With so much content being published each day, brands have to find new ways to attract customers’ attention, and one such way is to personalise content marketing assets.
In this guide, you’ll see various approaches to personalising content marketing (with examples to help you understand how they work.) And we’ll also show you how a DAM takes you most of the way to streamline the process and where what we call a content supply chain takes you all the way to personalising your content marketing assets properly.
Here’s what we’ll cover, specifically:
Table of Contents
So, what do we mean by personalised content?
At first sight, the term – personalised content asset – makes little sense, doesn’t it?
A blog post is a blog post, after all. So is a product image or any other visual you use to market or promote a product.
What’s more, you publish those assets on your site for everyone to see. There are no exceptions. You don’t hide those assets from some users and display them to others. Also, you don’t dynamically add custom elements to them either. So, how could they be personalised in any way?
Well, the confusion regarding content personalisation stems from the fact that we tend to understand the term in the context of the general meaning of personalising things – tailoring something to a specific person’s situation or requirements.
Now, to be fair, personalised content follows a similar principle.
But there is a twist.
You see – personalised content is tailored to the audience’s buying habits, interests, needs, likes, as well as the stage of their buying process, etc.
It’s not personalised with the person’s name or their picture, which would be two of the most common ways to personalise something.
Instead, it’s relevant to a specific customer segment, and in the process, to anyone who is within that segment.
In just a moment, we’ll show you exactly how such personalisation works. For now, let’s discuss why you do it.
The goal for launching personalised content marketing campaigns is to:
- Enhance brand relationships through making the overall experience match the person’s interests and where they are in the buying process.
- Improve customer satisfaction by showing content assets that are relevant to the person’s needs.
- Increase the likelihood that the person will visit the site again (since, through personalised content marketing, you’ve demonstrated how relevant it is to them).
- Increase likelihood of purchases, and so on.
But does it work? Well, let’s answer this with a simple statistic:
88% of US marketers reported seeing considerable results from personalised content marketing. More than half of them reported growth greater than 10%.
Wondering how they do it? Here are some examples that illustrate the concept of personalised content.
5 most common ways to personalise content assets
#1. Delivering content experiences that match the buying cycle
This is by far the simplest way to personalise content assets, also when it comes to the execution. In this case, you present users with content that provides information based on where they are in the sales funnel.
There are, probably, countless ways to do that. One is to use content or product recommendations to display information relevant to the person. So, a person early in the buying cycle would see more informational content. But someone who’s been buying from you before could see banners or ads with similar or supplementary products to what they already own.
#2. Personalising content based on traffic source
In this method, you use analytics data to anticipate what type of customers different channels tend to attract, and then, match the content they see to their current likelihood of making a sale.
Example: An ecommerce store might realise that customers visiting their site from the organic search are likely early on in the sales process. Therefore, their main objective would be to learn more about the brand or products, compare it with other alternatives, etc.
Such a store could tailor its landing pages to present content delivering information matching those objectives – blog posts presenting various use cases for the product, customer testimonials, etc.
On the other hand, people who are most likely further down the sales funnel could see more sales oriented messaging, and so on.
#3. Interest-based personalisation
This method is about presenting users with content that matches a particular audience’s interest. Naturally, this can seem impossible to do since you have no information about the person. However, you can use their interests and behaviour on the site as a guideline to recommend further content.
Example – Visme’s blog features a “Recommended content for you” section. However, instead of presenting generic or their most popular content, the widget targets recommendations to the content the person is currently viewing.
For example, this is what the widget recommends on their guide to Gantt charts:
All of these suggestions relate to working with data.
But when you open the company’s guide to best presentation tools, you see recommendations focusing on different types of presentations.
#4. Location-based personalisation
Location is one of the easiest factors to determine about any web visitor. In fact, it’s information you find in any analytics package, and one that you could use to tailor and personalise content as well.
Some examples of this could include displaying banners and other promotional visuals containing seasonality messages. Similarly, you can tailor product imagery to the customer’s location, holidays in their region, etc.
Another common example of using location-based personalisation is displaying notifications based on where the person’s based. These notifications can range from shipping information to specific promotions you run in the region.
#5. Behaviour-based personalisation
In this approach, you segment customers by their behaviour on the site. Some behaviours to target include:
- Visitor type (i.e., first time or returning visitor)
- Time on site
- No. of pages viewed
- Completed custom events (i.e. signup, downloading a lead magnet, etc.)
4 Strategies to personalise content marketing assets
We’ve covered the different scenarios to use when personalising content assets. So, let’s discuss how to tailor individual content to those very scenarios. And there are four main strategies to help you achieve it:
The first one is using dynamic content recommendations. We’ve already seen an example of how Visme is using this method to recommend content based on the person’s interests.
