Personalization has redefined marketing, transforming the customer experience into one where people feel valued and, in turn, making businesses more profitable. Yet, many companies still struggle with the implementation of these strategies.
In today’s increasingly noisy and cluttered marketing landscape, it’s no surprise that brands are struggling to build meaningful relationships with customers.
According to a Gartner survey, 74% say they struggle to effectively bring personalization efforts across their enterprise despite the increased availability of technology. The same data suggests that poor personalization can cause brands to lose 38% of their customers.
Personalized marketing goes beyond inserting a customer’s name into the same mass-produced email blast sent to all your customers. Instead, it’s about reaching the right person with relevant information and offers they can act on that minute.
This blog post will answer common questions about personalization in marketing and how to implement it in your business.
What is Personalized Marketing?
Personalized marketing is a marketing strategy that uses data to create customized content and experiences for each customer. It uses data to connect with target audiences and existing customers to provide an optimized experience.
By collecting and using consumer data, marketing strategists can identify patterns in the customer journey, common pain points, and channels where their potential customers is most likely to be found. These insights allow marketers to understand who their audience is and what products they might be interested in, allowing businesses to nurture leads throughout the buyer’s journey effectively.
This type of marketing is based on the idea that a narrow focus will lead to better business outcomes. It differs from traditional marketing.
Traditional marketing focused on earning customers by casting a wide net, hoping that some would stick. In contrast, the new approach focuses on targeting and cultivating specific groups to build loyalty. Traditional marketing—focused on reaching as many people as possible rather than targeting those most likely to buy a product or service—often produced irrelevant messages.
But the sophistication of analytics and the availability of individual customer data have made it possible to customize messages for each prospect.
Examples
Nowadays, customers expect personalization in every touchpoint they have with a brand. This can be as simple as name recognition, location-based recommendations, or preferences-based messages.
Customers also expect brands to deliver a consistently positive experience across all touchpoints. This is why it’s important to tailor content according to the personal needs of the audience. Here are some examples to inspire your creativity:
Targeted Emails
Marketing with email is one of the most popular and powerful ways for businesses to reach their customers. Messages sent via this channel are non intrusive, easy to read, and highly customizable.
Dynamic content allows email marketers to send offers tailored specifically to their subscribers’ demographics, psychographics, and firmographics. There are many ways to personalize your email campaigns, from personalized subject lines and greetings to personalized messaging. Gaining a better understanding of your audience is a critical factor in helping you increase the relevance of your emails.
Sign-up forms are a great way to begin collecting customer information to help you understand them. For example, when new persons register, they can fill out a questionnaire that asks for details about their age or interests.
For example, if you run a women’s clothing store, your sign-up form may ask for age, height, weight, and other relevant information. You can use this data to send more targeted emails that are more likely to resonate with your subscribers.
Product Recommendations
This strategy has proved effective time and time again. This approach uses data collection to identify the user’s preferences and tailor suggestions based on that information.
For example, if you run a clothing store, you can use this strategy to recommend items based on what people buy. Like if users buy jeans and t-shirts, email them with suggestions for more similar items. You can also use data collection for customers who have never purchased from your store before, and offer discounts and free shipping if they make an initial purchase. Personalized emails or ads that suggest products to customers show you care about their needs and can positively impact sales.
Videos
Although the video is a medium that often feels impersonal, it’s possible to personalize your videos. You can include personal stories, testimonials, and other relevant content that makes your audience feel invested in your product or service. You can also use data collection to determine what kinds of videos people like best and tailor future content accordingly.
In addition, you can use videos to provide relevant information about your product or service. This can help you build customer trust by demonstrating the value of what you offer and why it’s worth their time and money.
Social media
Because of its ability to reinforce an existing brand and keep people engaged, multichannel marketing efforts now rely heavily on social media.
Engaging with customers and prospective customers on social media can help build customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Marketers using social media automation tools can collect consumer data, improve communication with targeted customers, and increase conversions.
Social media platforms offer a wide variety of ways to personalize content. For example, Facebook allows marketers to target potential customers based on demographics and interests.
How Does It Work?
By making their services or products more tailored to the needs and preferences of specific groups through a successful personalized marketing strategy, brands can:
Improve customer satisfaction.
Grow their customer base.
Increase the lifetime value of each customer.
Improve customer experience.
Improve lead nurturing.
Enhance customer retention.
Why is It Important?
Epsilon, a global marketing firm, surveyed 1,000 consumers aged 18-64 and found that 80% are more likely to do business with companies that offer personalized experiences. In addition, 90% claim personalization appeals to them.
Consumer loyalty can be hard to win and even harder to keep. But more than half of consumers have said they are willing to share their personal information with you if doing so benefits them directly. Personalized marketing is one of the ways it benefits them and you as well. Some of the main benefits include:
Creating improved customer experience: it helps you get to know them personally and give them what they want, whether it’s a product or service that fits their needs or something else entirely. Research has shown that people are much more likely to buy from brands they view as experts in their industry. So, when you provide targeted offers based on the information people share, they’re more likely to buy from you.
