Content lies at the heart of digital marketing, shaping the narrative for businesses across various platforms – be it a landing page, an email, or a Facebook post. The challenge lies in understanding that while your company has a singular identity, your diverse audience demands personalized content experiences. This approach not only engages but also converts prospects into loyal customers and can be the main focus point of your lead generation and search engine optimisation campaign.
Understanding Your Audience
The key to successful personalization is getting up close and personal with your customers. You need to delve into their preferences, demographics, and roles to craft content that resonates with each unique group or individual user. This personal touch captures attention and ensures your content serves the most relevant parts of the story to each user.
Crafting Engaging Content Journeys
To delve deeper into this concept, we introduce the idea of a “Content Journey.” In B2B marketing, lead generation rarely occurs with a single piece of content. On average, readers need to encounter 6 to 14 touchpoints with your brand before converting. Each of these touchpoints forms a stepping stone in the Content Journey, guiding readers along a pre-mapped path towards your sales funnel.
What Constitutes a Content Journey?
In essence, a Content Journey maps the steps prospects take on their way to committing to a brand – the ultimate goal being lead generation. While personalizing this journey may seem daunting, it’s a worthwhile investment that demands time, strategic planning, and a creative vision. This vision, however, requires direction and practical tips to shape it effectively.
Steps to Personalize Your Content Journey
- Create customer profiles: Identify who your readers are by asking questions about their roles, company types, age, and experience. These profiles serve as a foundation for designing and modelling your content accordingly.
- Name each customer profile: Assign names to your customer profiles to humanize your target audience. For instance, “Jack” could represent a 45-55-year-old CMO, while “Peter” could embody a 25-30-year-old junior social media manager.
- Collect and analyze tracked data markers: Consider figures such as geo-location, referral source, time of day, IP address, and search queries. This data allows you to offer a personalized experience even during a user’s first visit.
- Tag each piece of content: Label blog posts, landing pages, case studies, etc., with relevant profile names. This ensures that the same content may be used for multiple profiles but presented at different stages of the funnel.
- Serve relevant content based on profiles: Utilize the data collected to present each profile with content that fits their stage in the funnel. Repurpose content to suit each profile, starting with top-of-the-funnel content and progressing to case studies and product demos.
- Target individuals with actionable content: Incorporate call-to-action buttons, lead generation forms, and landing pages at every stage of a visitor’s journey, tailoring these actions to their past behaviours.
Leveraging Tools for Success
While the majority of the work resides in the marketing department, tools like Marketo, Hubspot, or Act-On can assist in data collection and content delivery. While these tools often require integration processes, their impact on shaping personalized experiences is invaluable.
Identifying your target audience and tailoring their experiences may be a complex task, but it directly correlates with the success of your marketing strategy and your ability to generate qualified leads for your company.