How Important is Personalisation for Content Marketing?

The digital revolution has transformed the way brands engage and communicate with their audiences. In an age where advertisements are declining and social media is rising, content marketing has become a go-to marketing strategy for brands. Content is evolving around the consumers needs and brands are struggling to keep up with the high demand of this insatiable appetite for content consumption.

Readers expect content to be informative, relevant and engaging and if it’s not, they turn to a brand that is. This ‘always – on’ world is surrounded by huge amounts of content every day on the internet. Consumers are now beginning to expect tailored content based on their personal preferences (or specific location) to be delivered wherever they are.

Personalisation can be a very powerful tool to boost engagement, drive value and ultimately to make sure readers keep coming back. This year, delivering a personalised experience for customers is a top priority for businesses. In a recent study by PWC’s Digital Services group, 94% of senior level executives believe that delivering personalisation is critical to reaching and retaining customers. As content marketing becomes more successful, personalisation becomes more popular, and it’s also going to become more competitive.

Organisations in many sectors struggle to find the data and content that drives personalisation to its full capacity. From subscriptions and visitor data, businesses know who their consumers are, what interests them and the types of content they are likely to read, but this insight has little advantages if isn’t in real time and actionable. Consumers expect a personalised experience whether online or on their mobile devices and businesses need to prioritise personalisation to help grow their digital revenue.

The brands that will stand out in the coming years will be those who have harnessed the power of user insights and data to drive engagement and sales for their business. Tailoring websites and mobile apps to the individual user now seems to be the main focus for a number of large brands. For example, brands such as Amazon, Netflix and a majority of social media platforms excel at customising the individual user experience by putting their needs first through personalised offers and recommendations. According to a report from Gartner, organisations that have fully invested in all types of online personalisation will outsell companies that have not by more than 30% in 2018.

Personalisation will no longer be a be a nice to have but a need to have strategy to generate a loyal audience. One of the big promises of online personalisation is to reduce bounce rates on their websites, emails and mobile apps and to extend the time visitors spend on their digital platforms. Businesses need to understand that they are giving up a part of their control when they implement personalisation.

Brands have a tendency to be overly brand-centric in their marketing output. By giving digital tools to consumers to personalise how they are talked to by brands will enable a more intimate relationship between brand and customer. The consumer is in control of what they read and where they read it, the business just needs to make it easily accessible and timely.

Often, brands have a large amount of data already but doesn’t offer any insight that can be actioned quickly. On the other hand, personalisation can be easy to implement at first by starting small and then investing in personalisation providers and analytics to enhance the data collection and execution of content. The Harvard Business Review states that personalisation can reduce extra costs by 50%, lift revenues by 5-15%, and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by up to 10-30%. The advantages of valuable and tailored content for the customer can translate into significant commercial benefits for the business.