Increasing customer loyalty: Customers are likelier to stick with a brand if they feel they’re getting something unique and valuable. When you personalize your campaigns, you can give customers a reason to keep coming back.
Increasing ROI: Targeted marketing strategies can help you approach the right audience, promote engagement, and increase sales. You may customize your advertisements, emails, and other marketing materials to each customer’s specific interests. This boosts their relevance and efficiency.
How Effective is It?
The more connected customers feel to a business, the more likely they will return and spend money. A successful personalized strategy helps achieve that goal.
This is a very effective way to gain loyal customers. It is a great way to reach out to customers and build relationships. It also helps businesses stay relevant and competitive by giving them an edge over other companies in their industry.
Limitations
Just like any other strategies, there are a few limitations that come with personalized marketing. Here are some of them:
1. Finding the right technology
As a result of outdated technology, personalized marketing can be a costly and inefficient way to reach customers. Many companies cite the lack of technology as a barrier to success. This is especially true for small businesses that don’t have the resources to invest in marketing technology.
An intelligent algorithm is key to personalization success because it enables data collection, analytics, and automation. But unfortunately, many marketers have trouble finding a personalization engine to help them achieve their goals.
2. Consumer privacy
Being too personal with customers can backfire. People value their privacy and react negatively to intrusive brands that use their information without permission. Personalization is a powerful way to connect with customers, but it can be tricky. If you’re not careful, you could alienate your audience instead of engaging them.
3. Creating a single customer view
The concept of a single customer view (SCV) is widely accepted among marketers, but cannot be easy to implement. An SCV requires that companies combine all their customer data into a single database that can be used for personalization. This can be challenging because many organizations have multiple systems and lack the resources to integrate them.
4. Smart segmentation
Smart segmentation across multiple channels can boost performance, but many marketers still struggle with basic segmentation strategies. For example, a common mistake is to segment based on demographics, such as age, gender, and location.
While this can be useful for some applications, it limits your ability to tailor content for specific customers. Instead of using demographic data alone, try using behavioral or attitudinal data. You may find that your customers fit into one or more segments based on their common interests or behaviors.
How to Do Personalized Marketing for Your Business
Identify your goals and objectives
This is the first step in a marketing strategy. First, you need to know what you want from your campaign. For example, do you want more sales, leads, and brand awareness? Once you have established your goals, you can use them as a guide for every decision you make.
Establish a team to oversee the project
A project like this will require a lot of work, and you should be prepared to devote time and resources to it. You may consider assigning people to structure and monitor the personalization strategy.
Collect the data you need to reach those goals
Collecting relevant data is the difference between a successful marketing strategy and a not-so-successful one. This includes information like your customer’s preferences and past behavior, when they visit your site or interact with your brand, which platform they prefer, and even which device. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, plugins like Jetpack can provide useful analytics for free.
Create a segmentation strategy based on behavioral data or attitudinal data
This may be the most challenging step, but it’s also one of the most important. To personalize your marketing campaign, you need to know your ideal customer. You can do this by collecting data on their behavior and attitudes and segmenting them into groups based on those factors.
For example, suppose you sell shoes and see many people visit your site from mobile devices during certain hours. In that case, you might create a mobile-only campaign or email newsletter that features products best suited for use while on the go.
Choose the right tactics
There are many different ways to market your business, but it’s important to choose the ones that will be most effective. The following are some marketing tactics you can choose from:
Personalized emails: These are emails that are tailored to the interests and preferences of each recipient. They can be sent out as a newsletter, an offer for a discount on your products, or even a note welcoming someone to your site.
Personalized landing pages: There are no rules for creating a successful landing page. However, brands that personalize their offerings – including information about the visitor—like their name and geographical location or helpful and personalized content relevant to the situation —can increase engagement.
Videos: Videos are important in increasing customer engagement, especially if they’re personalized. You may consider creating customized videos for individual customers and messaging campaigns.
Best practices
Here are some of the best practices to help you implement personalized marketing:
Avoid going overboard
Personalization software allows you to track extensive information about your users. However, it doesn’t mean that all of this data is useful.
In most cases, it is useful for a company to provide suggestions based on past customer behavior. But when this type of personalization becomes too intrusive or obvious, it creates an uncomfortable feeling that could negatively affect the user experience. Instead, use the information you need to make your marketing more targeted. For example, if you notice a user looking for a specific product, it is fine to show them an ad.
Test everything
As you A/B test your regular content to see which versions work best, you should also experiment with personalized content and try different versions. Instead of guessing what will work best, test your ideas to see which produces the most effective results.
