Content is the fuel that empowers every buyer interaction. And the most impactful content is tailored based on the unique needs of each customer.
Personalized content is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have — because 57% of B2B customers expect content that is tailored to their unique needs (Forrester Personalization At Scale 2022). Sellers can no longer rely on the standard, one-size-fits-all pitch. Sales, marketing, and account management teams must demonstrate a deep understanding of a buyer’s unique business needs by tailoring information to build trust and add value.
57% of B2B customers expect content that is tailored to their unique needs.
Source: Forrester Personalization At Scale 2022
Sales interactions have the highest level of buyer engagement and the greatest potential to drive revenue. Each interaction is an opportunity for a seller to add meaningful value and build trust with the buyer — an opportunity that marketers should pay attention to and leverage as a channel for their messaging.
Yet, today’s sellers and marketers are not realizing this potential, and are not effectively meeting the new buyer expectation, as 65% of decision makers say content from sellers does not show an understanding of their specific business needs (Forrester 2021 Content Preferences Survey). Showing up with inaccurate or irrelevant data can lose a buyer’s trust and even discredit the product and brand itself. That leads to wasted revenue potential and missed quotas.
With so much at stake, why aren’t companies delivering personalized content to buyers?
Navigating the roadblocks to content personalization
Creating personalized content at scale is not easy or efficient.
Tailoring documents with specific data requires significant time, and it can be difficult to understand and incorporate the most essential information for each buyer opportunity. And in heavily regulated industries in which compliant content is critical, content personalization may seem unattainable.
Marketing frequently receives one-off requests to personalize assets for sellers or help them prepare for important meetings, but it’s hard for them to do this efficiently at scale. That’s because marketing hasn’t created easily customizable assets for sellers, hampering seller effectiveness, and wasting an opportunity to leverage the sales team as an impactful marketing channel.
This can be a pitfall for sellers too, pushing them to go rogue — wasting hours manually customizing slides and combing through data points that may be relevant to one buyer but useless to another. In fact, sellers spend an average of 11 hours per month looking for and modifying content for buyers (Forrester Q4 2020 Global Sales Enablement Survey).
65% of decision makers say sales content does not show an understanding of their specific business needs.
Source: Forrester 2021 Content Preferences Survey
While vital to personalization, these efforts take time away from revenue-generating activities, completely disrupt the seller’s workflow, and drift away from brand standards — a significant pain point for marketers.
Sellers and account managers cannot do it alone. Personalized content requires collaboration and alignment between sales and marketing. Marketers must make it easy for customer-facing teams to quickly customize content, while carrying a consistent message and remaining on-brand. By doing so, marketers can reinforce that their messaging is effectively communicated — reaching the right audience at the right time.
How can sales, marketing, and account management teams align to unlock the full potential of customizable content at scale?
Introducing Automated Content Builder
Showpad’s Automated Content Builder (ACB) will redefine content creation. With the Automated Content Builder, teams can streamline and scale the personalization of content in customer-facing assets.
ACB is a powerful content personalization app that helps marketers and reps create customized presentations and documents. Marketing and sales teams can align around consistent messaging, while also making content more relevant to a given buyer. By leveraging ACB, marketers can optimize their sales team as the most impactful marketing channel. Marketers can provide sales reps with personalized content that ensures each buyer interaction is compelling and meaningful — to drive revenue and increase the return on their marketing efforts.
The new app automatically and seamlessly pulls from external data sources, like a CRM, and drops it into marketing-approved templates. With ACB, even heavily regulated industries can ensure compliance by controlling what sections of a presentation a seller can edit while locking in the information that needs to be exact.
Uplevel your impact with Automated Content Builder
The ACB empowers sellers, marketers, and enablement leaders to create customized assets that engage buyers in five key ways.
- Improve seller effectiveness: 66% of customers expect brands to understand their wants and needs — and reward them when they do, with 76% saying they’re more likely to purchase from brands that personalize (Salesforce, McKinsey). That makes the time sellers spend with buyers more meaningful — driving wins and greater quota attainment.
- Save valuable time: Eliminate manual data entry and generate personalized content at scale in seconds. Free up teams to invest more time in revenue-generating activities, building relationships and closing deals.
- Safe-guard brand integrity: Give sellers the tools to personalize their content while maintaining confidence that their messaging will be consistent, on brand, and compliant.
- Drive upsell opportunities: Elevate customer check-ins and nurture relationships with automated data-driven discussions to drive customer growth.
- Align sales and marketing teams: Misalignment can lead to poor ROI and lost revenue. When both teams work from the same templates with consistent core messaging, marketers can optimize the sales team as a revenue-driving marketing channel, and sellers can build trust with buyers and win more deals.
Elevate your presentations, raise the bar on customer interactions, and create truly valuable experiences with Showpad’s Automated Content Builder.
To learn more about how marketing and revenue-facing teams can align to deliver better buying experiences, check out our other resources.
