3 Steps to Personalising your Marketing

Whether you are a B2B or B2C business you are marketing to individuals. Your customers are all different.  They have varying needs wants and desires, so why would you send them all exactly the same content?

How important is it to send personalised content?

An Experian marketing white paper shows that 100% of marketers think personalization is important.  Personalized marketing helps build relationships and create trust. 90% of consumers see it as acceptable for businesses they have recently purchased from to use their data to personalize communications.

Here are the 3 steps you need to take to personalise your marketing

1. Collect data, lots of it

Before you can start personalizing your marketing approach you need to collect data. You are already likely to have some basic data on your customers e.g. name, email address, and potentially a phone number. Your job now is to build on this data.

It may be tempting to send out long questionnaires with all the questions you want answers to but refrain from doing so. Your customers are likely to abandon long questionnaires. Instead, periodically ask your customers 2-3 questions, and make sure you explain why you are doing so.

You should ask questions such as when their birthday is, what interests them, and what social media networks they use. This information on the surface may not seem relevant to you or your industry but it means you can personalize your customers’ experience. For example, if you know your customer’s birth date you can send personalized offers on that date, and interact with them on social media.

2. Create a buyer persona

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional ‘character’ that is created to represent a segment of your audience, based on common factors. It is recommended to create at least 3 personas and a maximum of 5, this is enough to segment without losing key details.

You can use the following information to build your persona:

• Age Gender
• Location
• Income
• Education
• Family
• Interests
• Hobbies
• Working Industry
• Pain points
• Goals
• Interests
• Purchase frequency – Is there a peak at certain times of the year?
• Incentives –  Which ones do they respond to?
• What kind of customer are they? – Impulsive, need-based, discount, loyal
• For B2B what kind of authority do they have? –  Researcher, decision maker, gatekeeper

3. Refine the message

Once you have clarity of your personas you can start to refine your message for each one. Try coming up with an elevator pitch for each of your personas. Your elevator pitch should be a line or short phrase that addresses their needs, wants, and desires in line with your brand message.

Your personas will also help you personalize the message so it reaches your segment at times they are likely to make purchases by offering products they would.