So you want to make content recommendations that actually matter to your prospects—not just dump a library of PDFs on them and hope for the best. If you’re using Mediafly, you’re in the right spot. This guide walks through practical ways to serve up the right content to the right people, without getting bogged down in buzzwords or wishful thinking. If you’re in sales, marketing, or enablement and tired of generic playbooks, keep reading.
Why Personalize Content in the First Place?
Here’s the honest truth: most buyers don’t have time for a pitch deck that covers everything. They want what matters to them. Personalized content helps you stand out from the noise, shows you’ve actually listened, and moves deals forward faster. It’s not magic—it just takes a bit of planning and some common sense.
Step 1: Get Your Content House in Order
Before you start personalizing anything, you need to know what you’ve got. Mediafly can’t recommend content you haven’t uploaded or tagged properly. This is the boring part, but it matters.
- Audit your library: What’s actually useful? What’s outdated or redundant? Kill the junk.
- Organize by topic, industry, persona, and stage: The more granular you get now, the easier everything else becomes.
- Tag everything: Mediafly’s tagging system is only as good as the tags you put in. Be specific: “Case Study – Healthcare – CMO” beats “Case Study.”
Pro tip: Don’t overthink the taxonomy. Start with what your sales team actually searches for.
Step 2: Map Content to Buyer Personas and Stages
Personalization isn’t just about addressing someone by name. You need content that fits who they are and where they are in their process.
- List your main personas: Who are you selling to? CTOs? Procurement? End users?
- Map content to each persona: Whitepapers for engineers, ROI calculators for CFOs, short explainer videos for busy execs.
- Align with buyer’s journey: Early-stage = educational. Mid-stage = comparison or proof. Late-stage = technical details or case studies.
Mediafly lets you build these mappings into your content organization, so take advantage of it.
What not to do: Don’t try to make one piece of content fit every audience. You’ll end up with bland, forgettable stuff.
Step 3: Set Up Mediafly’s Recommendation Engine
Here’s where you move from theory to actually making it easier for sellers (and buyers) to find the right content.
- Use Mediafly’s content rules: Set up rules based on tags, persona, industry, and deal stage. If you’re not sure where to start, pick your top three industries and personas.
- Enable guided selling: Mediafly can prompt reps with recommended content during meetings or after calls. But only if you’ve done Steps 1 and 2.
- Test out Smart Recommendations: Mediafly offers AI-driven suggestions, but don’t trust them blindly. Review what it’s pushing to make sure it’s not surfacing irrelevant or outdated files.
Heads up: The AI isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’ll recommend a pricing sheet to the wrong person. Keep an eye on what’s actually getting served up.
Step 4: Train Your Team to Use Personalization (Without Going Overboard)
Even the best tech won’t help if your team ignores it or uses it wrong.
- Show, don’t tell: Walk through example scenarios in your next sales meeting—“If you’re talking to a healthcare CFO, here’s what to send.”
- Encourage conversation, not just clicks: Personalization works best when reps know the prospect’s actual pain points, not just their job title.
- Keep it simple: Don’t drown reps in a thousand templates. Make the best content easy to find and use.
What to skip: Fancy automation sequences that send 5 attachments at once. Less is more.
Step 5: Monitor What’s Working (and What Isn’t)
This is where most teams drop the ball. If you’re not tracking which personalized recommendations actually get opened or shared, you’re flying blind.
- Use Mediafly’s analytics: See what’s getting opened, watched, forwarded, or ignored.
- Look for patterns: Is one case study always getting shared? Is another piece never opened? Adjust your recommendations accordingly.
- Ask your sales team: Sometimes the numbers don’t tell the whole story. If reps say a certain deck falls flat, believe them.
Don’t waste time: If a piece of content isn’t pulling its weight, archive it or fix it.
Step 6: Keep Iterating—Don’t Set and Forget
Buyer needs change. Your product changes. If you set up content recommendations once and never revisit them, you’ll end up back at square one.
- Quarterly reviews: Block time every few months to review what’s in Mediafly, what’s being used, and what’s missing.
- Stay close to sales: The best personalization ideas usually come from feedback in the field, not from the marketing team’s ivory tower.
- Update tags and mappings: As you add new content or personas, make sure your rules keep up.
Reality check: You’ll never have a “perfect” system. Aim for good enough, and keep improving.
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Ignore
What Works
- Relevant, timely content: Tailored to real prospect needs, not just what you want to push.
- Simple, clear tagging: Makes recommendations accurate and easy to manage.
- Regular cleanups: Keeps your content library useful and fresh.
What Doesn’t
- Over-personalization: Trying to guess every micro-preference just bogs everyone down.
- Relying solely on AI suggestions: The algorithm’s not a mind-reader. Human review is still needed.
- Ignoring feedback: If something isn’t resonating, stop pushing it.
What to Ignore
- Shiny new features you don’t need: Focus on the basics before chasing advanced stuff.
- One-size-fits-all templates: These tend to be ignored by buyers (and your sales team).
Keep It Simple and Iterate
If you take nothing else away, remember this: Personalizing content recommendations in Mediafly isn’t about fancy tech or endless customization. It’s about making it easy for your team to find and share the right stuff with the right people. Start with the basics, pay attention to what’s actually working, and tweak as you go. That’s how you’ll see results—without burning out or overcomplicating things.
Ready to clean up your library and make your content do the heavy lifting? Go for it. You’ll be surprised how much more effective your outreach feels when you stop sending “just in case” attachments and start sending what actually matters.