Are We Finally Ready for Real Personalization?
Okay, so how long have we been talking about personalization? When I was writing for CMSWire, what feels like many moons ago (it was 17 years ago - wow, that takes me back), I was writing about website personalization. There wasn't a lot to it back then, personalizing based on location or contents stored in a cookie. And even then, brands couldn't get it right.
All these years later, personalization is still a goal brands strive to achieve. And some are doing it; others not so much. There have been fails and slip-ups, and many questions that continue to make us wonder what true personalization is, but brands still believe it's the holy grail to finding success.
So why does it remain so elusive? Is it the technology? Is it the data? Or are brands just not ready? I'm betting it's a combination for most.
There is hope, though.
Here’s my question for you: Are you trying to personalize your customer experiences? How’s it going so far? Share in the comments, or send me a message. I’d love to hear how it’s going.
Contentstack announced some new platform enhancements that it says enables "real personalization." One thing Conor Egan, their VP of Product said that resonated with me was that companies building experiences on composable architectures tend to have a fractured authoring experience because they are piecing different software together.
But being composable doesn't mean you can't create an authoring experience that streamlines the work required, including the work to do personalization.
For Contentstack, this means combining testing, segmentation, a new authoring experience, and a new personalization engine in a single experience and adding brand voice guidelines through a Brand Kit (I don't have to explain that generative AI and other AI are part of this right?). What you end up with is what they call "real personalization at scale."
The demo was very interesting, and if you have a chance to see it, take it. My demo was fast and in a group, so I didn't get to ask a lot of questions or say, "Whoah, back up there a minute." (I would have). What I saw did provide a website experience that was personalized to highly customized segments, to activity tracking, using base content and changing it as needed while following the right brand voice and writing following existing brand content. It may take a bit to wrap your head around how to do it, but once you get started, I can imagine the personalization that can happen.
Let me stop for a second here. Yes, I liked what I saw with Contentstack. But are there others trying to do similar things? I think "real personalization" is top of mind for many software vendors that support any type of digital experience. Marketers want it. Sales teams want it. Even customer success teams need it. So it's time we see more martech and sales tech vendors delivering it.
What I've been writing about
I only get to write a limited number of stories for Diginomica. That's hard because a lot of interesting product announcements and expert commentaries come my way. Here are a few:
Salesloft and Outreach announced new product updates, some of which use generative AI. For starters, we're talking Smart Account Plans (Salesloft) and Visual Relationship Builder (Outreach). Rumor has it there's more to come.
Tribble is a new startup bringing generative AI to RFP development. This platform was incredibly cool (even for boring RFP work). Want to produce RFPs faster? This tool should be on your radar.
If you read my last newsletter, you might remember I said I had a follow-up video marketing piece coming based on a conversation with Wistia's Chris Savage. Here it is: Avatars, AI and authenticity - driving the revolution in marketing video production.
Which leads to visual storytelling. This conversation with Storyblocks CEO TJ Leonard brings an incredibly important point to how to tell better stories in video - know your customer.
Coming up - a social media marketing conversation with Hootsuite's CMO, Elina Vilk. Let me just say about this interview - I have a new appreciation for social media managers.
Thanks for reading this far.
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