Context Marketing: Why Your Content isn't Personal Enough

You want leads!  You need leads!  And the best way to get leads is to personalize your content to suit them… right?  A lot of our eBooks and white papers like “25 Simple Ways To Generate More Customers” tout the personalization of content, but then we heard back from a lot of our clients with several of them saying, “It’s just not working for us!  What are we doing wrong?”

It doesn’t matter how much info you have on your lead or lead group.  If your messaging isn’t done correctly, then that dynamic content that you’ve worked so hard on will have no impact or, even worse, it may have a detrimental impact on your company.  Here are some of the reasons why your “great content” may not be so great after all.

You Look Like A Stalker

So you have all other tools in place that tell you exactly where your visitor went, what eBook your lead downloaded, and what purchases your customer made in the past.  While you may think that sending an email that says “we see you’ve visited (this) page in the past and may be interested in (this)” is a good idea, it often comes across as stalker-ish.  Your leads and customers will either feel:

1. Annoyed, or

1. Violated and afraid

Either way, none are going to do your company any favors.

So what should you do?  Stop being so obvious.  You know what page they went to, they know what page they went to.  Rather than state the obvious, make offers that help gently lead them along the sales funnel.  Educate them on how your offer will benefit them specifically based on the pages that they visited or the offers that they took you up on without mentioning the fact that you know where they’ve been and what they’ve done on your site.

Your “Dear John” Letters Are Still Generic

Wow.  So you know a lead’s name.  Gold star for you.  While that %FirstName% personalization is important, that shouldn’t be what really makes your email marketing campaign shine.  Throwing in a “Dear John” or “Hi Sarah” line at the start of every message, or interspersing their name throughout each email, isn’t going to impress anyone.

The lesson here: do incorporate their first name, but go further than and make full use of the information that your inbound marketing tools can give you.  If you aren’t using inbound marketing tools yet, our eBook “The Essential Guide for Mastering HubSpot” will give you an idea on how top quality inbound  marketing tools can really improve your business.

You Have Sloppy Content

When you send out or produce any content and post it for anyone to see, it should be a proofed copy that’s professional and top quality.  Not only should you be looking for things such as whether or not a certain word is spelled properly or if your message is grammatically correct, but you also need to look for any broken links and improper symbols (keep your eyes peeled for any rogue “&” or “%” symbols).

Solution:  To make sure that you always produce a clean copy, try out one of the many tools available that allow you to quickly and easily personalize any message through a drop down menu.  This way, you don’t have to worry about trying to fill in and remember any of the syntax yourself.

Introduce Context Marketing

If you're interested in learning how to turn these tips into actual results, be sure to check out our popular ebook, "How to be the King of Content Marketing."