So how can you deliver better user experiences? How can you increase engagement and drive more sales?

The answer is with content personalization — a strategy that enables you to deliver tailored content to your audience.

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at content personalization and why it’s important. We’ll also show examples and provide a complete breakdown of how you can get started.

What Is Content Personalization?

Content personalization is the practice of delivering relevant content to individual users based on their interests and preferences.

When done right, content personalization can help differentiate your company and increase customer loyalty. 60% of consumers are more likely to become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience.

That’s not all.

Over a third of customers say they’ll return to brands that offer personalized experiences, even if there are cheaper options available. If you’re not already leveraging personalization, then you’re leaving sales on the table.

How Does Content Personalization Work?

Personalization has become more widespread thanks to sophisticated algorithms. When you log in to your Amazon or Netflix accounts, you’ll see recommendations based on your purchase history or viewing habits.

Netflix even personalizes the artwork it uses to recommend content. Someone who has seen movies featuring Uma Thurman may see artwork for the movie Pulp Fiction that features her. In contrast, subscribers who enjoy John Travolta movies may see artwork featuring Travolta.

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It’s a subtle yet effective tactic that Netflix employs to get you interested in its content. If you’re a fan of a particular actor, you’ll likely be interested in viewing their other movies.

So how does content personalization work?

To start, content personalization requires data. You can’t offer a personalized experience if you don’t know anything about your users.

Content personalization typically requires the following types of data:

• Demographic data: Demographic data includes data like age, gender, education, income, marital status, etc. By knowing basic details about your customers, you can show different types of promotional offers.
• Contextual data: Contextual data is background information that provides more context about a user. This can mean things like devices, browsers, geographic locations, and even social media interactions.
• Behavioral data: Behavioral data refers to how your users interact with your brand. Examples include usage behavior, pages visited, and products purchased. Amazon, for example, looks at behavioral data to make product recommendations.

Having this data about your users allows you to deliver a more personalized experience. For example, if a user has browsed certain product categories, you can make those categories more prominent on their homepage.

Why Is Content Personalization Important?

If you’re thinking that personalizing the user experience is a lot of work, you’re right. But it can prove especially valuable for your company.

Here’s why.

Helps you meet (and exceed) customer expectations

When you’re shopping on your favorite brand’s website, do you appreciate it when you receive personalized recommendations? How about when you receive newsletters that are curated based on your interests?

Chances are you do. That’s because it shows that those brands are taking extra steps to cater to your needs. They’re not just showing the same thing to everyone.

71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized experiences. What’s more, 76% get frustrated when those expectations aren’t met.

Whether you run an eCommerce store or a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business, content personalization can help you meet those expectations.

Delivers better customer experiences

Consumers have more choices than ever. 

However, this isn’t always a good thing as it can lead to “choice overload” — when consumers presented with too many options have a hard time deciding. With content personalization, you can help customers narrow down their options based on their interests. 

By helping customers find what they’re looking for, you’re delivering better experiences — a benefit that 64% of marketing professionals cite as a leading benefit of using personalization.

Satisfied customers are more likely to return and recommend their friends. That kind of word-of-mouth marketing can help expand your customer base.

Encourages repeat purchases and generates a higher return

Investing in a personalization strategy can help you boost conversion rates. As an example, just consider Amazon’s recommendation engine, which recommends products based on your history.

When you view order details for products you’ve already purchased, Amazon will also show you a list of recommendations based on what other customers have purchased.

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Amazon recommends different accessories for a Kindle I purchased, including a screen protector and a case to encourage a second purchase (I did end up getting a case).

The example above goes to show that delivering relevant and personalized experiences can help you drive repeat purchases and generate more sales. 

But just how much? 

Companies that leverage a personalization strategy across the entire customer lifecycle achieve an ROI of 300% or more.

4 Inspiring Content Personalization Examples

Content personalization goes beyond using your customers’ names to welcome them back or changing the currency based on location. These are certainly important, but don’t stop there.

Here are examples of what companies are doing to personalize the user experience.

Amazon: Product recommendations

When you visit Amazon, you’ll get a homepage that’s completely personalized based on things like the products you’ve purchased and the items you’ve browsed.

Here’s an example of books that Amazon recommends based on my reading history:

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Of course, Amazon doesn’t only display product recommendations on the homepage. You’ll see on-site recommendations throughout the site. 

If you operate an online store, implementing product recommendations is one of the easiest ways to get started with content personalization. 

New York Times: Dynamic news feed

Streaming services like Netflix and HBO rely heavily on personalization to recommend shows and movies based on individual viewing preferences. 

Even the New York Times now has a “For You” section that offers personalized content recommendations based on previously read articles.

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So, how can you leverage this? One way is to segment your audience and recommend content based on their interests.

