A beginner's journey
into (content) marketing
into (content) marketing
I was recently thinking about an email campaign I might do for my job. We’re introducing a new technology, and I made a video about it. There will also be a blogpost on our website. However, I was wondering how we could make the impact of the emails greater. How could we personalize the emails to our clients, so that they would be truly interested? Segmentation is key? Then the word ‘segmentation’ came to me. Why don’t we simply provide a standard email, with the video and a link to the blogpost of the new technology. But on top of that, supplement the email with content that is suited to each reader. For example, clients that come to us for scaffolding, would receive additional content like ‘when is the wind a safety issue for scaffolding?’. People coming to us for insulation would receive additional content about what types of insulation we use, and why we use them. Neat, I thought. I’ve got an entire email campaign figured out, and most of all, I can segment very hard. Because, I could look beyond what kind of services which client was using. We do quite a lot of business in the harbour of Antwerp, so I could also segment on that region. Why not supplementing the mail with content about insulation in ships? Then I started to think about the work function of the reader. A CEO wants to read other things than a plant engineer looking for the best and most suited insulation for his pipelines. Or content might be king? So, while I was hammering out all the details of segmentation for this particular email campaign, something struck me. The segmentation was a, I believe, good idea. But the problem was the content. We simply don’t have enough content yet to start a deep segmentation. So lesson learned: only segment if you have the content to show for. But the bottom line of this all is this: segmentation should not be exclusively part of the content distribution phase. It should already start during the content creation, even sooner. How do you do this? By developing buyer persona’s, even before you start writing. This way, you can identify what people are looking for, and it is easier to get the content to the right person when the content is ready. Buyer's Persona's as a start Time for an example. Let’s say you’re a financial institution. You get a lot of question of prospects wanting to know more about your knowledge. You don’t want to waste all that time on the phone, and most importantly, you want to reach more people. So you start a blog. This is where it begins. Instead of starting to write right away about what you can do for your potential clients, start developing buyer persona’s. Ask yourself what their interests are and what they would want to get out of your knowledge. Thanks to the analyses of your clients and the visitors of your website, you understand there are quite some differences in your clientele. You have upper middleclass families, who are trying to enlarge their wealth through safe investments. On the other side, you have clients looking to gain money fast, for example by speculation. (Personal note: don’t speculate. Remember the crisis of 2007!) So, you need content for both those segments. Content that gives families a safe solution, without risks. And other than that, you also need content that gives expert and current advice on what stocks are good for a quick win. When you keep this in mind, you’re already segmenting before your even distributing. It will make it a lot easier when you’re planning an email campaign. If you want a more expert view on segmenting and more, I highly recommend this blogpost by Tom De Baere.
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