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Month: July 2017

28th of July — 2017

How Personalization is Changing Content Marketing

Chris Risner

T he business world remains in constant motion and marketing is no different. With new marketing technologies and means of connecting with customers, companies need to remain in constant state of change and optimization in their quest to improve its products, productivity and production.

In recent years, the use of personalization strategies and technology as a means for staying ahead of the competition has significantly influenced the way businesses market and grow branding efforts. Because of this, content marketing has been shifting in the last few years. Content personalization has grabbed the market’s attention as widespread adoption of the personalization technologies and techniques occur. To stay competitive and achieve a higher return on investment in marketing expenses, it is becoming more and more critical to use personalization as one of the main tactics within an overall content marketing strategy. Failure to do so will likely be a mistake for any business in the long run.

What is Personalization?

A more detailed overview on personalization, what it is and how to implement it is available in a previous post located here. As well as a discussion of how CMS personalization can help convert more leads. However, as a general overview, personalization is when a website provides a customized, unique experience for each visitor to the site. So, instead of providing a universal website with the same displays and highlighted content, the unique experience is tailor made to better serve the specific visitor. By improving services and connectivity to the visitor, the likelihood of a sale or website conversion increases dramatically (Optimizely, 2017). 

The Personalized Experience

The idea of a personalized experience is nothing new. In fact, offering unique shopping and purchasing experiences to consumers has been around for centuries. From monogrammed bath robes to customized sneakers, personalized experiences are offered by companies for two reasons. The first is to provide a premium service, above and beyond the average purchase. A personalized set of wine glasses gives a unique, one-of-a-kind feet to it, all while the produce sells for more. The second is to stand out from the competition and attract in customers. 

With more and more companies now providing personalized services, it has become more of the norm than the exception. Major corporations such as Nike allowed customers to personalize just about everything purchased from the company, while Coca-Cola offers what it refers to as a “Freestyle” machine, which gives patrons access to 100s of flavor combinations. However, customization does not simply begin with a consumer coming into a facility to purchase goods or visiting a website in search of products. The personalization designed for new leads or prospects must begin at the first contact or first interaction. This is when a consumer or visitor is first made aware of the company and the services and products it offers. In other words, through an advertisement or other marketing effort (Forbes, 2016). 

How to Personalize Content Marketing

Whenever a company interacts with a potential customer, there is the opportunity to make a sale or, at the very least, develop a lead. This interaction should leave a desirable impression on the consumer, and the most powerful tool to do this is to personalize content. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Lux Research (2017), consumers are willing to pay more money for a personalized experience. 

Google and Amazon are two pioneers of personalization. The head of Amazon famously said early on in the existence of the website, if the company had a million customers he’d rather have one million versions of Amazon instead of one. As personalization has become more expected than anything else though, simply providing product recommendations on a store front no longer cuts it. Sending a customer discounts off of similar items they purchased monthly in the mail isn’t enough either. These are all staples of companies that have already connected with a consumer. Content marketing personalization is about connecting with a consumer the business has not yet sold to. Thankfully, personalizing content marketing doesn’t need to be overtly complex. 

There are three easy steps to personalizing content marketing. For starters, the marketing material should not be bogged down with unnecessary information. It is always best to keep it simple over attempting to put too much information in. Providing recommendations based on both history and interest helps catch the customer’s attention. 

The second step is to customize the marketing message to fit the need of the customer. Not all customers have the same needs, so the best way to connect with a potential client is to create a unique message. By taking into account the customer’s age, location, history and other data collected off of the customer’s IP address, it becomes easier to tailor forge a unique message. 

Lastly, the content needs to be current. Not all customers want to be trend setters, but a vast majority want to go with what is new. Outdated marketing material, including images and other forms of media, can turn off a perspective customer. This is true not only for content produced several years ago but for a different season entirely (One Spot, 2017). 

By taking into account these three steps and the information collected on the consumer, it becomes far easier to create advertisements with a personalized touch to it. The personalization should carry on through the marketing approach all the way through the website. For businesses not currently utilizing personalization in its marketing approach, it doesn’t take much additional effort to customize the company’s outreach potential. Despite this, there are businesses throughout the United States failing to incorporate these three simple steps in producing their personalized marketing and consumer outreach.

