In a world where the B2B buyer is faced with a multitude of options, personalization has quickly become the gold standard of B2B marketing. In fact, a personalized experience is often the deciding factor when it comes to converting prospects. Consider these statistics:
- In a study of 650 multichannel marketing campaigns, personalized campaigns consistently and overwhelmingly beat out static campaigns in generating a high response rate from recipients (source).
- 78% of consumers said they were more likely to buy from a retailer that presented them with offers targeted to their interests, wants, and needs (source).
- 86% of respondents said they would be willing to pay 25% more for better customer experience.
- 72% of respondents reported that generic marketing messages turned them off from a company.
While the majority of B2B marketers have come to understand the benefits of personalized marketing, many still struggle to drive results. So, where’s the missing link?
The Importance of Data
Data is an essential ingredient of all personalized marketing campaigns. It’s no longer enough to guess who your target audience is and what they are looking for. Instead, use your existing client database to create a clear and informed picture of your best buyers.
This ‘picture’ is often referred to as a buyer persona. Essentially, a buyer persona is a detailed profile of your best clients, made up of demographic and firmographic information such as job title, job function, management level, industry, and company size.
Depending on your particular company, you may have one buyer persona or you may have many different buyer personas. The more you understand about your clients and prospects, the easier it will be to deliver highly personalized, targeted content to the right people, at the right time, using the right channels.
For an in-depth guide to creating buyer personas, check out this blog post: How to Create Buyer Personas & Turn Your Leads into Sales.
Data and Email Campaign Personalization
Email marketing is the outlet of choice for many B2B marketers – primarily because of the ease of implementation, cost effectiveness and ultimately, success rates.
In fact, individualized email campaign messaging and segmented email lists have been found to be the most effective personalization techniques for 50% and 51% of B2B marketers respectively (source).
To implement your own personalized email campaigns, use the buyer personas you created to segment your email list into, smaller, more targeted lists. Doing so will allow you to send targeted email campaigns based on industry, buying preference, job title, and more.
When executed effectively, personalized email campaigns can produce staggering improvement in your B2B’s engagement metrics.
Data and Dynamic Web Experiences
In today’s technology-driven environment, your website is the starting point for most prospects—you want to make a good first impression. Rather than use generic, static landing pages, use personalized web content to push your prospects through the sales funnel.
When executed effectively, personalized web pages can have a huge impact on a number of vital marketing initiatives, including increased leads, revenue, and client satisfaction. In fact,
- 69% of buyers rank “relevant content that speaks directly to [their] company” as the most important factor when visiting a vendor website to conduct research. (source)
As with email, your buyer personas should dictate the language you use, the content you serve, and the CTA’s you employ
Data and Social Media Personalization
By now, B2B marketers know that social media is a vital component of any marketing campaign. Not only is it a great place to reach prospects, but it also facilitates one-to-one conversations with them.
Using the buyer personas you’ve created, your marketing team is better equipped to find your prospects in the social sphere and tap into the conversations they’re having. This process of social listening enables you to better tailor your content for your prospects and subsequently deliver it on their preferred platform.
Find and respond to your prospects on social media to demonstrate to your audience that you have a vested interest in helping them – thus creating the ultimate personalized experience.
Key Takeaways
If you’re not already using data to customize your marketing communications, it’s time to start. The process of analyzing client data to inform your marketing decisions is often referred to as data-driven marketing.
As explained, this involves systematically extracting inferences from your client database to uncover trends and create opportunities that scale the effectiveness of your campaigns. While this isn’t a new concept, most marketers still struggle to meet objectives, citing low-quality data and other concerns. So where does your organization stand?
Prioritize your marketing database, create buyer personas, and start personalizing your B2B marketing efforts today!
About the Author: Krysta Williams is a Marketing Content Specialist at ZoomInfo. Krysta is a recent graduate of Fitchburg State University, where she received her Bachelor’s of Science in Communications Media, with a concentration in Professional Communications. Prior to joining the ZoomInfo team, Krysta has worked in various marketing roles, contributing content to multiple industry publications.