Airbnb: Retargeting ads

Content personalization can also apply to your marketing efforts. For example, social media platforms like Facebook enable you to reach potential customers who have interacted with your site through retargeting.

As an example, if you’re an Airbnb customer and you recently searched for cities without making a booking, you might see a remarketing ad like the following on Facebook.

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The ad does a good job of helping users complete their booking. It’s also highly relevant as it contains a photo of a listing and the city that was searched. 

Grammarly: User insights

One creative use of content personalization comes from Grammarly, an online writing assistant that helps you write better content.

Each week, Grammarly sends a weekly writing update to each of its users. But it doesn’t just send a generic newsletter to everyone. It includes user insights like words written, mistakes made, and the number of unique words used.

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It also shows the number of additional mistakes that the tool found. Users can click through to learn what those mistakes are and improve their writing.

These are just some examples of how companies are leveraging content personalization to boost engagement, increase customer loyalty, and generate more sales.

5 Steps to Getting Started With Content Personalization

We’ve covered what content personalization is and how it can benefit your bottom line. We’ve also looked at different ways that companies are using this strategy to increase engagement.

Now let’s look at how you can implement a content personalization strategy.

1. Collect customer data

To deliver personalized experiences, you need to collect the right data. Generally, you’ll collect first-party data, which is data that you collect directly from your audience.

Some ways to collect this type of data include:

• Website or mobile app analytics: Checking your website or mobile app analytics can tell you a lot about the visitors who are interacting with your brand.
• Surveys and polls: You can also send out surveys to your customers. If they like your products, most will be happy to answer a few questions.
• Email lists: When users sign up for a newsletter, ask what kind of topics they’re interested in. You can also ask current subscribers to update their preferences.

Another way to collect customer data is at the point of registration. When users first create an account on your website, ask what their interests or main goals are. 

Here’s an example of how Alo Moves personalizes class recommendations.

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By learning what visitors are interested in, Alo Moves can recommend the right classes. 

2. Segment your audience

With the data you’ve collected, the next step is to bring it into a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, where you can create segments or groups of people with similar attributes.

Examples of segments you can create include:

• Demographic segments like age, gender, and job title
• Behavioral segments like status, pages visited, and products purchased
• Geographic segments like location, climate, and cultural preferences

You can also create segments for each stage of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. 

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With an effective content map, you can deliver personalized content to your visitors as they move through the buyer’s journey.

3. Create relevant content for different segments

The next step is to create content for each of the segments you’ve created. Examples of different content types that you can personalize include:

• Blog posts for certain demographics (e.g., younger and older audiences)
• Buying guides for different roles (e.g., executives and managers)
• Emails based on on-site behaviors (e.g., pages visited)
• Videos for specific interests (e.g., technology, health, etc.)

Are you interested in getting high-quality, custom content for your business? Then check out HOTH Blogger, and we’ll take it from there.

4. Implement a content personalization solution

With the content you create for specific segments, you can have it automatically served to your users with a website personalization tool. The possibilities are practically endless here. 

For example, if users are browsing similar products in the same category, you could send an email with a buying guide to help them with their choice. Likewise, you can create dynamic landing pages for different types of visitors.

Consider using a website personalization tool like Personyze. With behavioral targeting and the data in your CRM, you can show personalized product recommendations, send targeted emails, and even create dynamic landing pages.

As an example, here’s a landing page that’s personalized for a user interested in electronics and camping gear (left) and a user interested in yoga and kitchen supplies (right).

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Users can see products that are relevant to their interests.

HubSpot’s content management system (CMS) is another tool that lets you personalize with “smart content” — modules that show different versions of your content to your audience.

These modules can display content based on:

• Ad source
• Country
• Device type
• Referral source
• List membership
• Lifecycle stage

What’s more, you can test different versions of your content. This helps you determine which offers resonate with your target audience.

5. Measure content personalization success

You wouldn’t launch an SEO campaign or invest in paid advertising without also tracking, measuring, and optimizing your results. Content personalization is no exception.

Monitoring the results you’re getting with your personalization efforts will help you determine whether users are engaging with your content and deriving value. 

Here are some metrics that you should track:

• Visitor frequency
• Average session duration
• Number of pages visited
• Segment performance
• Conversion rates

Consider running A/B tests within the same segments to see how different elements like page titles and promotional offers impact engagement and conversions. Then continue to run new tests based on the insights you gather.

Get Personalized Content Created For Your Brand

As consumers have grown accustomed to the personalized experiences offered by companies like Amazon and Netflix, personalization is no longer “nice to have.” Brands must make personalization part of their marketing strategy, or they risk losing customers.

If you need help scaling your content creation efforts, be sure to check out our HOTH Blogger service. You can also schedule a free HOTH consultation with one of our marketing experts to discuss your needs.

