We recently participated on a panel at an excellent MITX event focused on getting relevant website content to your audiences.  I think we could have spent the entire day on the topic and the speakers were very knowledgeable and passionate which always makes for a good seminar.

I hoped the audience would be able to take away a tangible list of action items and at least a starting point for thinking about content personalization.  So I thought I would jot those down here for everyone.  While some folks may be well beyond the basics, I still believe these principals work for everyone.

1) Define your audience segments (understand what their intent is and what message/interaction works best).

2) Create content, imagery, messaging, branding (i.e., overall user experience) per segment.  Don’t get too granular to begin with as your website is a marathon not a sprint.  If you start too granular, you have significant risk of missing the target completely.

3) Define your site architecture (i.e., sitemap and navigation nomenclature) as well as overall design to present information in an intuitive way.  What words will resonate with your customer — not you!

4) Test and Refine: A/B testing is a very good and not complicated method for determining what content/message is working.  It involves single aspect changes one at a time to see how changes affect.  Multi-variate testing, while incredibly effective is much more costly and complex, so A/B testing may be a more appropriate place to start.

TIP: Ask your audience for only important information, and only when giving something valuable back to them.  Important information is defined as data points that allow you to help significantly enhance their experience or is absolutely necessary for your business.  Don’t ask for irrelevant information as the more you ask for the more likely they are to not answer.  Don’t ask for their full name if just email address for an online newsletter will do — again it may deter people from answering.  A “conversion” can occur over many touch points and you often don’t have to go from introduction to conversion for a visitor instantly.

TIP: You may have more information than you realize to personalize content.  Look at analytics reports to find out where they were visiting just before your site.  Did they use a search engine?  What keywords?  Are they a return visitor and did they look at the same product again? — this may indicate they can’t pull the trigger on a purchase and a coupon might help.   Did they have to register with a code or referrer information (e.g., a doctor’s ID that can tell you what type of information might be relevant to a patient based on the doctor’s discipline)?  That may tell you a lot about the person that you can interpret and use to drive relevant/persuasive content.

TIP: Andrew Hally of Unica discussed the importance of SEO and landing pages.  I don’t think his comments can be overstated.  It’s incredibly important to manage SEO properly and make sure that the landing pages (whether detailed page within a website, a microsite or a single landing page for an offer).  It really makes a significant difference in conversion to have relevant content based on what a visitor was searching for.  You have only a few seconds to hit a user with a message from an organic search engine once they land on your page.  If it’s not immediately apparent whether your content is relevant, they will leave within a few seconds.

A question that came up was “where we see content personalization tools heading”.  At this point over the next two years I don’t see a revolutionary shift in the features/functions of CMS, Analytics and eMarketing applications.  I expect that the usability of the advanced features finally means a much more wide-spread adoption of the tools.

One of the most interesting topics for me was “how much personalization is too much?”  All systems are only as good as the inputs.  Going too granular means you make more and more assumptions (either manually or through a system).  The more assumptions made the more chance for making a wrong assumption.  This means a significant risk of getting wrong content to a visitor. People also tend to be overwhelmed with managing content and message for too many audiences.  So there needs to be a balance between persuasive content personalization, risk of too much personalization and inability to manage the personalization.

I am a big fan of crawl before you walk and walk before you run.  Start smaller, typically 6-12 audience segments for most (e.g., customers, prospective customers, investors, media, prospective employees, etc.).   The one most likely to be a but more grnaular from the beginning would be customers since you may know a lot about them.  As you learn more about all audience segment behavior and can make informed, accurate decisions to further segment your audience you can do so.  It’s a marathon not a sprint.  You won’t get everything right the first time.

I know there is a lot to digest, but don’t be overwhelmed.  It’s time to start crawling!

1. Jeff Johnson – Chief Creative Officer, BigBad, Inc. (moderator);
2. Brett Zucker – Chief Technology Officer, Bridgeline Digital;
3. Scott Brinker – President & CTO, ion interactive;
4. Andrew Hally – VP of Product Strategy & Marketing, Unica;
5. Joe Henriques, Regional Director, SiteCore USA