Testing your content to ensure it is relevant and well-written can increase traffic, leads, and customer satisfaction.
Monitor your analytics
Regularly set up tracking programs like Google Analytics on your website to monitor user behavior and determine which elements are not working correctly.
You should know what results to expect to get the most out of your personalization strategy. But suppose you don’t monitor your analytics. In that case, it will be difficult—if not impossible—to tell whether or not those goals have been met.
Constantly reexamine your strategy.
Personalization is not a one-time strategy, but must be continually updated to reflect changing customer preferences. So keep reviewing your strategy and make adjustments where appropriate. The more you experiment with new ideas, the better prepared you’ll be to meet changing market conditions.
The Best Tools for Customized Marketing Campaigns
Personalization is great, but it’s hard to scale. You can’t manually create an email for every customer or ad for every prospect. Fortunately, some tools can help you personalize your marketing. Here are some of the best:
Data analytics platform
Analytics platforms provide the marketing and sales team with real-time information about how websites are used. The goal is to give you insights into how people interact with your site so that you can improve your marketing efforts. Data analytics platforms are also great for tracking the success of your campaigns and measuring ROI. In addition, they can help you identify which strategies are working best for different segments of customers.
Google Analytics, Heap Analytics, and Crazy Egg are three popular tools businesses can use for this purpose.
Data management platform
Data management platforms collect anonymous customer data to generate a clearer picture of the target audience marketers want.
Although aggregating data from various sources can be helpful, DMPs only use anonymous data points. They provide marketers with possible audiences for digital ad campaigns rather than directly targeting consumers. Hence, DMPs are best suited for businesses with a broader marketing strategy rather than targeting specific individuals.
Customer relationship management software (CRM)
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a database that stores information about your clients, such as their names, addresses, or previous orders. It allows you to keep track of all contacts within one program and helps organize phone calls and emails during sales campaigns.
CRM software can be used for a variety of different purposes. It’s instrumental in B2B environments, where companies must simultaneously keep track of multiple clients.
Post-click landing page platform
Without a post-click solution, your customer data is incomplete. This missing piece makes it impossible to personalize interactions with prospects and move them through the funnel as efficiently as possible.
Compared to regular web pages, post-click landing pages are designed to get a prospect’s attention and convince them to sign up or make a purchase. Post-click landing page creation is resource intensive, requiring manual coding to keep the pages consistent with the ads they’re meant to drive clicks.
Instapage is one of the several post-click landing page platforms that help users create and manage these pages more quickly, easily, and affordably than traditional methods.
Email marketing platform
An email is a form of communication that many people prefer. So it’s no surprise that salespeople are using it to find leads. According to recent studies, consumers are more likely to respond well to an email if it looks like it was made for them.
The best email marketing platforms can send emails that look more like personal letters than promotional materials. They use data from your CRM and other sources to ensure the message is highly relevant, increasing its chances of being opened, read, and acted upon. Email marketing platforms also automate many tasks, including sending out new campaigns or re-engaging inactive subscribers.
Trends and the Evolution of Marketing Personalization
In recent years, personalization trends have changed the shopping experience for many buyers. These trends are reinventing the buying process and raising several questions about how it impacts customers’ experiences and whether or not such approaches infringe on privacy or security. So let’s dig into these trends:
1. Programmatic marketing
As the name suggests, programmatic marketing uses software to automate buying and selling advertisements. It uses data to match targeted ads with relevant consumers. It collects information about website users and then matches them with the right ad at the right time, so they respond to it instead of ignoring it.
This trend has been growing in popularity over the past few years. It has made it easier for brands to target specific audiences.
2. Proximity marketing
This trend has been gaining popularity over the past few years, and it’s one that many brands use to reach consumers more personally. Proximity marketing uses mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to send messages directly to customers nearby certain locations or businesses. These messages can include coupons and promotions to alerts about sales or events happening nearby stores.
3. Behavioral trigger emails
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways for brands to reach their customers. Behavioral trigger emails are a great way to take advantage of this. Behavioral trigger emails use data about past purchases or website visits to send messages that correspond with what customers are likely looking for at specific times—such as when they’re shopping for certain items or browsing popular websites like Amazon.
Conclusion
Personalized marketing is a must for engaging with customers in an era where they have access to information at their fingertips and can easily switch between brands.
Personalization has become more important than ever to consumers, who expect brands to speak directly to them in a way no other company can. If your personalized marketing strategy isn’t tailored specifically for each individual—and doesn’t reflect their interests as well as it could—they won’t feel engaged with your brand and therefore are less likely to purchase from you.
Companies that don’t adopt customized marketing strategies risk losing customers to competitors who do. And as the world becomes more interconnected and consumers become increasingly demanding, it will be increasingly difficult for companies to reach out to their customers. Hence, personalized marketing is a necessity for businesses that want to succeed in today’s marketplace.