You can also personalise visual assets. In fact, these are often the most commonly personalised marketing collateral. This is largely because you can create several different versions of the same image, and trigger them based on the segment you target.
And so, you could have images that focus on presenting the product in different settings, focusing on seasonality, location, industry or any other factor. These images could, then, be dynamically triggered so that the right asset displays to a relevant customer segment.
Another possibility – Using comparisons and filters. Like with the example from Waves.com, you could use dynamic filtering to present customers with the most relevant content to them.
Another use case for personalised content is creating custom content collections for internal teams (i.e. salespeople,) as well as PR firms, resellers, distributors, and other partners.
Finally, you could personalise your blog content based on audience segmentation, interest, etc. In this method, you could create content that focuses on very specific niches, and recommend only those pieces to customers interested in those subjects.
How Content Supply Chain processes helps you personalise content experiences better
We’ve gone through quite a lot of theory behind content personalisation. If there’s one thing that’s evident from what we discussed, it’s that you can’t do it well without proper processes and tools in place.
For one, you need a process to create personalised content quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, if you’ve been creating content even for a short time, you know how unimaginably difficult it can be.
The good news is that there is a way to overcome almost all of the common content production challenges, and that way is to use a content supply chain platform with a digital asset management at its core.
Here’s more information about it…
What is content supply chain management (CSC)?
The term – content supply chain – relates to a business process in which a company first defines the core elements of content production, and then, implements it to help plan, create, manage, and route content to desired channels and audiences more efficiently.
The content supply chain process comprises several categories.
Digital asset management
Digital asset management is a process of managing content projects and distributing digital assets from one, centralised location or a content hub.
On top of that, DAM systems like CELUM facilitate project management, collaboration, and help streamline review and approvals processes, among others.
Here are just some DAM features that help improve personalising content assets.
Asset management/content hub
A content hub is at the heart of any personalised content marketing strategy. It’s what helps you organise assets and make them easily retrievable to use in personalised strategies.
A content hub is also what you need to use if you want to avoid such issues as wasting time on locating the correct versions of files, and errors resulting from using wrong assets in personalised content.
DAM’s asset management capabilities allow you to:
- Bring all your organisation’s assets into a single location.
- Organise those files into collections, folders, and use any other taxonomy that works for you, and make those assets easily accessible for everyone involved in the project.
- Define who should be allowed to see and access what, and more.
Creative collaboration
This capability makes it possible for your creative teams to complete design projects effectively, on time, and without any major hiccups.
With features like a Kanban board you can ensure that everyone works together on a project from a single location using the agile methodology.
Just this one thing – having all project information and communication in one place – will help you eliminate chaos, ensure that no information gets lost, and get projects done faster.
With DAM collaboration tools, you can:
- Manage each project from a single location.
- Get everyone on the same page regarding the status of each project.
- Manage all project files from a single location.
- Bring all tasks and files together, and more.
- Set up specific access rights per user to ensure that stakeholders see only what’s relevant to their aspects of the project.
Online Proofing
Online proofing is typically the last stage of the content lifecycle before the signoff. Unfortunately, it is also where the most delays and bottlenecks happen. One reason for that is a lack of unified processes and technology to streamline it. In fact, one of the key reasons for reviews and approvals taking so long is precisely because teams use outdated methods to do it – long email chains, scattered feedback, lack of clarity, and more.
CELUM’s online proofing capabilities allow you to manage the entire feedback and review process from a single place, collect comments, process revisions, and get to the sign off much quicker.
With online proofing features, you can:
- Notify relevant shareholders about projects they need to review.
- Use annotation tools to leave precise and actionable feedback directly on assets.
- Create consistent proofing workflows to automate the process.
Content Routing and Distribution
At this stage, content assets are completed and signed off, and are ready for distribution. That’s where capabilities like portals come in – portals enable you to master the content supply chain by providing personalised content exactly where it’s needed.
Portals allow you to give your target audiences easy access to the content you’ve curated for them. Your content recipients can easily search for, select, and download whatever assets they need, while you maintain full control over who has access to which asset.
In short, with portals, you can create a content experience that everyone will appreciate and love.
Impact Analysis
The last step of the content supply chain does not concern itself with the creation or distribution of assets. Instead, it focuses on collecting meaningful insights to help you improve content performance over time.
Data such as download statistics, a list of most searched for assets, and more, let’s you identify which of your personalised assets have the highest impact, and which ones your audience seems to respond to the most.
Intrigued to see how CELUM could help you personalise content assets and deliver personalised content marketing strategies better?
Book a demo with us and we’ll walk you through the entire content supply chain process.
