Download smart content best practices

Why Personalization Matters:
And How To Use It To Drive Conversions
Sarah Posnak, HubSpot Inbound Marketing Specialist
AGENDA
1
What is personalization?
2
Why personalize your website?
3
How smart content serves your users
4
How to use smart content
BUT FIRST, a little background…
THE OLD
MARKETING PLAYBOOK
IS
BROKEN.
86%
91%
skip TV ads
unsubscribe
from email
44%
of direct mail is
never opened
200M
on the
Do Not Call list
Inbound updates the playbook based
on the way people buy today.
Get Found Online:
• Website pages
• Blog articles
• Social media
messages
• All optimized to
drive qualified leads
to your site.
Your
Content
Inbound updates the playbook based
on the way people buy today.
Get Found Online:
• Website pages
• Blog articles
• Social media
messages
• All optimized to
drive qualified leads
to your site.
Understand Your
Buyers:
• Personalize your
marketing
• Identify buyer
needs
• Understand what
content pulls leads
through sales
funnel
Marketers need a lot
of tools to do their
job right.
ALL IN ONE
89% of online
consumers use
search engines
when making a
purchasing decision
Content marketing
generates 3x as many
leads as traditional
marketing, but costs 62%
less
Companies that excel at lead
nurturing generate 50% more
sales-ready leads at a 33% lower
cost
88% of consumers have
read reviews to determine
the quality of a local
business
1
WHAT IS
PERSONALIZATION?
• People are human and they change. They access your
content from multiple devices. They come at it from a
number of different channels. And, perhaps most
importantly, as their experience with your company grows,
their needs and interests change. And yet, most marketing
still treats them all the same.
• Personalization is a tool that you can use inside of your
larger contextual marketing strategy. It allows you to focus
on an individual and tailor the website experience by
showing the most relevant message to each person.
• Smart content, allows you to deliver the right content, to the
right person, at the right time.
74%
of online consumers get
frustrated with websites when
content appears that has nothing
to do with their interests.
-2013 Online Personal Experience study
40%
of consumers buy more from companies who
personalize the shopping experience across
channels.
-MyBuys Study
2
WHY PERSONALIZE
YOUR WEBSITE?
94%
of businesses agree that personalization is “critical” to
current and future success.
-Econsultancy + Monetate
Have a
website that
never gets old.
Create a remarkable user
experience by showing
new and relevant content.
FLICKR USER CATALINA OLAVARRIA
Increase conversion rates.
Calls-to-action that are targeted to the viewer
had a
higher conversion rate than generic CTAs by
42%
-HubSpot study of over 93,000 CTAs
19%
uplift in sales from companies
using personalization
(Source: Econsultancy + Monetate)
3
HOW SMART CONTENT
SERVES YOUR USERS
FLICKR USER JOSHUA BARNETT
Be the company
that cares about
its users.
You’re thinking about your
users and delivering the
content that they actually
need.
FLICKR USER SEANTOYER
Smart Content aligns with the right
stage of the Buyer’s Journey.
This lets you guide users further along the
buying process, increasing conversions.
FLICKR USER ASENAT29
Smart Content promotes new offers.
This gives you an opportunity to boost conversions.
FLICKR USER WESLEY ELLER
Smart Content cuts the
number of steps to a
conversion.
Offer relevant content
instead of making users
search for it, and never
ask the same questions
on a form twice.
TWO IMPORTANT
CONCEPTS
• Lifecycle marketing: Promoters don’t just materialize out of thin air: they
start off as strangers, visitors, contacts, and customers. Specific marketing
actions and tools help to transform those strangers into promoters.
• Contact property: Pieces of information on individual
contacts
4
HOW TO USE SMART
CONTENT
Where do you start?
Evaluate your contacts database.
Set default values for all personalization efforts.
Determine the personalization purpose.
Evaluate your contacts database.
Set default values for all personalization efforts.
Determine the personalization purpose.
Take the time to evaluate what data
you have about your contacts.
Evaluate your contacts database.
Set default values for all personalization efforts.
Determine the personalization purpose.
What happens when contacts see a personalization
token for a property that
you don’t know about them?
What happens when contacts see a personalization
token for a property that
you don’t know about them?
Evaluate your contacts database.
Set default values for all personalization efforts.
Determine the personalization purpose.
PERSONALIZATION PURPOSE
•
To drive engagement
•
To communicate specifics to the individual.
Personalization can help to
communicate specifics about the individual.
Evaluate your contacts database.
Set default values for all personalization efforts.
Determine the personalization purpose.
WHAT DOES SMART
CONTENT LOOK LIKE?
Smart Calls-to-Action
Smart Text
Smart Form Fields
Personalization Tokens
Smart Text
Personalize the text on any page to tailor your content to different audiences.
Smart Calls-to-Action
Show a new, relevant offer every time and boost your conversion rates.
Personalization Tokens
Personalization tokens insert small bits of information pulled from a user’s Contact record
Smart Form Fields
When a contact revisits a form, Smart Form Fields replace old fields with new ones.
SMART CONTENT
PLACEMENT
Personalize your
site pages.
Map your site pages to the
Buyer’s Journey to figure out
which smart content will be
most relevant.
Personalize your
landing pages.
Tailor your offer to different
audiences and never ask
them for the same
information twice!
Personalize your
blog sidebar.
But caution! Don’t use smart
text in your blog posts.
Having multiple blog posts
drives more traffic to your site
- so don’t use smart text to
compress all of your content
on one post.
Personalize your emails.
According to Experian, emails with personalized subject lines have a
26% higher open rate.
Personalize your thank you pages.
Thank the user for getting your offer, and provide some tailored direction.
Note: To make sure that the form on the landing page has time to sync,
don’t personalize here with information that you just gathered.
SMART CONTENT
BEST PRACTICES
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and
search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
57%
of people are “OK with
providing personal information
on a website as long as it’s for
their benefit.”
(Source: Janrain/Harris)
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and
search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
Start small.
Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with the possibilities! Personalize one area at a time.
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and
search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
Optimize default content
for both first-time visitors
and search engines.
Choose content that you know performs
well with a broad segment of your
audience, and optimize it for the keywords
that you want to rank for.
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and
search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
FLICKR USER DON MCCULLOUGH
Don’t be creepy.
Pick personalization tokens wisely - don’t make your users feel surprised to see their
information. And craft other smart content to address the user’s needs.
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and
search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
Show offers, products and services to all visitors if there’s even a remote chance of
crossover between your different audiences.
SMART CONTENT BEST PRACTICES
Promote a good user experience - create smart content that
carries weight.
Start small.
Optimize default content for both first-time visitors and
search engines.
Don’t be creepy.
Make sure users can get to all valuable content.
SMART CONTENT
EXAMPLES
Some live examples….
NEXT STEPS
1. Pick the audience for your smart content, and decide
on your segments. We recommend starting with your
customers first.
2. Decide where to place smart content on your website.
3. Create one piece of smart content and place it on
your website.
Q
APPENDIX
RESOURCES
1.
The Contextual Marketing Training + Certification
2. How to Use Smart Content
3. The New Online Rulebook: Seven Elements of
Contextual Marketing
4. An Introduction to Using Dynamic Content in Marketing