10 Ways To Boost Lead Generation Using Personalisation
23 April 2024, Simon Hall
When we think of personalisation, different forms of consumer-related personalisation probably come to mind, such as different sizes of clothing, and a greater variety of colours of a particular product.
In B2B, personalisation has been evolving in different ways. For some time, products and services have been tailored or personalised according to organisation’s needs.
In some B2B industries, the personalising of products and services are provided exclusively i.e. as a default part of the offering.
Another main area of B2B personalisation is in personalising marketing, where messages and content are adapted according to B2B organisations and stakeholders
B2B personalisation marketing forms parts of most B2B marketers’ strategies. In fact, 92% of B2B marketers recognise the need to deliver personalised targeted communications to be more effective, according to a recent study of B2B buyers and sellers (Goldberg 2018).
Personalisation marketing is about using forms of B2B customer information to create or improve experiences through marketing. It involves tailoring content or parts of content to target customers through collecting and analysing data.
Below are ten areas where you could be leveraging personalisation to improve the quality of your captured and nurtured leads.
1. Clearly define and set up a buyer persona
Before doing personalisation, the first step to consider is “who” to personalise for. The “who” doesn’t have to be a named individual but can be a target customer segment focusing on a stage of the buying process.
Segmentation is an important part in defining the “who”, but is often overlooked in marketing or sometimes isn’t precise enough to move to the next stage, which is selecting the ‘key’ customer segment.
Once a key customer segment is selected, the next step is to define the buyer persona (or personas) who will be targeted as part of the marketing. Typically, in creating a buyer persona, a number of real-life customers (and roles) should form part of this buyer persona creation.
2. Segmenting your database
Another way to personalise your marketing is to apply a form of segmentation to your database. One common activity is to segment email lists.
This ideally should use a segmentation approach mentioned above, but there may be additional segmentation criteria applied which might be more specific to the communication channel. For example, for email these are usually open rates, click-through rates.
3. Use email triggers
Email marketing can be further personalised through email triggers or auto responders.
Email triggers may differ by prospects or retention customers and different platforms. For example, acquisition email triggers might be tied to newsletter sign-ups; to website pages clicked on, website downloads etc.
Email triggers can also be tied to CRM and purchase activity, where new leads and opportunities for existing customers are identified. Triggers might be where purchase activity is changed, such as customers are purchasing less or less frequently.
Email triggers may also simply be linked to time periods, e.g. one year or one month after first purchase.
4. Create specific landing pages
One can create specific landing pages according to a role or a sector or a buyer persona’s pain point.
By creating tailored landing pages, this allows B2B companies to cater more specifically to the particular needs and interests of the prospective customer. One can subsequently use those landing pages and insights to further improve marketing to the prospect.
5. Use dynamic personalisation techniques
This personalisation can be used to tailor website content to a B2B user’s preferences, interests and behaviour.
Dynamic personalisation technologies work by analysing customer behaviour and preference data and then automatically adjusting website content and messages on the page in real-time.
Typical examples of website dynamic personalisation are by 1) type of company e.g. large enterprise vs. SMB; 2) related product offerings, 3) more tailored messaging 4) segment-specific content and imagery.
6. Use AI-based chatbots
There are various case studies which show that the difference in conversions can be as much as 250% or more based on implementation tactics.
The key with chatbots is to first do the homework to understand where on the website you are losing traffic, and then to evaluate web pages in terms of their value. Consider implementing chatbot technology on those high-value pages.
7. Use dynamic call to actions
Website technology can allow you to implement dynamic call-to-actions which change according to different customers’ needs and interests.
8. Define and tailor webcasts and webinars
Don’t just think about blanket topics and themes but consider the needs of the prospect. Create content in your webinar to address any concerns, needs or pain points they have mentioned previously.
9. Make use of conversational technology
These are sometimes also called revenue assistants and typically AI-based.
Although not technically marketing, there is a definite overlap between sales and marketing as conversational digital assistants help to engage, nurture and qualify interest before a sales person actively engaged.
Conversational assistants might be used to further nurture and qualify a marketing qualified lead before it becomes a sales ready lead (i.e. a lead ready to pass on to sales).
They can be used via email, SMS or even messenger applications and are particularly interested when used with AI as they listen and respond to recipients.
10. Leverage AI to help develop personalised content
Finally, consider how you can use AI technology to tailor and personalise your content. There are many applications in the generative AI camp which can help you tailor blogs, titles, call-to actions, emails, posts, and even slide decks.
Getting started
So where do you start?
One approach might be to look at the personalisation spectrum below and consider at what point you can personalise today and what personalisation level you want to take your marketing to.
The ability to personalise marketing typically comes down to two main things, the quality or richness of data you have relating to your prospects and the resource in terms of technologies/people you have to hand to go about personalizing content.
