Sales and marketing Persona or Person

Sales and Marketing: Personalize to the Persona or Person?

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[Updated on September 19, 2023]

It’s no secret that B2B customers are shopping for software just as they would for any other big purchase, such as a car or television. They are doing their research and educating themselves before they ever want to talk to a sales person. With the overwhelming amount of information and solutions out there, it’s essential to stand out from your competition and be heard.

The hard truth is that our customers are telling us they expect more out of their buying journey, but we continue to fail in meeting their needs. According to research, 95% of executives say they’d be more likely to respond to personalized outreach, but one third never get the experience they were looking for. Moreover, 97% of buyers come away from the buyer journey frustrated by inconsistent experiences (Avionos). So how can we provide our customers the experience they deserve and want?

Automation + Personalization

It’s clear that personalization is key to improving our customer’s experience and helping our buyers make faster, better informed decisions. Current industry best practices tend to leverage sales automation and acceleration technologies. These are great tools and have provided a partial solution, giving us the ability to send semi-personalized email by using the data we already know or can predict about potential customers.

Personalizing to the broader category of the persona is now prevalent in sales and marketing outreach, but the problem is this method of “personalization” has become less and less effective as customers can sense the lack of genuinity.

On the other hand, the thought of individually researching each prospect and crafting an individualized email is overwhelming at best and in reality is nearly impossible to do at scale.

In this age of automation, it’s difficult to connect with customers on a human and personal level….and it’s leaving both parties frustrated.

So, how can we truly personalize messaging and connect with customers in a meaningful way that makes sense at scale?

Personalized SaaS product demo allows you to tailor individualized, relevant messaging in real time, giving your prospect the control they demand. Personalized video demos also give customers the consistency they expect, with the ability to share the message with other decision makers in the buying group instantaneously.

To Personalize to the Persona or Person…That is the Question!

With the ability to personalize content on the fly, we’re still left with the dilemma between personalizing to the persona versus the individual person. The reality is that we can’t have one without the other, we must target both the persona and the person.

The persona is an essential starting point and needs to be tightly defined based on current customers.  Of course there will always be vague similarities of interests and priorities between Chief Marketing Officers or VP of Sales, but they are also vastly different depending on factors such as industry, company size and of course the fact that each person is unique.

If we want to go beyond the persona and personalize content on a more individualized and meaningful level, we first must start with a deep understanding of our customer. What are their goals? What truly matters to them? In order to be compelling we must address these questions and add a personalized touch. Often times we forget that the technology should be benefiting our buyers, not just a tool to collect more self-serving data.

We need to use this technology to engage with our customers more meaningfully and in the most human way possible.  Of course this sounds ideal, but you’re probably wondering what it means to truly personalize video and what makes it effective.

Why Personalized Video?

Demo Atuomation buying group

Set Yourself Apart from the Competition

We know that video must be personalized on the persona level in order to have an impact, but we can take it a step further and create just-in-time messaging that not only humanizes an automated message,  it makes it that much more meaningful. Whether you choose to demonstrate a specific use case for your buyer or create a highly-personalized custom message for a prospect, one thing is certain… they are going to have a differentiating and memorable experience.

Gain Insight Into the Buying Group

You know that buyers engage with other stakeholders before they meet with you, but do you know what they are saying about you? Product demo platforms not only gives your champion a consistent message to share with other decision makers involved, it also instantly notifies you who they share it with and gives you a clear picture of the buying group and what is important to them collectively. Analytics give you the insight to gauge your buyer’s interest based on how they are engaging with the content and when they are ready to have a conversation, you’ll already know what is important to them.

Increase Lead Conversion and Close Rates

The bottom line is that leveraging deep video personalization drives real results. By educating your prospects on their own terms, they’re coming to you more qualified…so it’s no surprise that personalized video converts up to 2x better than text based assets. Personalized video also delivers the right messaging, every time, to every member of a buying group. By supporting your buyer with the personalized experience they want and taking the pain out of group buying, close rates increase by up 44%. With results like these, can you really afford not to use personalized video?

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