Have you ever received a generic email where you thought – thanks but no thanks. Then received an email with your name in the subject line and you immediately opened it with a smile. This is a very common strategy when it comes to personalisation, and that feeling of having something like yours is the perfect first step to effectively marketing your business.
Firstly, personalisation allows businesses to tailor their marketing strategy to create an experience for their customers. Customers are always looking for those ‘experiences’ within a business, it’s why user content marketing has been super successful in any marketing strategy. What you are really doing is understanding individual preferences, behaviours, and their needs and wants by simply addressing them with clever marketing messages about your product or service.
In return, your customer feels ‘a sense of worth’ and is likely to invest in your business as they see that your business fully understands their concerns or needs for purchasing. In marketing terms, this increases customer engagement and leads to higher conversion rates and customer loyalty.
Your goal is to resonate with your customers.
Personalisation in a competitive marketplace helps businesses stand out from the rest with a simple message – ‘I am here for you’. By addressing customers on an individual level, businesses can capture the attention of the customer over the competition. You will then build stronger connections and foster the ongoing loyalty that any business wants. And often when you get this right, you will create a community around your business with other potential buyers all talking and voicing their love for your brand.
So, how do you do it?
Most businesses believe that personalisation is just about naming them, but really is about a series of steps to help with your marketing strategy:
1. Understand your customers: You have to establish your demographic and customer profile. What are their preferences, purchase history, behaviours, how would they like to be spoken to, and who would they like to address them? For example; Gen Y is going to respond well to an informal approach, fun-loving, live for the moment, and to the point.
2. Tailor your offerings: You know your product better than anyone, so you need to show your customers that you are meeting their needs and preferences. This involves creating personalised recommendations, offering customised bundles, and promotions that are directed to them about something they want. If you are a restaurant, this could mean specific menu changes for an event or even something like a group event that will bring them to your restaurant with their mates. You need to look at what your customer is crying out for – a night out, a product to help my kids, a course because I want to earn more money. This is all about experiences, and you need to show them how their needs are being met. Sometimes, it is so simple, but listen to your customers and give them what they want.
3. Leverage technology: With all marketing, make sure you are monitoring what is working with customer data. Are you checking the website tracking, the Facebook advertising results or even something like checking your sales days and times, this is all working towards providing your customers with the ultimate personalised experience. You then use this data for automated tools and communication platforms to generate the content for them at the right time or the right offer for them.
4. Personalise your community: This all started with the user-generated content success that all marketing strategies need to have. This is about finding the right people or community to help promote your product. Nothing speaks more to a mum than another mum telling them of the experience that they had, or a night out with friends at a local bar and seeing the joy it brings. The reason why the ‘paying’ side of VIVID has been successful is from user-generated content. These paid experiences for VIVID were not for families, and their community of Millennials sold it as an underground nightclub (without the alcohol), but it still became a success based on these factors – fun, unique and bring your mates.
5. Provide personalised support: Customer Service is not dead, and the people that say it will not have long-term success – Karen’s Diner ring a bell! The reason why businesses are not working is that what customers want to receive is overall support and assistance. This could simply mean a personalised message when they receive your package, always answering emails, Facebook messages and phone calls, live chat support, account managers, or even self-service portals that provide tailored responses from previous interactions. We as a customer need to be appreciated, and your personalised marketing campaign should always include this.
6. Enable self-customisation: Incorporating customer personalisation into your strategy can be challenging for certain business models. However, if you can, it is highly recommended to consider this approach. By enabling customers to personalise their own experiences, you can offer customisability in your products or services. This may involve providing options for customers to choose their preferences or utilising interactive tools that empower customers to design their own solutions.
7. Listen to feedback: Never sit on the fence and wait for customers to come, you should always be listening to what they want, and seek feedback when needed. Use this feedback to continuously improve your offerings and deliver a more personalised experience.
To end:
Embracing personalisation is vital for the success and growth of businesses. It brings a range of benefits that enhance customer experiences, set businesses apart in a competitive market, foster customer loyalty and retention, enable data-driven decision-making and meet evolving customer expectations. By prioritising personalisation, businesses can unlock a multitude of advantages that contribute to their overall success and facilitate sustainable growth.
If you require assistance with your business personalisation strategies, the team at CLS is ready to help. You can reach out to Chrissy via email at chrissy@creativelittlesoul.com.au to arrange a strategy call and discuss your needs.