Dove Direct Print & Marketing Blog - “2019s B2B Strategic Personalized Marketing Integration Initiatives”

Welcome to the Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog. Today's post, "2019s B2B Strategic Personalized Marketing Integration Initiatives" presents an overview on how B2B marketing concepts require a more succinct and robust strategy in order to deliver increased sales conversion results. What 2018 has taught all organizations, both B2B and B2C, is that personalized marketing communications delivers better results. We are also very aware that the marketplace is steeped in various methodologies that appear to be reasonable tactics on delivering personalized content and messaging for specific targeting.

We have also been enlightened by several leading technology companies including Google, whose personalized postcard marketing initiatives actually push recipients to their various online destinations. What appears to be in flux, however, is the way forward for any B2B business to actually nail down the concepts that can deliver on the personalization promise of increased ROI.

To be clear, the personalized consumer journey has evolved far past the point of prospects and customers receiving a content message that simply has their name on it. B2B buyers are looking for problem solving offerings that are cost efficient, dependable, and trustworthy, including an in-depth understanding of their challenges, as well as their competitors' tactics. That said, these prerequisites should be easy enough to comprehend and moreover should outline a road map to communicate said tactics to targeted B2B buyers.

Another B2B marketing trend that has been reported throughout 2018 is that 92% of the B2B marketing community ascribes to the demand to deliver personalized content in their communication efforts. Fundamentally, 2018 is behind us, and 2019 plans are underway. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the B2B marketing community to create new inroads by creating and applying deeper content than just being able to address targets by their first name.

Tailoring the Buyer Experience

Ok, so the brand has discovered buyer targets via a number of ways that most organizations have a handle on, such as internal account based lists, trade show participation, churn targeting through which purchasing habits can be accessed, and of course their sales team input, and lastly any referrals. Some would believe that is enough to generate personalized communication messaging. Albeit through a limited lens, that could be deemed correct for years gone by, but not necessarily enough to move the needle in 2019.

Regardless of the industry, all B2B buyers are not the same, and one size communication tactics often fail to address the specific needs of individual B2B buyers. The idea of grouping targeted B2B buyers into a commonality of need could prove to be a dangerous calculation. Therefore, a better solution for targeting B2B buyers is to uncover and create communications that speak to a specific need, problem or interest, for each B2B buyer.

The art of customizing personalized content based on more than identifying the first and last name may seem burdensome at the outset, however, by targeting specific challenges in a personal manner, marketers will yield better results.

The Buyer Path Made Simple

One way for marketers to help improve the personalized experience is to enhance the user experience. Gone are the days when a buyer is excited about content on a brands' website, only to be confronted with having to fill out a long form, that takes more time than a mission to Mars. As a result, frustration sets in, and in many cases the buyer will fail to return, or even contact the brand.

This elongated type of experience continues to plague a high number of B2B marketing efforts, which leads us to re-examine how form completion efforts can better enhance the user experience as opposed to driving them to a competitor.

To begin with, people in general are in a rush to get things done these days. This rush by the minute behavior is due in part to technology providing quicker access and functionality that speeds up the perception that accomplishing tasks are faster, and when any process impedes that perception, folks get annoyed and tend to exit that task. Remedies that can alleviate those hassles begin with pre-populating forms with information obtained from previous visitors which will optimize their experience, thus decreasing roadblocks to completing the form. This pre-population form remedy also enhances the accuracy of submitted forms.

Email Execution Matters

According to a majority, B2B buyers are of the mindset that most email communications fail to align and address a particular buyer's requirement. In fact, 67% of B2B buyers are convinced that data acquisition is a critical component necessary to boost the manner in which marketing and sales teams connect with them. In addition, due to the fact that so many email marketing templates are being utilized, they tend to fall into the generic category.

Improved email marketing tactics should leverage personalized content within the body of the email in addition to including name, company and title. Email messages should also provide dynamic content that can be portioned based on prior actions and behaviors. Between personalized content and dynamic content, these tactics alone will help to ensure that more emails will have a better chance of being read versus deleted.

Personalized Videos Increase ROI

52% of B2B marketers claim that video marketing content produces the best ROI as evidenced in a recent Syndacast report. For a number of years, the marketing industry has embraced video content marketing and more B2B marketers are investing in video content marketing. That said, the video content marketing strategy is now being upgraded to include the personalization aspect in video marketing.

With any marketing strategy or tactic, the overarching goal is to drive engagement. Personalized machinations are successfully achieving increased engagement. Vidyard reports that personalized videos have demonstrated a 16x increase in click-to-opens, not to mention a 4.5 increase in total unique click through rates. Therefore, personalized video content is the mantra for 2019 and beyond.

Influencing Purchase Decisions via Website Content

Websites are now considered the virtual office space and represents the entry point to the brand. Many websites are hawking their stuff so to speak, with a laundry list of solutions and services, which of course provides necessary information about the brand. However, in today's marketing world, marketing communications that speak to personal challenges, goals and solutions from the customer's viewpoint will give rise to increased purchasing decisions, which could invariably shorten the B2B sales cycle.

It is also critical to keep in mind that the buyer personas will differ, therefore, a diverse set of prospects and customers will require different content. Therefore, the goal is to create dynamic, relevant content that targets visitors based on their interests. Developing dynamic content is no small task, but starting with segmenting website visitors into various buyer personas, complete with offering buyer journey phases, will provide visitors with content that excites and engages them. Lastly, according to "The State of B2B Sales Acceleration," personalized web experiences on a seller's site helps influence purchase decisions.

The Net-Net

B2B buyers are seeking the personalized experience, and in order to succeed in 2019, data that has been accrued by brands needs to be shared among and across departments. B2B buying personas matter, and to that extent, the development and creation of them will lend credulity to establishing accurate personalized messaging and communications. From simplifying the buyer path to personalizing videos to beefing up your web content, B2B buyers now want and expect a personalized experience. Thanks for reading 2019s B2B Strategic Personalized Marketing Integration Initiatives!

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