When you log into your Spotify or Pandora account, you get personalized music recommendations based on your listening history and feedback about your likes and dislikes. When you log onto Facebook or LinkedIn, you see a personalized news feed based on what or who you normally engage with.
In the same way, your website’s content should be optimized to show each reader the content most relevant to them. By leveraging the magic of personalization, you show that you understand your customer needs and increase your conversion rates as a result.
When your target audience sees only what’s relevant to them, it makes them feel connected to your brand, as if the content were made specifically for them. Here are 5 strategies for personalizing your content marketing strategy:
1. Research Your Customer and Create Customer Personas
While your business targets a specific market, you’re bound to have sub-groups or types of customers you serve with different products or areas of expertise. Thanks to technology, you can break up the customer experience based on research-based customer personas that represent highly targeted groups within your target market. There are many tools online that help you create buyer personas for your business.
One great tool is Hubspot’s “Make My Persona” generator, which lets you create a digital profile of each buyer persona. After asking you questions about the persona, it compiles your answers into an intelligent profile. Anyone in your organization, from marketing to sales, can look at these persona profiles to effectively reach each customer group.
2. Use Personalization Software
Personalization software looks for patterns in online behavior to identify the content that’s most relevant to display. Some software companies currently offering this are Optimizely, Evergage, Segment, Quibit and Marketo. Your personalization software should integrate with your CRM tool, so that it can pull from data you already have on your customers.
Most personalization tools feature AI and machine learning technology that analyzes data to determine which content will best engage and convert each individual. In addition to segmenting your web visitors, most personalization tools also segment your email, mobile and social media channels.
3. Personalize Your SEO Strategy
Your content marketing strategy should support your SEO strategy. When your content marketing strategy is segmented based on buyer personas, you also need to personalize your SEO strategy accordingly. Segment keywords based on customer personas, and use longtail, conversational key phrases your persona would use. This way, each blog post, which is already written with a persona in mind, can include keywords optimized for its persona.
Does the persona ask their AI device or type a Google search into their phone? What questions are they asking involving your business’s keywords? Combine keyword research with the research you’ve already done on your buyer personas to develop a personalized SEO strategy.
4. Segment Your Landing Pages
When you have tailored content on your site that is written with specific target buyer personas in mind, personalizing the content each visitor sees also links them to next steps in the customer journey that are personalized for them. Your visitor will read blog posts relevant to them, which also link to the most relevant landing pages for products and services. This goes a long way in increasing conversion rates on your website.
On the other hand, an all-inclusive marketing strategy can’t give each customer specific directions that make sense to them. When directed to the most relevant landing page for them, a visitor is more likely to take action–whether to sign up for your email list or look at a product offer.
5. Personalize Your Social Media Strategy
Marketers have used social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook to generate sales for a long time. However, with the new “social commerce” trend, where you can place product links directly into videos, images and other content on social media, personalizing your social media to each of your buyer personas is crucial.
That doesn’t mean you need a separate Twitter account for each persona. Instead, research which social media platforms each persona uses the most and what they use them for. Persona A may spend most of their time on Facebook for staying in touch, whereas Persona B may be on Pinterest pinning ideas. Whereas your Facebook strategy should appeal more to Persona A, your Pinterest strategy should be geared toward Persona B.
Bottom Line
Companies who value knowing their customer and matching them with the content they need excel in building connections. While other companies deploy their one-size-fits-all content marketing strategies, leveraging personalization will give you a competitive edge. By creating awesome content and tailoring the customer’s experience of your brand to their needs, you’re able to establish authority and increase your conversion rates.