Why personalization is not important in B2B lifecycle marketing

Personalization is important. Getting as close to 1:1 in communications is essentially the holy grail in marketing. But is it everything?

In B2B (business to business) lifecycle marketing, I'd argue the answer is no, and that segmentation should be the priority vs. personalization.

What's the difference?

Personalization: Sharing back information, put together specifically for, or related directly to your user. For example, sharing back an abandoned cart email with a user's cart items inside, or incorporating a user's rewards balance within an email to make sure they know exactly what they've got. Any way you can share back data, or specifics that relate directly to your customer, that's personalization.

Segmentation: Sharing specific data, or information with a user's based on an action they've taken, or a customer type. For example, sharing an email based on someone visiting a certain in-app landing page, being part of a certain industry, or by customer type such as a lead vs. a paying customer. While personalization is in a sense as segmented as you can get. In this example, segmentation is about providing the appropriate message to your user based on who they are.

How are you segmenting your customers to best meet their specific needs? In B2B customer lifecycle marketing this is crucial.

Why is this specific to B2B?

The reason this is specific to B2B is it is all about the customer. In B2B marketing, your customer is another person representing another business, or their employer vs. in B2C when your customer is a consumer representing themselves.

My point here is that personalization around a specific user is not as important as speaking correctly to your users and their business's needs. While you'll want to focus on your end users "jobs to be done", or helping them solve their specific needs, it will be more impactful to speak to that specific need vs. that specific users personal preferences.

Personalization in B2C

Now this is a whole different ballgame. In fact, for B2C (business to consumer) brands, I would argue that personalization is crucial to success.

And don't just trust me, Twilio just released their 2023 State of Customer Engagement report which relays -

"66% of consumers say they will quit a brand if their experience isn’t personalized."

and that...

"86% of consumers say that personalized experiences increase their loyalty to specific brands."

Shopping for yourself, and especially when previous purchases have been made, consumers have made it clear that they expect brands to save them time and energy and know what they want.

Conclusion

Of course, personalization and segmentation are not mutually exclusive, in fact, they are two separate tactics which should be used in unison, when possible, to drive the most effective communications as possible. Yet, if you're in B2B marketing and are hoping that for piping in customer usage data, or personal info into an email and providing it back to your users is going to be an effective retention strategy, I can tell you from experience that you're probably wrong. In other words, just because you're sending your customer an email that says, here's how you're performing, [First name], doesn't mean that's enough to retain their business.

Instead, focus on assessing where that customer is in their customer journey with you, and think about segmenting your messaging based on their perceived needs, this will take your farther in providing value and building that relationship with your customer.

Learn more at lifecyclemarketingtips.com.

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