Brett Terp Category #Strategy March 30, 2021
5 Steps to Creating Impactful Personalized Content: Part 2
In a continuation of our personalized content blog series, we'll now discuss the final three steps to creating impactful content that engages consumers.
3. Create content that resonates
Creating personalized content that resonates with your audience isn't just about great content. It's about engaging your audience with relevant content in an appropriate format, in the right channel, and at the right time.
Many brands have long relied on creating campaigns around a single piece of content—a brand video or special offer—and blasting the same creative across every channel. What a consumer saw on social was the same as in a banner ad. Instead, we recommend varying the content based on the channel, device, and what the consumer is doing or needing in that moment.
This requires a framework that focuses on consumers and their behaviors and needs. Within that framework, you can make decisions around five key areas:
Channel: Social media, email, search, programmatic
Device: Desktop, tablet, mobile, smart TV
Format: Audio, visual, graphic, web content
Duration/Orientation: six-second, 30-second, 60-second; horizontal or vertical
Content: Informational, instructional, entertaining
Each of these factors is necessary to provide the most relevant and impactful content. For example, if your consumer is in the initial consideration phase and engages mainly through social media, then you don't want to target them with long, horizontal-oriented content that is overly complicated to follow. Instead, grab their attention with a short explainer video that is designed to be viewed on a phone or tablet.
4. Align your frequency and timing
As we touched on in step 3, timing is everything when it comes to personalized content that resonates. Understanding where and when your customers are engaging with your content is critical. As we emerge from a disruptive year, it's worth remembering that consumer behavior has changed and when, where, and how they engage with your content is likely quite different now than it was pre-pandemic.
One way to address this is to align your content schedule with your customers' purchasing cycle. Different brands and industries have different optimal frequencies. When setting a cadence for your content, look at how often your customers make a repeat purchase.
You can also segment your audience based on their engagement level with your content and tailor the frequency accordingly. Highly engaged subscribers will be more tolerant of frequent content and will look forward to consistent communications. Meanwhile, less frequent, yet consistent, emails to less-engaged subscribers will help build a relationship over time.
5. Deliver personalized experiences across channels
Your consumers are constantly bombarded by information and messages across dozens of digital platforms. At the same time, your consumers expect a consistent experience across channels and relevant communications no matter how or where they engage with your brand. Which is why it's critical for brands to invest in the omnichannel experience. But that doesn't mean posting the same brand story to every channel. Instead, it's about tailoring content to the channel in order to get the most out of it.
Omnichannel personalization involves offering customers a cohesive, seamless, and relevant journey across all channels. With an omnichannel strategy, you need to recognize your customer wherever they are—social media, email, website, mobile app, in store, and more—and serve content based on their interactions across all channels.
80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences (Epsilon, 2018)
This, of course, is easier said than done. One way to do this is to build some flexibility into your content model. The foundation of a successful omnichannel content strategy is ensuring that your content is structured for use and reuse across channels. This allows you to adapt content to serve evolving customer needs, whether that means expanding into new channels or localizing content for a new market.
Taking the next step
Trust is one of the most important aspects of the customer experience. People want to do business with companies they trust. Most consumers also value personalized experiences with the companies they buy from, and when it's done correctly, personalization can be a powerful marketing tool. But personalization can quickly go from convenient to creepy—impacting people's trust in your brand.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take today to develop personalized content that is authentic and trustworthy. From leveraging data and building a content strategy to aligning content to meet your consumers at their moment of need, brands now have more options for engaging their customers with personalized content that doesn't feel invasive or inauthentic.
Download the 5 Ways to Create Personalized Content ebook
Engaging consumers in the moment
Consumers interact with your brand across platforms and devices—and no one consumer journey is the same. That's why brands should use multi-dimensional, cross-channel content that engages consumers in the moment, wherever they are.
Our creative storytellers and content strategists have developed flexible content journeys for national brands and can help you craft the right content for your audience and business needs.
Ready to get started? Let's chat.