Posted By: Chris Minor
March 17th, 2022
5 minute read
The Era of Mobile/Video/Personal: Secure Texting is Key to Personalization
As we make the digital shift from persona-bound to personal engagement there are at least two often overlooked capabilities: 1) secure text messaging; and 2) web page templates that populate based on data triggers (to create personalized web pages at scale). These capabilities are often overlooked because they’re not easily integrated into many of the legacy hubs and content management systems.
Secure Texting and Personalized Web Pages are Key
Without secure texting and personalization at scale there is no promise of dynamic, personal digital experience journeys. There is complexity. There is delay. Instead of exposed APIs there are layers of customizations that convert into rich consulting revenue streams powered by high costs for specialized skills. This puts marketing teams into the increasing painful and awkward reality of engagement decline.
Consumers want digital personalization. Here is an example of a smart page (a web page template populated based on data triggers). It creates a dynamic, personal experience on demand.
Imagine being delivered by text message to such a page, based on your interests, needs, location, problem you’re trying to solve and/or potentially hundreds of other data points. Videos, documents and surveys are fed to you based on …. you. You’re not a persona. You’re a person. Talk about scalable, digital brand power… and security. Secure text. Secure chat. Secure engagement with a live person if needed… at the press of a button.
Compare that experience to an email or unsecure text directing you to a website and asking you to search for x, requiring you to navigate through multiple pages to finally get what you want. Along the way you get various screen pops advertising various other services based on who the website owner thinks you are.
Engagement Experiences and Expectations are Shifting
IMHO this explains declining engagement rates of email and vendor website visits and the evolution of ungated B2B content on vendor websites. Visitors don’t want friction. Attention spans are shrinking as alternatives are exploding. YouTube and TikTok deliver personalized video based on powerful algorithms that improve over time while vendors are stuck in 1990s era email/website journeys. To some extent, an entire industry of email and static content marketing hubs is getting flanked by video fed by algorithm.
New Devices and Algorithms, New Insights
Most mid-sized agencies and marketing teams are therefore stranded between the declining engagement of outdated platforms and the explosion in new devices and algorithms that discover individuals over time with unprecedented precision.
Many organizations actually know who their customers are, despite the persona-bound limitations of their legacy hubs. They just need platforms purpose-built for this new age of mobile, video and personal engagement. They need secure text and dynamic smart page capabilities to level the playing field.
