Post Credit: Marketing Week

Many brands still use ‘recognise me’ personalisation, which actually harms commercial outcomes, rather than the more valuable ‘help me’ form.

According to Evergage, 88% of marketers say their customers expect an experience that’s personalised to them.

But, how big is the gap between expectation and reality when it comes to executing these highly individualised experiences? If personalisation is the utopia — how do we bridge the gap between one-size-fits-all marketing and truly bespoke, one-to-one experiences?

Enter relevance: the most important factor and first step in driving your business towards total personalisation. Let’s explore the power of delivering relevance across every touchpoint from the very first communication — showcasing that you understand your prospects and helping to move them more effectively through the funnel.

Personalisation is all about designing or producing something that meets individual requirements. But it’s that keyword ‘individual’ that often leads B2B marketers to hit a wall. For a truly bespoke experience, website visitors and campaign recipients need to share some level of data with you. And getting hold of personal information is no easy feat – with important data protection legislation to abide by, and growing concerns around what online data is being used for. B2B marketers need to find the right balance to be able to deliver segmented messages at scale, without resorting to lazy or invasive personalisation tactics.

According to Gartner, there are two different options when it comes to personalisation. ‘Recognise me’ personalisation utilises data to showcase that you know who the buyer is, what is important to them and what they have done. This could be tailoring imagery and content, or greeting the visitor by name, for example.

‘Help me’ personalisation, on the other hand, uses data to make the buyer journey easier and faster, reassuring prospects with proof-points to relieve anxiety they may feel about their purchase, as well as directing them to the right place to solve their specific problems, and enabling users to reward them with exclusive offers. The same Gartner study found that ‘help me’ personalisation delivered a 16% lift in commercial benefit, while ‘recognise me’ personalisation saw a drop.

When we consider the customer experience, this makes perfect sense. At Webeo, our own client campaigns prove that this ‘help me’ approach offers the best experience, greatest connection and the most significant uplift. By harnessing relevance to deliver personalisation to industry verticals, Webeo has helped clients see a 31% drop in bounce-rate, a 90% increase in the time spent on-site, and a 448% increase in conversions. Thanks to real-time reverse IP tracking technology, B2B marketers are able to create instantly richer connections with prospects as they land — an advantage we have over consumer marketers that rely entirely on form-fills, downloads, sign-ups and cookies.

According to DemandGen, 71% believe a business website is the most influential touchpoint when it comes to making decisions. So, it should be used to make the prospect’s experience simpler, save them time and showcase like-minded businesses that have seen success with your products or services.

Use your buyer personas to gain further understanding, remind yourself of key challenges your buyers face and translate them into helpful online communications. A relevant site is like saying to your prospects and customers:  “We have this data and we’ve really thought about how we’re going to use it. We’re identifying what’s important to you and directly connecting you to what you need.”

If you’re looking to amplify your customer journey and build instantly deeper connections with real-time relevance, there are a number of tools to help you on your journey. Combine personalisation technology with on-site AI like Drift and Intercom to create intuitive customer journeys and present relevant offers.

Deliver behavioral based content, recommendations and utilise previous buyer journeys with Dynamic Yield.

To paint a picture of your visitors’ website journeys, map their experience and uncover stumbling blocks, Hotjar is highly effective.

And, finally, discover Webeo – to segment your audience with ease, recognise buyer needs immediately with no need for data sharing, and scale your personalisation accordingly.

Post Credit: Marketing Week