B2B personalization is all about appealing to the decision maker behind the company. Here are some examples that will help you get started.
The first thing to remember is that even though you’re providing a service or product to a company, it is still a person who is in charge. However, they’ll behave differently from an end customer, so make sure to be more subtle and nuanced than in a B2C setup. Still, the golden rule applies: Personalization is about making the page more relevant to the current viewer.
Audience segmenting is the starting point for personalization. However, not all segmentation techniques are equally relevant in a B2B context. Let’s take a look at what works best and what’s unlikely to succeed (or simply not feasible).
We’ll now take a closer look at time based personalization. For beginners, it’s a comparably easy to implement technique and it is applicable for most B2B companies.
Now, this might be obvious to some, but don’t just tell your visitors what time it is; chances are they already know.
What you need to focus on instead is the effect of time on your viewers’ behavior. People have different habits and preferences based on weekday and time. This is why there are so many articles about “the best day and time to email or to post on Social Media”. For example, the general consensus when it comes to email marketing is to email midweek in the afternoon. There are similar theories for social media.
Of course, no sane person would write an article about “the best time to sell stuff on your website” but most B2B companies can see behavioral patterns based on weekday and time. When are your visitors more likely to purchase, or to request a demo? Do they behave differently on weekends?
Again, user-focused analysis is key here and even good-old Google Analytics can give you some hints on how your visitors behave based on time and weekday.
A Custom Report I created in Google Analytics to analyze traffic based on time and weekday.
A friend of mine works as a freelance photographer who gets most of his traffic from AdWords (and Word of mouth). Until recently, the call-to-action on his landing page read “Call Now”. However, he turns off the phone on the weekend, so when a potential client called, they had to leave a message. Unfortunately, most of them would just hang up and he’d lose valuable business.
Using Unless, we created a “weekend variation” of the landing page and changed the call-to-action to “Schedule a Call”. Using Calendly, interested users can now pick a time slot, and he will call them back. This simple adjustment greatly improved user experience and increased his conversion rate by over 20%.
My personal favorite: Personalization based on geo-location — it’s subtle, powerful, and a great experimentation field for beginners.
Once again, don’t simply state the users location! Be creative and use the information in a valuable and relevant way.
TrendWatching is a market research company that provides their customers with insights about global trends and developments. They have offices on five continents and clients in 60+ countries.
TrendWatching homepage. Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands.
As you can see from the screenshot above, social proof takes up a significant part of TrendWatching’s website. It indicates that potential new customers are positively influenced by seeing who else is trusting their solution.
On closer inspection, you will notice that the clients portrayed in this section actually change based on the viewer’s location.
TrendWatching homepage. Location: Berlin, Germany.
It is also interesting how they mix logos of small and big companies to indicate to the viewer that they cater to businesses of all sizes and industries.
For a globally active company that also positions itself as close to their customers, personalization through geo-location is a perfect solution.
Another form of personalization based on social proof could be customer quotes. Instead of showing the same “What our clients say” section to everyone, show quotes of local companies. Use brand familiarity to your advantage. Your visitors will perceive your business as more approachable and relevant.
Source: Presentation about behavior-based cohorting by Amplitude Analytics
I hope this overview of the most important personalization techniques for B2B websites and the mentioned real-life examples help you get started with your own personalizations. As long as you apply the golden rules of dating to your personalizations, your business customers will be delighted.