Personalization and the bottom end of the scale

I'm a big fan of increasing relevance through carefully personalized content. The more that is known about an individual with whom you are going to communicate, the more you can target a message that captures their attention and pushes them forward.

This insight into the individual can be based on their digital body language, but it can also be based on their interaction with your software if you happen to be a software company. The insight provided through looking at software usage patterns can be among the most powerful, as you can build highly relevant content, based on very specific knowledge of an individual - in context of your application.

Many of today's social networking systems have leveraged this beautifully, with communications about visits, friends, comments, and activities that compel the recipient to remain engaged and deepen their usage profile.

However, in doing so, it's critical to set things up for the bottom end of usage that recognizes lack of usage as a pattern, and caters to it.

As an example of this, the screenshot is from an email of this type that I received. I don't have anything bad to say about Naymz, and many people I know use the service. I just don't happen to use it myself - I set up a profile, but never really adopted it. However, the personalization I receive is clearly targeted at amplifying my usage. If I saw 25 visits to my profile in the last week, I might be tempted to dive in a bit further, however with 0 visits, I'm pushed in the opposite direction.

In setting up the personalization systems that we all use, the temptation is there to focus on the highly engaged, and amplify their engagement. Whether it is with product trials, education, or event attendance, we're all tempted to focus on this keen minority, as they are the most fun. However, in doing so, there's a risk we might alienate those who are not yet engaged.

How do you cater your personalization to the non-engaged? What have you seen that worked well in identifying and re-engaging this end of the spectrum?

The Buzz about Google Buzz – 6 things relevant to B2B

Yesterday, Google announced their next major foray into social media, with the launch of Google Buzz. While the main concepts behind Buzz are very familiar with anyone who is at all familiar with social media – friends, status updates, photo sharing – the way that Google brings it all together, and their sheer weigh in the market, means that this may be quite interesting.

As a B2B marketer, what does this mean?

It’s always challenging to gaze into the proverbial crystal ball, and in a market this dynamic, many things can change, but here are 6 things worth paying close attention to as Google Buzz rolls out:

1) Shift to the Main Stream:

Historically, social media has been somewhat separate from other parts of our world. You had to deliberately set up a new social service, whether Twitter or Facebook, and then actively make it part of your daily routine. It actually took an effort (albeit small) to get involve. This meant that social media was less adopted by the business mainstream, but was mostly adopted by the writers and bloggers within a business context. Therefore, social media as a marketing strategy in B2B was often used to influence influencers, rather than connecting directly with end prospects.

Now, Google has integrated all of the elements of social media much more tightly together – your email contacts automatically are your friends/followers, Buzz updates are right next to your Inbox, and a message blurs the boundary between an email and direct message. This means that, rather quickly, a significantly higher percentage of the mainstream audience will find themselves involved – actively or passively – in social media.


2) Reducing Business/Personal Boundaries:
With this steady integration of email, status updates, photos, and friends into one realm, it continues the trend of blurring the boundaries between business and social relationships, and between work and home life. Whereas I do believe that, in many ways, our brains are hard wired to see a clear difference (hence why it would feel extremely awkward to offer to pay your mother-in-law for Thanksgiving dinner), I do see the evolution of Google Buzz as reducing those boundaries.

What this means for B2B Marketers is that your buyers will have more personal stakes on the table when they get involved with your organization. Regardless of whether you are the cheapest or best, the encroachment of business on personal space will mean that strong emotional factors will be at play. If you are not a company with whom they feel a level of trust, a personal relationship, and a pride about doing business with, you may not be selected. Intangible factors, to be sure, but personal space is more about emotional factors than rational business decisions.


3) Small Groups, Waves, and Influence:
Google appears to be adding a focus on the “small group” that is less emphasized in many current social platforms. By adding an interim step between one-to-one and one-to-world, and providing a new way for these groups to interact (and be observed) online with Google Wave, they now have a much richer ability to understand how influence manifests itself in small groups.

This shift from large influencers to many smaller influencers is a key dynamic in today’s world, and by focusing on the small groups, Google has positioned themselves to be a key part of it.


