The Puzzle of Personalization
adminComments off.One afternoon during the holidays, our family decided to do a puzzle. As we worked on it, each of us took turns looking at the cover of the puzzle box, which had a picture of the finished product. We studied that cover to match pieces with common color combinations and recognizable features as we completed sections at a time. Without that box cover, we may not have ever completed the puzzle…or at least it would have taken much, much, longer.
It occurred to me that as our clients attempt to profile their target audiences as the first step in their personalization efforts, they’re basically working on a puzzle without the benefit of the puzzle box. Like hundreds of puzzle pieces spread across a table, they have individual pieces of data everywhere. But they don’t have the puzzle box as a reference…and as a result, they’re not sure what the finished product should look like.
There’s a chart below from a Content Marketing Institute study published recently. Look at the disparate sources marketers are using to piece together prospect profiles for personalized content…it looks like a bunch of puzzle pieces! Each of the sources listed provides clues, but it’s unlikely any combination of those sources will provide a complete and detailed target prospect picture that can be acted on with confidence. Especially if we want to get personal with the 5-7 people involved in the average buy decision. There’s going to be a lot of missing pieces…and therefore a lot of time and money spent on trial and error iterations as we try to figure out what’s working.
A recent Demand Gen survey tells us only 10% of marketers have high confidence in their target audience data; that the vast majority of companies cannot depend on the quality of their target audience data. The implication is that they can’t tell if marketing campaigns and strategies are working or if shortcomings are due to poor data.
On the surface, marketers may feel like they’ve got a lot of data (puzzle pieces) available. But the reality of decoding and organizing those random pieces into a coherent, actionable finished product can be enormously expensive and time-consuming. And we don’t even know if we’ve got all the puzzle pieces until we’ve invested a lot of time and effort. Unfortunately, when we inevitably discover we’re missing pieces, marketers are driven to make best guesses to fill in the gaps. Best guessing in B2B marketing mean misses, money, and unfortunately, sometimes careers.
BeMarketDo’s Power Positioning Insights® turns the entire puzzle process around. Employing first-party studies and 4 proprietary, proven analytics engines, we capture comprehensive customer insights our clients have never seen before – voice of the customer value perspectives. We use those insights drive unique, personal messaging based on what we learn, so prospects will know our clients differentiated value before sales arrives. We uncover deep insights to both functional and personal customer values…and then work with clients to use that knowledge for personalized conversations with prospects. In short, we provide the finished puzzle without the risk of trial and error!
89% of companies are relying solely on marketing to put the target prospect personalization puzzle together. If you want to have personalized conversations with prospects and customers, but don’t know what to say, to whom, or what channels to use, let BeMarketDo be your partner. We’ll provide deep, comprehensive, statistically valid insights from your customers and you can get on with implementing highly personalized campaigns that increase engagement, differentiate you from competitors, and shorten sales cycles.
The business equivalent of an afternoon solving a puzzle could be a year or two of trial and error, only to find puzzle pieces are missing. That’s a high-risk strategy for the business, and for marketers personally. Let’s keep the challenge of puzzles for holiday afternoons with family and friends!
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