Personalization. It’s everywhere you turn, from how you order your coffee to what color hard case you choose for your smart phone.
Online personalization has also gone mainstream, and if you aren’t doing it you’re falling behind. A mass mailing to your customers is a waste of time and money when your competitors are offering to personalize customer experience.
From targeted email newsletters to coupons based on a customer’s buying history, when you personalize the customer experience you are more likely to capture their business.
The proof is in the numbers: in a MindFire study of 650 multi-channel marketing campaigns, “personalized campaigns consistently beat out static ones in generating a high response rate.”
If you don’t know me by now
Facebook may have started it with their targeted ads, but now everyone is doing it—using collected customer data to personalize the ads they send to people. You can actually turn away a potential customer if you don’t take the time to understand what it is they want. Sending out the same offer to your entire customer database is like giving your 13 year-old nephew a teddy bear for his birthday—it’s obvious you haven’t kept up with his changing interests.
According to Janrain & Harris Interactive, “nearly three-fourths (74%) of online consumers get frustrated with websites when content (e.g. offers, ads, promotions) appears and has nothing to do with their personal interests.”
But give the person an offer that appeals to them, and you’ll be amazed at the change in response. MyBuys reported that “40% of consumers buy more from retailers who personalize the shopping experience across channels.”
Mining data for personalization
So how do you personalize customer experience? You gather data on them through free content offers, contests, surveys on how you can better serve them, etc. You might be surprised at how much customers are willing to disclose in order to get a more personalized online experience.
This is especially true for millennials, who have grown up online and are accustomed to trading information for personalized content. Jiwire reported that “62% of adults under the age of 34 are willing to share their location in exchange for more relevant content.”
When you personalize customer experience you are showing your customer that you are listening to them: their needs, their wants, their preferences. And who wouldn’t find that attractive?