The post A Complete Guide to Content Personalization appeared first on The HOTH.

But it’s also a whole lot of work, and there are only so many hours in the day. Plus, you have an entire business to run. You can’t dedicate all of your time to ensuring your content marketing plan gets off the ground. 

Well, our first instinct would be to recommend working with an agency. Services like HOTH Blogger and HOTH X can create a winning partnership that will push your content marketing plans to the next level. 

But if you’re not ready to take that step yet, there are several content marketing tools that we can recommend that will help push your plans forward and get the ball rolling.

In this article, we’re counting down 11 of the world’s very best content marketing tools. 

Why Do You Need Content Marketing Tools? 

You’ve undoubtedly heard that increasingly annoying marketing mantra “content is king.” And while that phrase is painfully overused throughout the marketing world, there’s a reason for it. Content is incredibly important, and it could be the x-factor that pushes you over the top and into the world of superstardom. 

But if content really is king (or queen), then content marketing is the conquering army that puts it on the throne. 

Content marketing occurs when you create and share various forms of content. This could be something simple like a blog post. It could also be video content highlighting the benefits of your company. It could even be an image or infographic that provides your audience with valuable information about the services you offer. 

Everyone will tell you that you need content marketing, and they’re not lying. There are many reasons why you need to create targeted content that pushes your audience further into your conversion funnel. 

But there’s one reason above all that should light a fire under you. Your competitors are already doing it. 

A massive 82% of marketers are investing in content marketing efforts, which likely includes at least a few members of your rogue’s gallery. That means if you don’t want to be left in the dust, get your rear in gear and start producing content. 

Additionally, it’s super effective. Content marketing generates more than three times as many leads as outbound marketing while costing 62% less.

But, as we said at the beginning of this article, a lot goes into successfully marketing content.

Some of the various elements of content marketing you’re going to encounter include:

• Content production
• Optimization
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Plus much more

Obviously, that’s a tall order for any marketing professional on their own. That’s why we turn to various content marketing tools that eliminate a lot of busy work from the process and ensure that none of that pesky human error rears its head to derail these carefully laid out plans. 

Pretty much every facet of content marketing has a tool attached to it, and we’re going to go through 11 of those tools right here in the next section. So strap yourselves in because we’re about to ride through the wonderful world of content marketing tools.  

Top 11 Content Marketing Tools You Need Now

You need content marketing tools if you’re going to stand a chance at getting your content out there in a meaningful way. 

But there are so many content marketing tools, and you need to know what will give you the best bang for your buck. That’s why we’ve created this list of the 11 content marketing tools you need right now. 

1. Evernote

Evernote is an organizational tool that will revolutionize how you take notes and share them with others. This, in turn, will allow you to brainstorm your ideas for the future and improve collaboration with members of your team. 

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Evernote allows you to take all of your ideas and place them in a central location where they can be accessed by everyone in your organization across any device. That means something you’ve posted on your laptop can be accessed on a mobile device. You’re never too far from the content ideas that will propel your business forward.

You can also use it to grab and edit clips from anywhere around the web. You’re even able to access your Evernote notebooks offline. You can take the text and images you capture with Evernote and add annotations and notes to them, which will also pop up across devices. 

2. Google Docs

Google Docs is a favorite tool of writers everywhere. It’s an on-the-go word processor that can be accessed from any device for enhanced collaboration. 

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You can start writing something at the office, realize you left out something important, and make edits on the train leaving work using your tablet or phone. Google Docs saves content on the Google cloud so that you can access it from anywhere. 

Docs also come with a wealth of templates you can use to create different types of content. On top of that, you can also use Google Docs to share content in real-time. That means you and a colleague on the other side of the world can work together on the same document simultaneously. 

It’s the ultimate collaborative writing tool. 

And the best thing about Google Docs is that it’s a 100% free service. You won’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars or pay a monthly fee like you would for something like Microsoft Office.

3. Trello

Trello is a project management tool that allows you to organize all of your content marketing tasks in one place and share them with your team members. This ensures that everyone is held accountable for their work through an online project management editorial calendar. 

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When you’re running an entire content marketing campaign, there are many moving parts. It’s easy to forget things, and having a project management solution like Trello will help you remember what has to be done, who has to do it, and when it’s needed by. 

This is done by organizing tasks on a Kanban board, which is like a digital corkboard where you’d normally place post-it notes with your tasks listed.  

However, these notes are more detailed, they can’t fall off and get sucked into a vacuum cleaner, and they can be accessed using any device. 

Trello has paid options, but there’s also a free version that can be used for entire marketing teams. 

4. Canva

A huge part of content marketing is designing impressive-looking visuals. But if you’re not a graphic designer, this task can seem daunting. That’s why we’re thankful for Canva every day. 