Why Some Marketers Don’t Use Personalization

Despite the proven benefit of content marketing personalization, many companies still turn a blind eye to the potential personalizing their content. Growing sales and increasing customer engagement through the use personalization can provide improved forms of communication and perceived value to customers and website visitors. Why do some marketers skip out on almost a sure fire way of boosting sales? According to a survey conducted by Demand Metric, 59% of marketers stated a lack of technology. In addition, many claimed that they did not have the necessary resources as one of the main reasons for failure to properly adopt personalization techniques. 

Not taking advantage of content marketing personalization due to a lack of resources or technology simply is no longer a viable option, however. The risk of falling behind is too great and the advantages too enticing for marketing departments to wait to explore personalization options. Gartner published a study in 2015 indicating companies utilizing personalized elements within its content marketing would outsell those companies not using the marketing approach by at least 20% in 2018. As 2018 stands right around the corner, dropping by a 20% sales amount to the competition simply because of a “lack of technology” will fall more and more flat as an excuse. It also may be the reason why some companiesvstruggles to survive or even go out of business. Businesses with the available technology and resources will not take it easy on the competition. With the value of personalized content marketing increasing by the day, there are no more excuses. For a company to reach its fullest sales and growth potential, it must take advantage of personalized content marketing. 

Customers have come to expect a personalized shopping experience. Convenience isn’t the only reason more consumers purchase goods through online retailers than in-person. The ability to receive a personalized service while visiting a website makes the entire visit to a website more beneficial and desirable for the consumer, which keeps them coming back. With the implementation of personalization, content marketing will never be the same, and businesses dragging their feet to bring about such advertising changes will suffer from the lack of customer connectivity. For any business serious about customer growth and providing the best shopping experience possible, personalizing content market is a must. Delaying any longer is simply no longer an option.

If our BlueBolt team can help your team increase personalization to engage your customers, please connect with us.

19th of July — 2017

Landing Page Optimization – The Art and Science of Conversions

Chris Risner

I deally, all visitors convert to leads and eventually to customers, but on the Internet, as is the case with any brick and mortar store or facility, not all window shoppers end up making a purchase.

A corporate website typically serves as the one of the critical steps of an online marketing strategy and sales tool. After welcoming a customer to the digital presence (retailers would probably call this their digital storefront), potential clients have the ability to make a purchase, sign up for a service, engage with the brand by signing up for content, contacting sales directly for questions or determine they are not interested and leave. This is where landing pages come in. Landing pages can help reel in visitors at a fraction of the cost of a full-fledged website. Knowing how to take advantage of landing pages, how to properly optimize the stand alone page, and convert a visit into a lead is often what separates successful online businesses and those that fail. 

What is a Landing Page?

There are many varying definitions of a landing page floating around out there, so clearly outlining a landing page is necessary. Realistically, any page someone arrives on after clicking an external link can be referred to as a “landing page.” So in this sense, clicking on a product link and landing on the product’s page on a website can, technically, be referred to as a landing page. However, in terms of marketing and obtaining leads, the term landing page refers to something a bit more specific (HubSpot, 2010). 

In the world of marketing, a landing page is a page that helps a company obtain visitor information. This may be an email address, phone number, mailing address or other contact insights. For some companies, the main page on their website may serve as a landing page. However, for larger companies with an expansive marketing presence, a landing page often is a stand alone page, designed to work specifically within an advertising campaign. The stand alone page then directs visitors to the company website, product page or other designed site. It may also serve the purpose of only obtaining visitor information through a filled out form without any additional links (although taking advantage of generated backlinks can help the company’s main page with SEO purposes). 

The Importance of Targeted Landing Pages

Marketing should never revolve around a one-size-fits-all approach. Even when advertising a singular product or service, different demographics will identify with the product. Varying demographics have different core values and are likely attracted to the product for different reasons. Using the same marketing pitch for each undermines the entire process of connecting with these customers and results in a loss of potential leads. Instead, marketing should implement a level of variance. What works for one demographic may not work for another, which is perfectly fine. The marketing needs to mold to the needs of a consumer, not the other way around. This is also why landing page optimization begins and ends with customization (Leadpages Network, 2015). 

