Using Personalization and Content to Create Quality Leads

Marketers are always looking for ways to improve the quality of their leads. One quality lead that results in conversion is far better than ten random ones that don’t. It’s the whole “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” thing. Marketers don’t want to waste precious time trying to nurture leads that just aren’t going to go anywhere, so they are consistently looking for new and better strategies that will provide them with higher quality leads.

How are they doing that? In a new report by Ascend2, 60 percent of marketing influencers who were asked said that using personalization in their marketing efforts is their primary strategy for improving lead generation quality. Improving content was a very close second, with 57 percent of respondents naming that as the way to improve lead quality.

I see the two strategies – increased personalization and improved content – as going hand-in-hand. Content that is personalized speaks to your customer, or to a specific group of customers. When customers feel valued as a result of personalization, they are more likely to engage with your content, the place where you highlight your products, services, and expertise. And when they engage with your content, there’s a higher chance that they will convert.

How Does Personalization Improve Lead Generation?

It’s challenging being a B2B marketer. You have to deal with competition, time, budget, and resources while working to grow clients’ businesses. Personalization takes time and money, so it often gets overlooked. However, optimizing personalization in marketing content is crucial for the continued growth of any business. Customers expect their experiences to be unique, tailored to their business, and personalized. In fact, nearly three-quarters of consumers say they only engage with personalized messaging. That means that the majority of your generic messaging isn’t even read by your target audience.

Here are some of the ways that personalization can improve your lead generation strategy:

• Higher Marketing ROI: Visitors that you attract using personalized marketing content are more likely to actually be interested in what you’re selling. Capturing these higher quality leads will ultimately lead to a higher marketing ROI.
• Increased Conversion Rate: Personalized marketing campaigns lead to more customer engagement, which results in more converted sales.
• Better Customer Retention: It’s much more economical to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones. Keeping existing clients engaged by using personalization will ensure that they continue to be loyal return customers. Engaging content that is based on their preference, persona, and other unique factors will capture their interest.

Strategies for Using Personalization in Marketing Content

Customer journeys are not all created equal. They are unique to the customer. That means that your marketing efforts should be too. That’s why personalization is essential to attract the type of customers you want and encourage them to convert.

Whether you are doing an email campaign, writing a landing page, or publishing a blog post, your content should address the needs of your individual prospects. This may sound like an impossible task, but there are some things you can do to make sure that those prospects hear the right message at the right time. Consider the following:

• Use customer segmentation: Buyers understand that we have their information – this is especially true of B2B prospects. They have come to expect that we’ll use it and that it will be to their benefit. When you practice customer segmentation, you are better able to reach specific prospects with content that is useful and engaging to them, and that leads to more conversions.
• Highlight topics that are important to your audience: Engaging content is your chance to capture the attention of your potential customers a tell them about your products or services. You can use it to address their pain points and how your products and services can solve them. Listen to what your customers are saying (blog post comments, questions, social media comments, competitor websites, etc.) do help determine which topics are important to them.
• Personalize landing pages: Landing pages are critical when it comes to converting organic traffic. You can use landing pages to create unique and personal experiences for those prospects that you know are already looking for products and services like yours and convert them into quality leads. This may require some testing to see which landing page content best motivates prospects to take further action toward conversion.

Final Thoughts

Generating high-quality B2B leads doesn’t have to be hard, but it takes some time and effort to provide potential customers with the personalized experience they want when they’re buying a product or service. Improved, personalized content allows you to do that. When you combine personalization and content marketing, you’ll see how it improves the quality of leads generated and helps you close more deals.