Personalization Won’t Keep Your Content Alive

TLDR; Personalization of content is important. It works. Most people think that personalization means writing for specific job roles or titles. They aren’t wrong — but there is a far more important factor. Keep reading or skip ahead to the (Zulu) Insight paragraph to learn about it now.

Creating Content is Hard

I’m a bit torqued with myself because it’s been a few weeks since my last post. I’ve been trying to publish these a bit more frequently than my previous semi-annual schedule, but I noticed that the subject matter was becoming more of a rant about everything marketing people aren’t doing correctly instead of tips and tricks about how to actually be better at what we do. Shockingly, I’ve also noticed that the number of people that read these posts has dwindled a bit too.

Ok, so perhaps it’s time to step back and get out of the minor key blues melodies and into something that’s a bit more like a four-chord pop vibe. But yet here we are 150 words into this post and I haven’t really added much value in return for the 30 seconds you’ve given me (which I thank you for). Let’s get to it!

Personalization

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Content Marketing is Dying under the assault of AI created content. Content marketing people will tell you that if you personalize your content it will help. By this they typically mean considering who your intended audience is and writing for them. BTW, I don’t care who you are — YOU, yes you, are my intended audience.

The intended audience for this post is marketing people. If you work in finance, you might not find this particularly interesting (but you should). Even finance people have to create conversations occasionally.

“What’s that about conversations”, you ask? Do any of my loyal readers recall what marketing is all about? Don’t everyone raise their hands at once… <sigh>.

For those of you who ignored the prerequisite reading assignment: marketing is all about creating sales conversations.

Back to personalization for your target reader, if you work in finance or chartered accounting you aren’t necessarily my target audience. But, getting a click is incredibly difficult, and let’s be serious — when the marketing analytics team is counting clicks on my posts, I’ll cherish your click no matter who you are just the same.

Seriously, before you read the next paragraph, think about it. Besides demographic or firmographic characteristics, what other personalization elements are you aware of?

When I share this new one with you and you go “yup, he’s right,” remember to subscribe and give me another click. No cheating!

Linear and Non-Linear Consumption

Have you ever noticed that there are two ways people like to consume new information? There are the A, B, C, D, E, … X, Y, Z people — and the A–>Z people. I’m typically in the latter group. People can shift back and forth, but generally they stick to their preferred mode. Just to avoid having to repeat typing A, B, C, D, E, … (yawn, I’m already bored), let’s call these linear and non-linear consumption models.

Think about your marketing content, messaging, and even your marketing tactics. Are you one of those folks who is so proud of why your widget is better that you must tell me <every>  <single>  <thing>  about it before you’ll let me click the “here’s how to buy it” button?

Imagine my A–>Z mind’s willingness to deal with what I am likely perceive as marketing fluff.

Now take this information consumption model a step further: do you design your campaigns around supporting every single stage of my buyer’s journey? Do I have to click on your awareness content to get to your consideration content to get to your close content? As if the buyer’s journey is linear?! Well, I just went to your competitor who has a huge “Buy It Now” button in the middle of their homepage banner instead.

This isn’t a rant. This is an epiphany!

Zulu (the ‘Z’) Insight: The One Personalization Element Everyone Misses

What is the most important personalization dimension? Well, how did you get to this point in this post? Did you read all the copy up to this point, or did you take the TLDR; shortcut?

The most important personalization dimension is the information consumption style of the reader. Are you a linear information consumer or are you a non-linear A->Z consumer? (be honest)

For you Zulu types, if you need more of an explanation, just scroll back a bit to the Personalization section and you owe me a subscription click too.

Turn This Into an Actionable Insight

Now you might be saying, “Geez, that’s great Mike, how am I supposed to know which type of person I’m creating content for?”

The answer: create content for both. (and maybe add a ‘Buy it Now’ button on your home page).

Keep this in mind, in my experience, the further up the chain your intended content consumer is, the more likely they fall into the non-linear A->Z information consumption model.

Sometimes though, personalization is slightly overrated. Does it work? Absolutely. But if you only have the resources to create two explainer videos, don’t create one for the CISO and another for the CIO and never waste time on the CFO. (ok, JK CFOs are buyers too).

Instead, create one longer video with a linear structure and the second video in a non-linear format.

Finally, I hope you found this post fun and insightful. Have a personalization story to share, comment below. If you need help creating personalized content based on any dimension, drop me a note here.

P.S. In my Content Marketing is Dying post, I shared a couple of other ways to save your content. One of the most important is to add insights that an AI can’t provide. This post is a great example of human derived insight. Try this – ask your favorite AI engine how to personalize content for B2B marketing – again I’ll bet you a click that it won’t tell you that you should consider their preferred method of content consumption.