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Should you try to personalize your content? Is it even possible?<\/p>\nShould you try to personalize your content? Is it even possible?<\/p>\n
Much of the content advice you\u2019ll read says yes (while acknowledging how hard it is to do).<\/p>\n
But a recent article in Marketing Week<\/a> proclaimed personalization unachievable.<\/p>\n The authors cite two reasons to give up on personalization. The first is that real personalization is impossible because it assumes you have perfect data on every customer. The second \u201cfatal flaw\u201d (as they call it) is that personalization doesn\u2019t work even if you have perfect data on everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n The authors point to \u201cuniversal experiences\u201d as the reason behind the success of the best movies and television shows. Thus, they argue, \u201cmarketers would be much better off investing in \u2018performance branding\u2019; in other words, one-size-fits-most creative that speaks to the common category needs of all potential buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n These authors haven\u2019t spent much time on TikTok.<\/p>\n So, let\u2019s get honest about personalization and content.<\/p>\n Consumers want advertising and content to be more relevant and personalized \u2013 they just don\u2019t want to notice it\u2019s happening. Research shows most people feel creeped out, angry, or indifferent when learning that ads<\/a> were presented to them based on personal details.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a bit of a paradox. Ask customers if they want targeted, relevant advertising and content to help them during their buying process, and they typically say, \u201cYes.\u201d But ask them if companies should use their data to do it, and they overwhelmingly say, \u201cHell no.\u201d<\/p>\n The best content experiences aren\u2019t conspicuously personalized. Instead, they\u2019re personal<\/a>, relevant, and welcome. They are experiences that feel like they are just for you, without overtly telling you they are. Again, think TikTok. The algorithm slowly personalizes the feed for you, but it doesn\u2019t tell you that it\u2019s \u201coptimized.\u201d It just is.<\/p>\n However, personalization \u2013 certainly at the level most businesses can achieve \u2013 is rarely personal. Most techniques use collected data to parrot back what the brand has learned from you. For example, you might see \u201cHello [Robert], you\u2019ve purchased [these products], therefore you might want to learn about [this concept].\u201d Yes, it might be accurate, but it hardly makes you feel like they know you. This approach also doesn\u2019t scale well. The article gets this part right.<\/p>\n Think about what you\u2019re trying to do with personalization. You\u2019re trying to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.<\/p>\n The challenge isn\u2019t that the customer data is bad \u2013 most organizations can identify people and collect accurate information about them. It isn\u2019t in dynamically assembling the content \u2013 technology can handle that.<\/p>\n The problem lies in the sheer enormity of content needed to address every right message and when to deliver it. What ends up happening is that the right person gets the only message available \u2013 usually at the wrong time. That equates to a personalization #FAIL.<\/p>\n Most organizations serve the right person the only message they have \u2013 usually at the wrong time. That\u2019s a #Content personalization fail, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Too often, personalization feels like a game of Mad Libs, where you simply insert the data you have into the content you have to show the consumer that you know who they are.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s when personalization calls attention to itself \u2013 and starts to feel creepy<\/a>. The whole house of cards falls \u2013 and marketers throw up their hands in frustration.<\/p>\n Most marketers would be better off trying to create content that\u2019s personal, not personalized.<\/p>\n People don\u2019t act on or share a piece of content because it\u2019s personalized with \u201cHello [NAME]\u201d (even when the Name field contains the correct name). The content people want to share is something that moves them to say, \u201cHey, you all have to check this out!\u201d They share content that makes them recognize something about themselves and believe others will see themselves in it, too.<\/p>\n When your audience says, \u201cWow, this is exactly what I needed,\u201d you win.<\/p>\n When your audience says your content is exactly what I needed is when you know you\u2019ve won, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent #ContentMarketing <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying personalization won\u2019t work. I\u2019m saying most content marketers should focus on giving people content that feels<\/em> like it\u2019s just for them, but they don\u2019t know (or care) why.<\/p>\n I recently wrote<\/a> about the value of listening to your audience before talking to them. Listening is a solid foundational step toward targeted content.<\/p>\n Keep these three things in mind as you build your targeted content approach:<\/p>\n Context matters most when you\u2019re targeting content to people using technology. Asking why<\/em> someone wants your thought leadership builds more trust than asking for their identifying demographic information. Even better: The answer helps you serve them the \u201cbest next experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Personalized content makes people feel like they\u2019re in the \u201cuncanny valley,\u201d a term that describes the weird feeling you get when you see a humanish computer-generated image or robot.<\/p>\n The Marketing Week article speaks to the clumsiness of technology and the failure of accurate data at serving the \u201cwrong\u201d content. But having the right data and technology can cause an audience to say, \u201cWTF?\u201d if the personalization calls attention to itself.<\/p>\n You know that feeling you get when you see an ad on Facebook for something you only mentioned in passing to your spouse? Personalization that gets noticed gives people that exact feeling.<\/p>\n The closer a person gets to becoming a customer, the more personalized the message should become. As you learn more about the person, addressing them one-to-one becomes critical. It makes sense to deliver a wide-open experience when you first encounter prospects so they can see themselves in the breadth of your content. (That approach tracks with what the Marketing Week article called \u201cperformance branding.\u201d)<\/p>\n The closer a person gets to becoming a customer, the more personalized the message should become, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n As you develop a relationship, the conversation should become more specific. When it\u2019s time to sign on the dotted line (and ever after), the communications should be as \u201cpersonalized\u201d as possible.<\/p>\nTargeted content isn\u2019t personalized \u2013 it\u2019s \u2018persona-ized\u2019<\/h2>\n
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How To Make Your Content Personalized but Not Creepy<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\nPersonal, not personalized<\/h2>\n
1. Personal doesn\u2019t require demographic data<\/h3>\n
2. Personalization is best served invisibly (at least at first)<\/h3>\n
3. Personal should grow into personalized as trust builds<\/h3>\n