Creating a unique website for each demographic does not pertain well to success. It splits visitors and hinders search engine results. The company website should stand as a singular entity. However, landing pages should target each demographic and each unique marketing campaign. Landing pages, as a singular page with information tailored towards the recipient, is much easier to quickly manufacturer. The page’s main purpose is to then obtain lead generating information from the visitor, typically through the aid of a fill-in form (such as a request for an email account). The landing page then can direct traffic to the main website.

By meeting the needs of a marketing campaign, landing page optimization is easier to perform. The content on the page can be demographic geared. If visitors to the specific landing page are of retirement age, the imagery can focus on individuals just like them, while the information, text and other content can also target the demographic. A landing page should serve as an additional layer of personalization for a visitor. Once they provide the lead creating information, the visitor has demonstrated clear interest, so converting them into potential customers becomes that much easier (Sales Hub, 2016). 

Landing Page Optimization

Once identifying the need to create individualized landing pages for unique marketing campaigns and different demographics, it is possible to fully optimize the page. Landing page optimization is similar to that of optimizing any of a company’s marketing content, whether it is a social media post, an advertisement or a website in general. However, landing page optimization comes in two forms as a company not only needs to optimize the content placed on the page but also the individuals sent to the page. This is because there likely will be multiple landing pages up and running at the same time, so ensuring the right target audience makes it to the specified landing page is a must.

For proper landing page optimization, identifying a specific demographic to correlate with the page is necessary. If a page is to receive primarily retired aged individuals living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States of a higher income level, it needs to reflect this while another landing page receiving traffic from college aged individuals in the Southeastern United States should reflect this as well. This optimization remains no different from that of a marketing campaign. Ensuring traffic reaches the set landing pages is the next most important step (Hubspot, 2014). 

Directing Traffic to the Right Landing Page

A landing page is successful in obtaining contact information, which allows an increased conversion rate as long as the right visitors make it to the page (due to the highly optimized aspect of the landing page). Visitors arrive at a landing page through a designated link. The link can be attached to an email or through personalized marketing. This is where creating individualized email marketing lists is important. Email, pay-per-click and social media marketing should not be a one-size-fits-all approach. Each needs to be directed towards individual demographics. With the marketing directed at different key demographics and fit into different marketing campaigns, links for the specific landing pages can then be attached. As long as everything is corrected connected, the optimized marketing will send interested demographic towards an optimized landing page. The optimized landing page then has the ability to collect visitor information, which in turn helps increase the chance of converting traffic into an eventual sale (Forbes, 2016). 

Landing pages are valuable additions to any company’s online marketing approach. However, like any other part of advertising a company, it needs appropriate landing page optimization. By following through with these tips, it is possible to boost a landing page’s presence online, which in turn helps boost conversion rates and traffic sent to the corporate website itself. Converting visitors to leads and possibly customers further down the line is part art and part science due to the ever changing nature of the Internet. By continually editing and evolving an online marketing approach, it is possible to reach new potential customers while improving upon the advertising’s return on investment. 

If our team can help you drive conversions and increase ROI, please connect with us.

5th of July — 2017

Use CMS Personalization to Convert More Website Leads

Chris Risner

I n the world of marketing, establishing a connection with the key demographic and the individual is essential. Without a connection, clients have no reason to feel anything and need to a company. Instead they may turn to the competition, taking their business with them.

While marketing through traditional means does require some element of a wider generalization when reaching specific audiences, website personalization allows companies to tailor each visitor’s experience to better fit their own needs. This goes a long way in establishing a connection with the potential customer, increasing the chance of the visitor turning into a customer or, at the very least, a new potential lead. This is exactly why all business owners need to implement CMS personalization into their website. 

What is a CMS?

More than likely, an enterprise is already going to run a CMS, but for those who don’t or those who are unsure of the system in place, CMS stands for content management system. It is a software application used to assist in the management and creation of digital content. While not exclusively for, a CMS is most commonly used at the enterprise level for managing the massive amount of information coming in and leaving a website (at the enterprise level it may also be referred to as Enterprise Content Management, or ECM). A CMS is essentially software for organizing and delivering the website to the world.

When an individual visits a website, they leave a trail of all sorts of useful information. From previous websites that they visited to the pages they access on the corporate page and how long they stay on a specific page, a considerable amount of data gets captured. With the help of a content management system, it is possible to collect all of this user data in one place. Having all data on hand in one location makes analyzing visitor information easier and more accurate (Tech Target, 2014). It also allows for easy access to the information to customize the experience. One simple example is using the geographic information of where the visitor is located to show relevant promotions for local events on the site rather than an event 1000 miles away.

