The art of leveraging dynamic content
Ask marketers what their goals are, and one of the first things they will say is to deliver a more personalised experience to their customers. This isn’t a goal aimed solely at increasing conversions; it’s also about meeting customers’ growing expectations. To put this into context, five years ago people were awed when Amazon could recommend a product they’d love. Today, users expect that Netflix will recommend to them another binge-worthy series based on their tastes. In fact, nearly 74% of users get frustrated with websites that don’t deliver personalised content. So how does a marketer meet this high demand for personalised communications? The answer is in understanding the power of dynamic content and how it makes static content marketing obsolete.
The art of leveraging dynamic content is all in making your communications read as though they are organic and personalised (i.e., not auto-generated).
What is dynamic content?
Simply put, dynamic content refers to elements of a website or email that change depending on a user’s information or past behaviour. For instance, the hero image of a marketing email could change to display an image of a beautiful travel destination for a user who’s looking to book a vacation. An offer on a web page might change for a first-time visitor versus a visitor with a high lead score who is likely ready to buy. Another example would be a clothing retailer showing a banner ad for a pair of jeans similar to the pair that you bought from the site last week. Ultimately, dynamic content creates a personalised experience for every individual user. So instead of everyone who lands on your site or receives your email seeing the same thing, leads may see something different depending on how they have interacted with your company before.
7 Ways You Can Use Dynamic Content
Landing page
Landing pages are a great way to convert users into customers. Consider the impact of delivering a personalised message to every user. The details will, of course, depend on the product. Start by integrating the lead’s name into the page design, and then reference products the lead has already used. Go one step further by personalising the call to action. If a lead has already downloaded one of the opt-in rewards, for example, display another to ensure that she remains in the funnel.
Delivering dynamic content to users in email campaigns is a great way to increase open rates and conversions. Again, there’s much more to personalising an email than including the user’s name. Content can be changed depending on the user’s location or browsing history in the same way it works on your landing pages.
Form
With dynamic content, a site can offer a better user experience by delivering personalised forms. When a visitor is identified as “known” versus “unknown,” the site can present variations on forms displayed or hide them altogether. For example, an unknown visitor might receive a form with a special offer whereas a known visitor might simply need to confirm his email address. Other website personalisation can happen once someone is a known visitor. A known visitor might see a login page instead of a registration page.
Redirects
Another way to convert users into customers is by using redirects. If a user has been seeking more information about Hawaii, for example, he could be redirected to a page about Maui. Redirects can happen almost instantaneously, and the visitor may not even realise that they’ve been redirected.
Pop-Ups
You don’t have to rely on past behaviour to deliver dynamic content to users. By using real-time signals, such as the time spent on a page, length of inactivity, scroll activity or user clicks, you can deliver intelligent pop-ups to achieve a specific action. Usually, this will be to prevent a visitor from leaving the website without first entering into your sales funnel. Use this type of dynamic content to direct him to the best content based on his location.
Personalised Recommendations
We’ve already talked about how major online companies use personalised recommendations. Both Amazon and Netflix use data-driven recommendations to encourage users to purchase more items (in the case of Amazon) or continue their subscription (in the case of Netflix). But recommendations don’t just have to be product-related. You could also recommend content from your blog based on the articles a user has previously read. In essence, this helps to “free” content from the “confines” of repeat purchases and to ensure users see as many of your products as possible.
Dynamic Searches
On large websites with hundreds or thousands of pages, search bars can become user-unfriendly very quickly. Here, use individual user data as well as site-wide data to deliver a personalised, user-friendly experience. One method would be to suggest the most frequent search queries. Alternatively (or in addition), the site can deliver results based on a user’s previous preferences. For instance, a user might prefer a particular brand of clothing or only buy items in a particular pricing bracket.
