Now’s an exciting time to be a B2B marketer.
B2C has already had its moment with personalized entertainment and shopping experiences for everything from meal kit delivery to pharmaceuticals.
We probably won’t see any more groundbreaking technology emerge from B2C for a while.
B2B, however, is ripe for innovation and new strategies.
Long gone are the days of cold calls and in-person meetings.
That’s not to say that face-to-face business is obsolete, but it’s far from the only way to reach your prospects.
Automation and data collection make it easy to reach your leads with personalized content at every stage of the sales funnel.
Sadly, many B2Bs lag their B2C colleagues in terms of putting these technologies into effective use.
As you develop a B2B lead generation marketing plan template, it’s crucial to include some personalization tactics. Your business needs it and your target audience expects it.
Why Does Your B2B Lead Generation Marketing Plan Template Need Personalization?
Your buyers expect a personalized experience.
Companies like Amazon and Facebook have set the stage for hyper-personalized curated content on an individual scale. You may think that doesn’t apply to B2B websites and marketing – but it definitely does.
Your buyers and target audience know personalization technology exists because it’s available in every consumer app on their phone. Their expectations don’t change once they get to work Monday morning.
73% of buyers say they want the same personalized experience that B2Cs supply and half say businesses are not meeting expectations. Meanwhile, 30% of B2B companies say they’re dabbling in personalization strategies
That leaves a huge gap with countless companies not supplying the type of experience their buyers look for.
Personalization and automation aren’t going anywhere. They’re more important in B2B today more than ever.
With your B2B lead generation marketing plan template, personalization can help you understand your leads and how to address their problems.
6 Personalization Strategies to Use in Your B2B Lead Generation Marketing Plan Template
Personalization involves much more than just using your lead’s first name in an email and creating retargeting ads. Use some of the strategies below to stay ahead of your competitors and meet buyer expectations.
1. Multi-Tier Segmentation
In B2B, your segments change a bit compared to B2C.
You could segment your audience based on which company a lead works for, their job role and salary level, how long they’ve worked for the company, their buying influence, and location (to nail down the best time of day).
However, you should also note how your leads like to consume content. Do they want video, blogs, podcasts, eBooks, email, or something else? For example, 49% of B2Bs watch videos during the buying process while 64% listen to podcasts and 76% enjoy infographics.
2. Drive Data from Personalized Content
Data can make or break your personalized lead generation marketing plan template.
For AI tools to learn anything about your audience and provide them with personalized content, it needs to consume data – and a lot of data.
You could start by creating personalized in-depth blog posts for different segments of your audience. From there, your AI tool would watch the visitors of those posts, take notes of which other pieces of content they visit, and continue learning about their behavior to provide similar content.
The more information you collect on leads, the more you can improve your AI personalization strategy for all potential prospects.
3. Adaptive Resource Centers
Here’s where you start putting AI learning and your hyper-personalized lead generation marketing plan template into action.
Think about all the valuable content you’ve created as part of your marketing strategy. Now imagine putting it all in one place where leads and current clients can access it.
With a resource center, you can divide your content into categories like eBooks, case studies, reports, and tutorials. However, instead of simply putting it together, you’d use AI-driven technology to adapt new selections for each visitor based on their unique data.
Here’s what an adaptive resource center looks like in action:
Source: Sage Intacct
4. Automated Content Bingeing
Selecting the types of content each visitor will like is just one part of the process.
You also must meet their expectation for endless streams of content that companies like Netflix provide.
Make no mistake, your buyers will appreciate removing dead-end landing pages. 78% of buyers say they consume at least three pieces of content from a vendor. Content bingeing allows your leads to self-nurture and educate themselves at their own pace.
By the time they’ve decided to provide their email address or reach out to you with questions, they’ll already have a solid idea of your company’s products or services and they’ll be further along in the sales funnel.
5. Triggered Email Journeys
Based on where your lead gave you their email address, you can create unique email campaigns that introduce them to your brand and how you can help.
Triggered campaigns go out at specific times based on actions a subscriber takes. Did they listen to a podcast about a specific topic? Send an automated email.
You’ll always be one step ahead.
6. Intelligent Retargeting
Retargeting is important through channels like email and LinkedIn but without personalized data, it’s not effective.
If you’re sending the same LinkedIn ad to everyone who ever visited a page on your website, that’s not personalized retargeting. Instead, use features like matched audiences to choose specific ULRs a lead visited to personalize your ads.
Take B2B Personalization to the Next Level
Hushly is specially designed to provide personalization on an individual scale using data you already have about your visitors and leads.
Through tools like content bingeing, adaptive content hubs, thorough lead verification, and more, you can reach your leads on a personal level and help them self-nurture. Not only will you generate more leads, but your leads will be much higher quality and further along in the buying cycle by the time they supply their email address.
Want to learn more about the benefits of using personalization in your B2B lead generation marketing plan template? We have an eBook for that! Check out the 5 Personalization Strategies that Dominate B2B and learn why they’re important.
