getting started with personalisation

Personalisation was the focus of our latest conversation with b2b subscription leaders at our regular breakfast club. Here’s an output of the key discussion points

First let’s define what personalisation is…

The best personalisation is when the customer experience is enhanced and feels effortless without customers thinking about how and why it is happening. ​It is about making customers’ lives easier and adding value, which will ultimately improve the overall experience for them and deliver benefits back to the business.

econsultancy

And the kind of benefits b2b subscription leaders are anticipating…

To build loyalty, engagement, brand strength – all of which convert into revenue

Substribe member

The barriers to an end to end personalisation project include:

• Understanding what it is!
• Sheer size and scale of the project
• Perceived need for the business to be “big enough” to do it
• Does the customer need it / will the customer trust it?
• Dealing with often disparate sources of data about the customer
• Agreeing the owner of the customer and their journey
• Last but not least, unclear ROI

Five main takeaways:

• Don’t overcomplicate – if it’s complex for the team, then it’s complex for the customer. ​
• Figure out what you’re looking to test – and test it. For example, will this new way of communicating to a segment of our audience help form a habit?
• Start small. You may be running a newsletter. Your next step could be creating a suite of newsletters. Those newsletters could follow topics that resonate for different personas.
• Iterate and learn. Use small steps to learn more about your audience. For example, discovering a senior persona opens a message at 6am before work starts.
• Know what you’re measuring and measure it. That could be frequency & volume. Or, it could be the quality of touchpoint. Will an uptick in metrics lead to a better outcome for the customer and your business?​

About the business case:

Personalisation needs a bunch of focus, time, and effort to get right.

Start with the people – the internal team and knowledge about your customers.

Create processes to nurture engage and convert your customers and prospects. Use tests, iterations and metrics to observe the impact on your customers.

Once you have the people and processes in place, collect evidence that personalisation works for your business.

Use evidence to get buy in to scale and grow your approach across. Then figure out the right tech that will empower your customers and your business based on your use cases.

“The breakfast club is a great opportunity to talk openly with similarly minded professionals exploring different ways to crack similar challenges.”
If you are a b2b subscription leader, contact andy@substribe.co to join our Breakfast Club.

Seeing this pattern in your business?

If this is showing up in your subscription business, it’s worth a conversation. 30 minutes, no pitch — just diagnosis.