Sales Engagement in 2023: Real, Scalable Personalisation is Here

If personalization is the way of sales engagement today, personalization at scale is going to be the future.

According to Salesforce, Companies that personalize their CX across all channels can see 5% – 15% revenue increase.

However, in spite of personalizing their sales efforts, salespeople are stuck with longer sales cycles. The main reasons for these are lack of Intent Evaluation and Contextualization. And, in this webinar, Sales Engagement in 2023: Real, Scalable Personalisation is Here, our speakers, Sandeep TM (Heads Inside Sales at Outplay) and Karthi S Mariappan (Founder and CEO at Hippo Video), are going to unpack the What, the Why, and the How of Real Personalization, and how you can make it a consistent and scalable practice to produce extraordinary sales experiences in 2023 and beyond using technology.

Also, we’ve with us Jessica Baxter (Sales Team Lead, Genesys DX) and Sam Grimley (Global Head of Sales and Account Management, Horizom) as customer panelists, joining to discuss how they’re guiding their teams on their way to personalization.

Why should personalization at scale matter to salespeople

Heidi: We’re gonna focus on the what, why, and how to personalize. Because I know in my past, for my sales motion outreach, it’s always a challenge, right? How much time should I spend?

Sandeep: I’m going to keep it relatable to our audience here. As human beings we’ve evolved quite a bit. For example, with respect to television, almost 10-15 years back we were just watching what was relayed on cable. But today, with the advent of OTT, we’ve so many options and so much personalization going. We have our own preferences, and even when we log into any platform, we see things that are relevant to us.

We are groomed to that level of personalization and expect the same from every aspect of things in life. And, the same applies in sales. Everyone wants to hear something that’s very, very specific and very relatable to their environment.

Karthi: Yeah. I would continue with what Sandeep said. Thanks to this digital-first world, personalization has become a way of life and this makes the context of outreach the key. The contexts are many—either derived from previous interactions, based on the state they are in, etc.—displayed through what you show on the video or via text email. Indeed, personalization has grown very huge into different aspects of engagement and is going to be vital to stand out and connect with your prospects and customers in 2023 and beyond.

Heidi: How are you managing personalization within your organization? 

Jessica: Well, personalization is extremely important. As a customer myself, I aim to do business with people that actually know me. So, we’ve to step away from those ordinary sales experiences to show people that we know them. And, one of the ways that we’ve incorporated this in our sales cycle is by utilizing a lot of the sales features from Hippo Video. My favorite is video sales pages.  So when prospects are viewing our videos, they’re also getting assets personalized to their persona. 

Sam: I think it’s the main piece. If it’s not personal, don’t bother sending it. Because, what’s the end goal of your outreach? It’s to close a deal, to hit a certain revenue number. It’s not to hit a thousand emails today.  For example, If you’re in a bar, if you’re at a conference, do you walk up to someone and say, “Hello, {{first name}}, and then read a script?” No. You look at the surroundings, who they are, who they’re talking to, etc. and use that to make it a personal introduction, make it really relevant. Mail-merge or mass emails are a big red flag for me. 

Forked Road: Quality Vs. Quantity of Personalization

Heidi: What are your thoughts around guiding your own internal sales organization around sending out mass emails or one-to-one? 

Sandeep: Mass emails, in marketing it can be done from a drip campaign perspective, but in sales it’s a no. At Outplay, we tell SDRs or AEs to invest time in researching the prospect and knowing them to personalize the touchpoint—because the competition is high and it reduces the probability of email getting opened. However, a number of conversations also matter to us, which help us understand the market. 

Heidi: Do you guys, sort of guide the SDRs or AEs, on how much time should be spent on researching and doing this personalization?

Karthi: Yeah. At Hippo Video it’s intent-based, it’s not like a mass email that’s being sent. There is someone who is diligently working on your account to understand why they are reaching out. What is the purpose? Of course, including video is one part of the story, but how do you humanize that becomes all the more important about personalization? The criteria for this are two—1. What state they are in and 2. What kind of engagement they have with our marketing touchpoints. Because, how we personalize is one aspect, but making the prospect help them understand that there is a human behind this email is another.

Heidi: How do you personalize enterprise as opposed to mid-market? What’s that mix for your team, Jessica?

Jessica: Enterprise solutions, those are the harder people to actually reach. Their inboxes are way full. So, here LinkedIn plays a huge role. We try connecting with them here and send them personalized videos their way.

On the contrary, Mid-markets are comparatively easier on the phone. They fall under kind-of 1:Many segments, this where I’m anxious to see how that humanized AI feature comes into place. Because we still want it to feel personal. You know, we still want them to know that we are caring and we are giving the actual time, and we’re still gonna treat you just like every other customer. 

Also, one thing I emphasize on is videos. I believe our brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than it does text. Though people are nervous about using it initially, it’s the best way.

Karthi:  One small tip here. Though people are nervous to create a video and share it, it helps your prospect understand that you’ve taken that additional effort to reach out to them. You don’t have to be professional, but be authentic in connecting with them.

How to successfully personalize at scale

Heidi: Real personalization in sales engagement, is it possible? Are there any other platforms or tools that your teams are using to get to the nitty-gritty detail? Karthi, Sandeep. Any thoughts about this? 

Sandeep: Personalization happens at different levels. We don’t only just reach out to only the VPs or the CROs, but also to people on the ground doing the job. And, those ground level conversations, helps us in understanding what’s working and what’s not. And serves as great context to personalized messages to someone at the management level, which resonates.

Apart from this, we also use platforms like sales intelligence platforms, Whatsapp groups, LinkedIn channels, etc. where discussions are happening and prospects are sharing information. And, we leverage those and reach out to them via those mediums.

Heidi: So, Karthi, how do we personalize at scale so that our message resonates, but doesn’t look like it’s mail-merged?

Karthi: There are many ways to personalize. One could be through interactive videos, where you ask the prospect regarding their burning issues by giving them options to choose. And, based on what they choose, you get a context of their problem, which is a great data point to design your outreach. Scalable, yet personalized.

The other way could be to scale your video efforts through Humanize AI. Here AI creates a perfect audio-video sync of your videos and creates different versions of the same video with tweaks and helps you scale your video efforts effortlessly.

Make personalization more personal in 2023

Heidi: So to what extent can people look forward to personalizing messages in 2023 for their sales motions?

Sandeep: I think personalization will be all over the place. But what will come out as a winner is the quality of research that you’ve done, and how you put that into personalization will make a difference as to how you would stand out from the rest of the crowd.

Sam: A hundred percent. I mean, it was when your video email first came out, you could send anything and you were completely different from the rest of the market.

Jessica: It’s definitely gonna be a quality-over-quantity year in 2023, I think. I know one of the things that we’re personally working on is kind of a story storytelling piece, but using video, and also walking customers through their own customer journey using video.

Karthi: So for me, do the right research, and bring the context. And to top it all, by humanizing your messages with videos—put a face to your name. So that’s going to be the best part of the personalization too.

Personalization is becoming pervasive. The best time to take action is now. Watch the complete webinar here.