Ask Informatics: What is Dynamic Content?

If you want your marketing to be as effective as possible, it has to connect with your customers on a personal and emotional level. And one of the best ways to do that is with dynamic content.

We all know that customers respond better when you get on their level and make them feel special. What’s new in business is a growing expectation that brands will offer more tailored experiences and content during the sales process.

Consider these recent stats:

• 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company that provides a tailored experience. (Slideshare)
• 72% of customers will only engage with personalized messaging. (SmarterHQ)
• 49% of consumers say they will likely become a repeat buyer after a personalized shopping experience with a retailer. (Segment)

Your company needs to be building deeper relationships with its marketing to be competitive. Dynamic content can help.

What is dynamic content?

Dynamic content, also known as “smart content,” is really just marketing creative that changes based on the status or interests of the person viewing it.

It allows brands to serve up personalized copy, images, and more automatically, without the costs of having to create entirely new assets for every unique audience.

You’ve already seen dynamic content in action in your favorite websites and newsletters, although you probably haven’t noticed it (if it’s done right). Examples include:

• Ecommerce websites and apps that seamlessly curate collections of products based on your buying history
• B2B websites that tailor their call to action (CTA) to a customer’s unique position in the sales funnel
• Sales websites that feature different testimonials and case studies, depending on a user’s region
• Email newsletters that read like a letter from a knowledgeable friend, rather than a salesperson

Dynamic content is the opposite of static content, which, as its name suggests, doesn’t change for different users online. Most of your website’s marketing content is static, and that’s to be expected. From your business hours to your backstory, there are a lot of things that don’t change depending on who’s asking. But there are a lot of other touchpoints that can change to make a sale or conversion more enticing.

If you’re not serving up personalized marketing beyond a simple name insert in your emails, you’re already behind. But how do you do it at scale, especially when you’re targeting multiple personas or customer profiles?

How does dynamic content work?

• Clean data: Do you have accurate lists and data on your customers, and understand how that matches up with your established marketing personas?
• Clear goals: Do you have clear, quantifiable metrics of what you want to achieve with the use of dynamic content? Is it about sales, return visits or video views?
• Well-planned creative: Do you have personalized, effective CTAs, imagery, testimonials, and other content that can impact your metrics?

Dynamic content can be a bit of a bear to design and implement. You need to think carefully through all of the different page and module permutations you might need to create, and then actually do the work to create compelling, personalized creative for all of your different personas. The potential cost and heartburn of doing all that work keeps many marketing teams from experimenting, but as we tell our clients, you can’t afford to not try it.

Need more proof? Here are a few more stats on the importance of personalized marketing:

• 90% of leading marketers say personalization significantly contributes to business profitability
• Personalized CTAs convert 202% better than default variants
• 83% of consumers are willing to share data with brands to receive personalized experiences

When you’re ready to start experimenting with dynamic content, we're ready to help put it in motion. Drop our digital marketing experts a line and get started today.

---