Buyer personalization is not an oxymoron. Sure, it is impossible to personalize marketing for each individual buyer.

But true scalability in personalization isn’t about focusing on every single buyer. It is about honing distinct personalization categories within your target markets. 

This is installment #4 in our “Modern Marketer” series: Buyer Personalization at Scale Is Not an Oxymoron.

Here are your three key steps to building buyer personalization at scale.

Personalization Categories

The key is to align your messaging with specific personalization categories rather than individual personas. By understanding the industries, goals, roles, needs, and wants of your potential customers, you can tailor your approach to different buyer and segments while scaling.

First categorize your Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) by segment and focus on your buyers goals and roles within those ICPs. In particular, focus on:

1. Key Goals: Align your messaging with how your product helps achieve desired outcomes like revenue growth or cost reduction.
2. Key Roles: Tailor content for various stakeholders such as end-users, decision-makers, technical buyers, and C-suite executives.
3. Key Segments: Customize your value proposition for specific industries such as SaaS, manufacturing, healthcare, etc.

Crafting Content Streams

Shift from a focus on content production to a focus on content personalization.   Marketing teams can produce tons of content that does not engage but overwhelm buyers.  

Identify a core set of content assets across for each of your personalization categories.  Make sure this personalized content stream is tailored to each stage of the buyer’s journey:

• Top of the Funnel (TOFU): Attract prospects with engaging content like blogs, infographics, and videos that introduce your brand and its benefits.
• Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): Offer in-depth resources such as checklists, guides, and customer success stories that help prospects evaluate and consider your solutions.
• Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): Facilitate decision-making with comprehensive content like white papers, eBooks, and case studies that showcase your expertise and provide social proof.

Leveraging Intent Data

Capture and utilize intent data to refine personalization at scale. 

By tracking in-market activity—such as searches, visits to competitor sites, and interactions on review platforms—you gain real-time insights into potential customers actively seeking solutions. Additionally, capturing first-party data through website visits and content interactions helps identify high-quality leads.

The convergence of these elements allows marketers to provide the right messaging at the right time, guiding customers effectively along their journey. 

It’s not about pushing your products anymore. Successful marketing teams are adopting a buyer-journey-first approach that starts with personalization categories and then leverages content consumption and intent signals to personalize for each buyer.