Personalised marketing is one-to-one marketing or a strategy by which an entrepreneur can deliver personalised content to recipients via data collection, analysis, and the use of automation technology.
The main goal of personalised marketing is to engage customers or prospective customers by communicating with each as an individual and not as part of a group.
Personalised Marketing vs Normal Marketing
When you compare personalised marketing to normal or mass marketing, one of the biggest difference is that while you send a message to large groups of customers or a segment of the targeted market via the process of normal marketing, when it comes to personalised marketing you set focus and then deliver to a particular audience or customer.
Thus, in theory, you create a more direct and personal way of getting to the customer.
According to a survey conducted by Infosys, personalised marketing makes at least some form of impact for 86% of consumers, with 25% even admitting that it makes a ‘significant impact’ on their buying decisions.
When you provide and personalised service or item to a consumer, it breeds loyalty and in many cases also increases conversion of consumers towards your business.
Personalised Marketing: Effectiveness & Benefits
1) It improves customer experience
The biggest example of this is online shopping sites like Amazon and Flipkart. While initially, your consumers might be a little reluctant to provide you with their information but if you offer them something in return, they are more likely to share some of their basic information.
Amazon and other shopping sites initially offer cashback or discounts when you signup and this helps them get basic information and also gets you on board their site.
With this information, you can offer more personalized experiences when they come back and this along with their search history and clicks will help you make their shopping experience personalised to their needs.
This, in turn, helps you get sales and your customer is mostly only served things of his/her liking and/or needs.
2) It helps drive revenue
By identifying and responding to a customer’s preferred channel and needs, entrepreneurs can increase ROI to their companies and with the help of the right automation technology also drive customer sales.
This information further helps marketers identify which channel customers engage with the most and then follow up with them on the same channels.
3) It increases brand loyalty
When a customer trusts you with his or her personal information and data, they expect a little loyalty and to be treated as a unique individual who has specific preferences.
As a business, use this to your advantage and dedicate time and resources to implement successful personalised marketing strategies that will benefit not only your firm but also your customer.
When implemented successfully this will give you a competitive advantage in both brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.
4) It helps create consistency across channels
Again coming back to Amazon’s example, any regular customer will see that they suggest contextually relevant and personalized advertising when you access their site and/or app.
They further strengthen their experience for the customers by emailing personalised onsite content and offers that are relevant to their customers and even send emails to remind you of the products that you have recently browsed or placed in your basket but not bought for one reason or the other.
These small but insightful data and nudges have pushed their sales further up as a recent study suggests that they got 44% of the customers to buy from such recommendations.
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How to Switch to Personalised Form of Marketing
1) Get to know your customer
Get to further know your customer and bring all of the information that you know about him/her into one place so as to make sense of it and further update that information as you go along.
2) Engage more with your customer
Keep your consumer engaged and connected throughout the process, keep him/her involved and connected to what you are doing.
This means, keep them in the loop not only through marketing channels, but also service, community, sales, and commerce channels.
This means if the product has been dispatched, let them know it has been dispatched and where exactly is it.
Similarly, if the product has been delayed, let them know of the delay so they don’t keep that they have been kept in the dark and know that their product would be a bit behind on delivery.
3) Personalise every brand interaction with them
A consumer who is used to personalised experience with a certain company, they expect consistency.
So make sure that this consistency remains even with regards to personalised experiences and not just when it comes to a sale.
Let them know that you are aware of their order and past orders every time they interact with you.
Make sure you have the technology that you need to keep you updated with regards to each customer. A marketer can’t connect and make sense of the available consumer information and realise personalised engagement if the technology is an afterthought.
So keep your database updated and connected to all means that you can.
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Brands that are killing it in Personalised Marketing
Amazon
As mentioned above Amazon is the best example when it comes to personalised marketing, the company is known for its recommendation algorithm which is best in the industry and for its strategic approach to personalized marketing as continually adapt to create more tailored experiences for their customers.
Their suggestion tool algorithm is known to not only suggest products that fit the individual’s shopping trends but also perfectly predicts different aspects of their personality and suggests products based on that.
Cadbury
Personalisation and chocolates seem to gel so perfectly together that many are surprised why it was not done before. But leading the way once again Cadbury found success with their Idomoo’s Personalized Video as a Service (PVaaS) in 2017.
The company spread the word about its special Cadbury Glow gift chocolate in India with an integrated social video marketing campaign that let consumers craft a personalised video that incorporated photos and names extracted from their Facebook account.
In this, the recipient was able to see a touching video when they received a box of Cadbury Glow chocolate which contained a QR code or by typing their phone number into the Cadbury Glow page.
It was a huge success as Cadbury received a 65% Click Through Rate with recipients and 33% conversion rate for viewers who filled in a subsequent promotion form.
Netflix
Just like Amazon, Netflix is big on personalised marketing. It’s streaming service not only show you film and TV recommendations based on the content that you’ve previously watched, but it also personalises film covers based on its users liking and gives prominence to actors or actresses that they are familiar with.
Further, the service knows when you hit play or pause and when you stop watching a title halfway through.
Making the service even more personalised for its audience, based on your wishlist, Netflix gathers information and make your home page view based on your choices. That is why no user is ever shown exactly the same combination rows on the Netflix homepage.
Starbucks
Besides adding your name to your coffee cup, Starbucks has taken personalisation a step further and successfully kept their customers retained and engaged with its gamified mobile app.
They have integrated their brand’s rewards system with the ability to customise and order drinks via their app and by using the information such as purchase history and your current location added the benefit of making your coffee order to get as personal as possible.
In the US alone, the introduction of rewards system saw Starbucks’ revenue soaring to $2.56 billion, while their app has generated around 6 million sales per month which are around 22% of their sales.
Coca-Cola
While we are seeing the concept and ads of ‘share a Coke’ only now in India, the campaign is world famous and was first launched in Australia back in 2012.
The campaign still retains its title as one of the most original examples of personalized marketing to date and the simple idea to spread advocacy and love for the brand by replacing the soft drinks logo with consumer names (in India’s case relationship) and encouraging people to share with friends and family.
Conclusion
While all the above brands have already taken personalised marketing to the next level, as a company that is just starting out you can still ace it by personalising your product with even the smallest data that you have.
Things, like personalised emails, have already become common, along with the idea of sending personalised messages to your customer on their birthdays.
Besides these, you can also personalise websites, mobile application content, media messages, discount offers, sale alerts, and even product and service recommendations and invoices, receipts and shipping notifications.
While these are small steps they really do make the experience more personal for the recipients.
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