields like their name, company or job title, but it’s important to remember to take this an extra step. Adding a personalized P.S. or note at the bottom can let your audience members know that you’re thinking of them as a person, not as a number or someone in a database.
Add Fun Elements
Another best practice is to show your audience that you’re a person too. Features such as Google authorship or employee spotlights highlight the “human side” of your company. You shouldn’t be afraid to showcase a little of your company’s personality. After all, it will help you stand out from your competitors, who are most likely sticking with the traditional, “safer” methods of B2B marketing. Plus, fun elements can be refreshing for people who are used to consuming the same message and content over and over.
Form Strong Relationships
In the world of B2B sales and marketing, many purchasing decisions are not made immediately. Rather, they take place only after a process involving a team of decision-makers supported by multiple sources of data. Therefore, it is important to remain part of the conversation until the purchasing decision is made. By developing a relationship with these key decision-makers, you ensure that your brand remains top of mind throughout this process. Plus, this also provides you with an opportunity to continue with your personalization efforts to boost the impact of your marketing campaigns and efforts.