Customizing sales materials to better fit the profile of the prospective customer has always been a valuable tactic for marketing teams. The extent to which sales collateral can be personalized depends on a number of factors, the customer data available, the time and budget which can be dedicated to content creation, and the format of the content itself.
Adapt the customer experience with personalized content
At a high level, localization and translation of content allow businesses trading across national boundaries to ensure that their sales materials are understood and engaged with by a diverse range of potential buyers. On a more individual basis, content such as promotional brochures, product documentation, and presentations can be adapted to reflect the specific situation, requirements, and goals of the target audience.
For sales teams this is ideal, enabling them to not only tailor their pitch to their prospect but ensure that their presentations and leave-behind materials focus on the same relevant themes.
Creating and managing large amounts of personalized content at scale, however, presents a significant challenge to most companies. A 2021 survey by Altimeter revealed that just under a quarter of responding organizations cited production of personalized content as their biggest challenge, with an additional 13% specifically referring to scaling as the biggest hurdle to overcome.
Tracking customer’s content consumption difficult
Tracking how that content is consumed and shared can also present a problem – while over a third of the companies in the survey stated they used engagement stats to measure content performance, in some formats such as brochures or pitch decks commonly used interaction data such as clicks, shares, comments, mentions isn’t necessarily available.
Sales engagement platforms such as, for example, Pitcher, are increasingly being deployed to overcome these challenges, managing the entire content cycle from production, through to distribution and tracking. These solutions provide a centralized repository for content teams to upload and update assets, which are then available to sales reps in real-time.
Every interaction is unique and tailored
Sales teams select personalized content items, based on the customer data already held within the platform (in some cases synchronized with the CRM), and can further update customer information at each touchpoint to build an ever more accurate profile. This results in a scenario where every interaction is unique, with content tailored to the specific requirements of each potential buyer.
Post-meeting, prospective customers can be given access to a dedicated microsite, which features all the relevant content, accessible in a single location, but more importantly, records valuable data on which items are viewed, shared, or downloaded, allowing the content team to see detailed reporting on how their assets are being used.
A more effective sales team
This facilitates continuous improvement in both the process of content creation and the level of personalization for future opportunities. Sales engagement platforms like Pitcher provide a streamlined end-to-end process which reduces the administration workload needed to keep content libraries up-to-date, adapt them to each audience or individual, and track their effectiveness on an item by item basis.
The result is a more effective and responsive sales team, a better-informed marketing department, and a targeted and personalized customer journey.