It’s nice to walk into a local coffee shop and hear them greet you by name. It’s fun to open a gift that you genuinely love. It’s beautiful to have a best friend that finishes your sentences.
Being known is a magical thing.
So magical, in fact, customers are drawn to it like moths to a flame when they get it from the businesses and brands they support.
After a personalized experience, 80% of customers are more likely to purchase a product or service.
It’s safe to say that personalization isn’t a choice if you want to find great success. But, wowing your audience with personalized web content takes more than greeting them by name in your email newsletters. It’s time to dig deeper.
Read This First: Know Thy Customer & Thy Customer’s Journey
Before you can personalize your content, you must get to know your customers on a personal level. This means taking the time to gather data and create personas that fit your ideal customer.
Take It Further by Breaking Down the Customer Journey
True personalization means speaking to your customers based on their needs at every stage in the customer buying journey. Every stage looks different and requires unique content to inspire your customers to move forward.
Map each persona’s journey from the time they realize they have a need to the time they decide to work with you. (Keep going past that for extra bonus points!)
For example, what might your target customer feel at each stage? What are their concerns or needs? As you define each stage, you’ll begin to see a content strategy take shape.
The Beginning Stages of the Customer Journey
- Awareness: In this stage, your customer realizes they have a problem and begins searching for more information.
- Consideration: In this stage, your customer understands their problem and begins looking for ways to solve it.
- Purchase: In this stage, your customer decides how to solve their problem and begins looking for services to help them. They’ll make their decision to choose your business during this stage.
3 Ways to Create Personalized Content to Inspire Your Audience
Now that you have clear customer personas and some journey maps to inspire your content, it’s time to create. Although there are endless methods used to create personalized content, here are three to get you started.
1. Segment Your Email Audience
We mentioned earlier that personalization takes more than just adding your recipient’s name to the greeting. If you send emails such as newsletters or offers, segment those bad boys. Use an email marketing tool to break your audience down into specific personas, based on your customer journey maps.
For example, during the consideration stage, your customer may visit your website and enter their email address to access an educational lead magnet. You can see that the customer is looking for more information and can tailor the emails you send accordingly. These emails look different than those you send when they fill out your contact form.
2. Map Content to Specific Personas
Sure, blog posts are a great way to attract new leads to your website. But, it’s important to continuously deliver the content your ideal customer finds valuable. Using your personas, consider what content each customer would find most helpful and create it.
Let’s consider an attorney for a moment. They may have several personas, depending on their practice area. For instance, a parent looking for advice on child custody has different needs than a spouse considering divorce. While one may want to know the steps to take to determine custody in clear and concise terms, the other may find more value in an in-depth blog post about the divorce process.
3. Target Your Landing Pages & Ads
Segmentation doesn’t only apply to email. As part of your marketing strategy, you may have landing pages attached to ads that drive customers to your content. If so, target those ads and pages to specific personas. Use these pieces of content to appeal to your persona’s emotions, struggles and needs regarding that niche topic.
Be Mindful of the Creep Factor
Sometimes, businesses think it’s necessary to sift through a customer’s personal information to deliver the best personalized content. Unfortunately, around 86% of customers are concerned about their data privacy. There’s a fine line between wowing your customer and creeping them out.
The fix? Only go after the personal information you need and no more. For example, if you gather information via lead magnet or newsletter opt-ins, only ask for what’s necessary such as email address and first name.
If you follow our advice and continue to drill down deep into what makes your target audience tick, you’ll learn everything you need to personalize your content.
Struggling With Content Creation? Let Us Help.
We know this is a lot to take in, especially if you’re somewhat new to the content game. Yet, if you want to convince and convert your customers, it’s time to overhaul your content. If you need some help, we’re here for you. Send us a message.
