No matter what product or service you’re selling, your most important job – whether you’re in marketing, sales or customer success – is to make sure your customers’ experience is not only seamless, but personalized.

Thankfully, we live in a time of bountiful data. Starting in the early 2000s, it became much easier to access information about companies to whom we were looking to sell. Having firmographic, technographic and other types of data for millions of businesses at our fingertips made it possible to tailor our go-to-market strategies directly to prospective customers instead of just blindly casting a net and waiting to see which leads came back.

As technology evolves, so do expectations. The more connected we are as a society, the more in tune companies are expected to be with their customers. Businesses and individuals alike are looking for more than just a cut-and-dried service; they’re looking to be known and nurtured. Truly, the only way to do this is through actionable data and insights.

How Marketing can use data to personalize customer experience

For your marketing team, having data about how people consume and engage with content online is the key to creating the things your customers and prospects want to see. Instead of churning out content just for the sake of it, you can create a plan based on insight, which will mean more engagement and higher conversion rates. When decision-makers feel as though you’re speaking directly to them rather than shouting into the void, it makes all the difference.

With the emergence of account-based marketing tools and intelligence platforms, it’s become possible not only to measure engagement, but to determine intent as well. Your revenue teams are able to take this data and join forces to create a fully formed, targeted experience for every customer, and the right content for each step of the buyer journey.  

How Sales can use data to personalize customer experience

Sales can be a tough job – this much we know. However, access to the right data can make it at least a little bit easier. Having firmographic information, such as funding announcements, new valuations, and C-level or management role changes, allows your sales team to make informed decisions on the ideal moment to reach out to a contact as well as how best to reel them in. While a generic, sales-pitchy email has a good chance of being tossed straight into the virtual trash, a personalized touch point that offers specific value to that contact is far more likely to attract a response.

Knowing how your company can add value for your prospects is imperative, particularly from an ABM perspective. Aside from what you can offer people in a general sense, data allows your sales team to articulate your value prop as it relates specifically to your customer. This is infinitely better than, say, copy/pasting your company’s LinkedIn profile into every sales email, or repeating your elevator pitch ad nauseam.

How Customer Success can use data to personalize customer experience

Retaining your customers is just as important as bringing in new ones, and the only way to do that is to continue learning about them even after you’ve made your sale. By acquiring data about how your customers are using not only your product, but other sites and services, you can determine how to continue curating their experience in a way that will keep them around and hopefully turn them into brand evangelists.

On the flip side, data also allows you to determine what might not be working. Being able to pivot away from practices, products or features that aren’t meeting your customers’ expectations is a critical part of personalizing their experience. If you’re able to prove that your focus is, first and foremost, on those who have chosen to do business with you, it can put you head and shoulders above competitors who may offer similar services, but a lesser experience.

Making data work for you is one thing, but putting that same data to work for your customers is always the best way forward. We’re living in a post-ABM world, after all, and the state of your company’s revenue depends on it.