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Canva works off an intuitive user interface that allows even those with no artistic ability to easily create visual content. This includes infographics, title cards for blogs, imagery for landing pages, social media posts, eye-catching ads, and much more. 

Canva is the perfect choice when you want to make a statement that a stock photo isn’t going to convey. Its simple drag-and-drop interface allows you to create professional-looking artwork, either by using one of its many templates or starting completely from scratch. 

5. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the biggest names in email marketing. This is an area of content marketing that you can’t afford to ignore. The global market for email marketing will hit $17.9 billion by 2027, and many marketers prefer it over social media marketing. 

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Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that you can access on any device for free. There are paid options for larger campaigns, but the free option should be enough for many smaller businesses. 

You can use Mailchimp to build an email list of subscribers primed to convert. The system also handles unsubscribes and keeps the list updated for maximum open potential. You’re even able to track your most engaged leads so that you know who really needs your focus. 

What’s more, Mailchimp gives you a wealth of trackable data, like open rates, click-throughs, and even subscription rates. 

6. Grammarly

When you’re creating written content for your content strategies, you want to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward. By that, we mean you want to ensure that your writing is pristine in every piece of content. This is true whether it’s a blog for your website or posts for social networks. 

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That means free of grammatical errors, free of spelling mistakes, and free of plagiarism. 

That’s where Grammarly comes into play marvelously. Grammarly is the biggest name in online writing tools right now. It allows you to check your content for errors and improve as a writer over time. The system doesn’t just correct your mistakes. It takes time to tell you why your mistakes were mistakes in the first place, which helps you become more effective with written communication. 

It also helps you police content for plagiarism. Accidental plagiarism happens all the time, and it can seriously hurt your credibility. That’s why it’s important to run all pieces of content through a plagiarism checker and save yourself a ton of potential embarrassment. 

For additional help with content creation, check out HOTH Blogger.

7. Yoast

What’s the point in creating effective content if no one ever finds it? That’s why you have to make sure that the content you produce is optimized for search engine optimization or SEO. 

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SEO is an essential part of the marketing process, but it takes time and energy. Yoast is an effective tool and WordPress plugin that can help you optimize your website pages for search. While it’s not a suitable replacement for actual SEO specialists, it can help give you a leg up. 

With Yoast, you can optimize your content for keywords. You can also edit your meta titles, meta descriptions, and URL slugs with ease. It even recommends internal links that you can use to create an interconnected web of content. 

For more on how we can help with your SEO strategy, check out HOTH X.

8. Loom

Loom is a wonderful communication tool that any team can use to communicate important information that can then be replayed on demand. 

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If you need to explain something complex using visual aids, Loom can be an excellent tool. It allows you to record video explanations where your face appears in the corner of the screen while the system itself films your desktop. You can set it to record the entire desktop screen or just the current tab. 

This is one of those tools that allows you to eliminate meetings that could have been an email by placing your video explanation in an actual email. 

When using Loom, things get done faster, less time is wasted, and team members have a helpful aid that they can access whenever needed. 

9. Google Analytics

If you’re going to run an effective content marketing campaign, you’ve got to be able to measure its effectiveness. That means gathering analytics data. This is where something like Google Analytics comes in very handy. 

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You can use Google Analytics for free to determine how people found your website and what they did once they arrived at it. It’s also very easy to use and understand. 

You’ll be able to use Google Analytics to track your goals and determine where your most effective content marketing efforts lie. Once you know that, you’ll know to drop any underperforming campaigns and devote more of your budget to platforms that are paying out. 

10. WordPress

WordPress could be the backbone of your organization. It’s a content management system that allows you to create a website, post content, and update information with just a few clicks. 

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WordPress comes with a wealth of customizable templates that you can use to create a professional-looking website and keep it chock full of content. 

This CMS is actually open-source, which means that the WordPress community keeps it updated. You’ll be able to self-host your site and attach several plugins to it to get the most out of your online presence. 

11. MarketMuse

MarketMuse is an SEO marketer’s dream. This platform allows you to analyze the Google search engine results page for the keywords you’re targeting, getting a list of major competitors and analytics that will show you what you should be targeting. 

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You’re also able to paste your content directly into MarketMuse. It will then provide you with an SEO score, which can be measured against the average scores of the content you’re competing with. 

MarketMuse carries a hefty price tag, but the SEO benefits you’ll receive with this remarkable tool make up for the cost. 

Conclusion 

No one ever said content marketing strategies were easy. In fact, they’re downright difficult. 

But they can be made easier using any of the 11 tools on our list today. 

If you decide that you don’t want to take on all the work associated with content marketing, The HOTH is here to help with our team of content creators and marketing experts. Schedule a call with us today, and let us create and share the best content possible for your specific audience. 

The post Try These 11 Top Content Marketing Tools appeared first on The HOTH.