4) Location-Based Social Connections Increase in Importance:
With a tight tie to the iPhone, and its location-based features, Google Buzz has moved location-based thinking one step closer to prominence in today’s market. Buzz has many features that are tied to both where you are, and more importantly, who is near you. With a human, face-to-face relationship still being highly relevant in building trust, these location-based features may increase the importance of classic off-line events like major shows and conferences.

Rather than being about the content, events will continue to shift towards being about who is there, and how to orchestrate face-to-face meetings. Location-based social networks will be one of the most powerful contributors to this shift in the dynamic of off-line events.


5) Google Knows the Influencers:

One of the most powerful insights that Google gains is knowledge of who the actual influencers are in any given market. Seeing exactly who is followed, what topics are discussed in small groups (and with whom), and what links are clicked on in shared status updates, gives Google tremendous insights into who is interesting and relevant in any given topic area.

This understanding of influence by subject is not just a powerful data set, but as Google progresses further into real-time search, the ability to rank a result highly because a key influencer on that topic area suggested it will allow much more accurate search results. For those B2B marketers still focused exclusively on content and links as a driver of search ranking, this will be a trend to pay attention to.


6) Google Knows Your Interests:

Conversely, Google will also begin to build an understanding of each person’s interests based on their friends, the topics of their discussions, and what they share and respond to. As Google does this, they will be able to move from only being able to present relevant information when it is actively sought (via search), to presenting information that is passively sought (through general indications of interest). A “recommended” posts concept will allow Google to continually tune these algorithms.

This is a powerful transformation for B2B marketers, as many of the ideas and concepts we need to communicate and have buyers discover are not always actively sought. Being able to present a message to someone who displays certain indicators of intent, but may not have explicitly searched, is a powerful arrow in the B2B marketer’s quiver.



How Google Buzz truly ends up effecting us as B2B marketers is obviously determined by many factors. However, Google is clearly a major player in the market for finding and discovering information, and as they make a major new foray into social media with Buzz, these six trends are well worth watching.

What do you think? What will your organization be watching for as Google Buzz rolls out?

The Four Dimensions of Personalization

I did a webcast radio show for the AMA a few years back, and I remember that one of the hot topics was content personalization. At the time, I tried to broaden the topic to include other areas of personalization as well, but I am not sure many people understood what I was trying to articulate.

Recently I have started to see examples of what I would call "The Four Dimensions of Personalization". Most people tend to focus only on content (the "What") personalization, and we often forget that the other dimensions may have as much, and sometimes more of an effect on whether you get a response.

Who, When, How, and What - Personalization

1. Who is sending the communication? is it a salesperson, the CEO, the VP of Marketing? often this will determine whether I view, read or spend anytime looking at your message. Agent personalized campaigns have resulted in up to a 30% increase in opens, and up to a 300% increase in click-throughs, as often the prospect recognizes the name, as someone they have either talked to, or heard a voicemail from the sales rep.
   
2. When am I receiving the communication? Did I just visit the website, have I just attended a webinar or trade show? Or has it been weeks since I even thought of your company or offering? A MIT study on lead management (http://www.leadresponsemanagement.com/mit-lrm-study) indicated that follow-up calls within the hour dramatically increase conversion to qualified leads - why wouldn't it also help with marketing communications?
3. How am I receiving the communication? Am I the type of person that answers my own phone? Do I look at all my Direct Mail personally or have my assistant throw out anything she doesn't recognize? Debbie Hemley made a great comment on the resurgence of direct mail in her post here http://www.impressionsthroughmedia.com/?p=949 - it might be worth considering.
4. And of course What am I receiving? Is this message targeted at my current need or pain? Have I just searched on "marketing and sales alignment" on Google and now am receiving information on Lead Scoring?

• “Campaigns that target based on Website user click-stream data outperform untargeted broadcast campaigns by nearly 4 to 1.” - Forrester Research (Jupiter)

Make sure you think of all four of the aspects of personalization when planning your next campaign - as content (the "What") is only one of them.