What’s in Your Personalization Toolbox?

Personalization is one of the hottest trends in B2B marketing for a very simple reason: It works.

Personalization delivers business results and impacts the 3 R’s of marketing—revenue, reputation, and relationships. In a recent ITSMA survey on B2B Marketing Personalization, we asked marketers what impact personalization has on their key business metrics and half or more reported that personalization outperforms marketing that is not personalized. Personalization has the strongest impact on client engagement and client relationships.

Most marketers today are just getting started with personalization. They are investing in the technology, processes, and talent needed to execute at scale. They are conducting proofs of concept and pilot programs.

One question that comes up in every discussion is, “what specific tools do you recommend?” That’s a hard question to answer!

With over 7,000 marketing tools populating the Marketing Technology Landscape, not only is it difficult for marketers too choose, but it is near impossible for ITSMA to make recommendations. What will work for one company, might not work for another. Every company approaches technology differently. No two martech stacks will be the same. Even the way companies choose to illustrate their martech stacks drives that point home. Even if you see the same tool or tools included in companies’ martech stacks, I can promise you that the companies are using and integrating the tools in very different ways. Therefore, marketing technology has to be customized by company.

We suggest starting not with the technology, but with the business needs and objectives. That will help you narrow the field. Then dig into the use case(s) and look for tools that can fulfill multiple use cases.