Important Features of a CMS

There are dozens of service providers offering a content management system at the enterprise level. Each service provider does bring specific benefits and features to the table. However, nearly all CMS software does come with a handful of features. Some of the most important features available in a CMS includes:

  • Indexing
  • Format Management
  • Revision Features
  • Publishing

Indexing, searching and retrieving information in real time is important for any business. The ability to recall files and other information in real time makes performing edits and upgrades to a website to better fit the needs of a customer easier. 

Websites may not include a host of different format types. While the majority of pages are written in an HTML document for Internet viewing, others are uploaded as PDF documents for easy downloading. 

There are times when a website edit may not provide the desired results. A quality CMS provides revision features that allows Website admins to revert back to a previous release of the website. This way, even if new changes are made to the site, if these changes do not prove beneficial everything can be restored without issue. 

Along with revisions, a quality CMS should provide publishing features, ranging from templates all the way to tools designed to help a website designer gain valuable methods to modify the website whenever necessary (HubSpot, 2011).

Personalization of the Internet

Personalization is not something that simply happened over night. While it may have seemed to come about relatively suddenly, services such as Google and Amazon have been experimenting with providing a unique, customized experience to visitors for nearly a decade. According to Search Engine Land (2009), Google released new personalized search services on a large scale in 2009 (although Google had been releasing gradual updates providing semi-personalized searches for several years prior).

Companies such as Google and Amazon have the ability to profit a considerable amount off of personalized searches. By showcasing similar search results based on a user’s past search history, stores such as Amazon can make sure visitors not only identify what they logged online for with less effort, but they may find additional products they originally had no interest in buying, but end up buying anyway, all due to website personalization. By implementing CMS personalization into a website, businesses around the world have the ability to offer a customized, unique visitor experience, which in turn boosts sales and helps convert more website leads. 

What Can CMS Personalization Do for Your Team?

The bread crumb trail of data website visitors leave when searching a particular page can paint an in-depth picture of the individual. It not only indicates how they arrived on the page (Google, Facebook, direct link or so on), the device they are using, their geographical location, how long they visit and potentially more specific information. All of this information can then be used by the CMS to create a personalized, custom experience for the visitor. If a company provides services in a half-dozen different states, the information obtained through the user’s IP address can notify the website of their location, which in turn loads the correct information. This way, a user in Michigan may see visuals of the Great Lakes while someone in San Diego may see the Pacific Ocean. The localized personalization is just one way to produce a unique website experience. 

As an individual interacts with the website, the site itself grows smarter and can produce a finer-tuned image of what the visitor might want. This may inform the website to recommend a specific product, or highlight a service the individual already clicked on. By showcasing what a visitor wants, CMS personalization has the ability to dramatically transform a company’s e-commerce presence (CMS Wire, 2017). 

The True Benefits of Personalization

The fact of the matter is customers want a personalized experience. In a recent report published by Accenture, 75 percent of all consumers said they are more likely to purchase products and services through an e-commerce website that knows their name and can provide desirable recommendations based off of previous purchases. Additionally, 63 percent of consumers in the survey said they hold a specific company to a higher level and think more positively of the company by recognizing them upon visiting the site. Beyond all of it, one of the most telling statistics is nearly 80 percent of all consumers will only engage with a website that provides personalization and 77 percent of shoppers said they made purchases based specifically on recommendations from a service that recognized them (Accenture, 2016). 

Nearly every study done on the subject points towards the importance of website personalization. At the enterprise level, additional assistance is required in order to implement these personalization elements. With the help of CMS personalization, any business can boost exposure and increase both sales and potential leads. 

In the modern day of Internet browsers, users now experience a certain level of personalization. Due to more and more customized experiences while surfing the Internet, the need for instant customer gratification  becomes much more vital in turning a website visitor into a potential customer or lead. With the help of CMS personalization, a website offers more information and content of interest to every single person who visits the page. So by taking advantage of the powerful connective aspects of CMS personalization, the business will grows its e-commerce department while converting more website leads at the same time. 

If our talented, senior-level team can help you deliver on your next CMS project, please connect with us.

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