Why Personalization Is the Key to Winning More Inbound Leads

With the advances in modern digital marketing, it’s never been easier to provide a unique, personalized experience for consumers. So, let’s look at why you’d want to implement this kind of marketing and specifically why personalization is the key to winning more inbound leads.

In this day and age, consumers have come to expect a personalized experience at every stage of the customer journey … including the top-of-funnel stages of awareness and interest as well as the middle-of funnel stages of consideration and engagement.

So, if you want to win more inbound leads, you need to give them the experience they want.

Done right, personalization helps marketing feel like a conversation between the consumer and the brand, instead of being mass broadcast communication that may or may not be relevant.

In fact, Accenture reports that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations.

The Right and Wrong Way to Personalize the Customer Experience

But there’s a fine line between digital marketing personalization being cool and creepy.

Specifically, people tend to not appreciate feeling digitally “stalked” by receiving marketing triggered by their online or physical activity without their permission. For example, the data from Accenture’s research shows that consumers find the following personalization tactics creepy:

• Text from a brand or retailer when walking by a store (41%)
• Mobile notification after walking by a store (40%)
• Ads on social media for items browsed on a brand website (35%)

On the other hand, people do appreciate a company that pays attention and reacts to what they say.

Accenture’s research shows that consumers consider the “coolest engagement tactics” to include:

• Receiving an apology email after a poor in-store or online experience (45%)
• Posting an apology message on a brand website (41%)

People want to be in control of the personalized marketing they receive from a company. That means getting their permission first.

Permission-Based Personalization

Traditional personalized content at the middle of the funnel is typically delivered by email after the prospect has signed up for your email newsletter or opted in for a downloadable lead magnet. In other words, once they’ve given you permission to send them emails.

But permission-based personalization can also occur when someone creates a profile on your website in order to access exclusive “members-only” content, when they’ve signed up for a free trial, or when they’ve taken part of any number of other lead generation tactics.

And people ARE willing to give their data to companies to improve their experience with them.

In fact, HubSpot reports that:

• 83% of shoppers are willing to provide their data to get a more personalized experience
• 90% of consumers are willing to share their data to receive a cheaper and easier brand experience

Personalization Also Includes Personalizing Your Brand

In addition to using customer data to personalize the experience with relevant content, offers, and suggestions, you’ll also win more inbound leads by creating a more human-to-human experience with your marketing.

The old adage about people liking to do business with those whom they know, like, and trust still holds true. And it’s easier for them to know, like, and trust your brand when they can put a face (or faces) to it.

Personalizing your brand includes being transparent about why you’re collecting personal data and what it will be used for … and then ONLY using it for the stated reasons.

It also includes using a conversational tone of voice in your content and being genuinely helpful.

Personalization Can Be Challenging, but it Doesn’t Have to Be

HubSpot reports that “40% of marketers say their biggest challenge with personalization is linking to data-related technologies, while 34% struggle with poor data quality.”

Getting it right can certainly be a challenge, especially if you’re trying to handle it on your own.

But you don’t have to figure it out on your own. We’re here to help.

One of WorldLight Media’s specialties is strategic, inbound lead generation and marketing systems. And we invite you to get in touch with our team to discuss how we can help you incorporate personalization so that you can win more leads.

Simply click here to use our convenient online form to get the conversation started.