Personalised Marketing: Benefits and Strategies
With the advent and advance of the Internet, you’ll likewise find a variety of tools and services designed to bring more visitors to your website. Such strategies fall under the catch-all term known as digital marketing. By combining strategies like search engine optimisation (SEO) and content marketing, you can create valuable web content that allows prospective and current customers to visit your site and see what your organisation has to offer.
However, website traffic does not necessarily result in conversions. Just because a user visits your site does not mean they will buy, donate or subscribe. They may simply browse the content, only to move away from your site if they find out it is not relevant to them.
How do you ensure, then, that your visitors consume content that engages them and encourages them to finish the buyer’s journey?
The answer? Personalisation.
Paid for by businesses, Google ads are an extremely effective way of driving qualified and relevant traffic to a website, especially when people are already searching for the type of products or services a business offers. Advertisers bid on certain keywords so that their clickable ads appear in Google’s search results, eliminating the need for a website to work its way up the rankings organically.
Of course, you may not be the only company wanting to serve adverts to targeted customers using particular keywords. Competitors can bid for the same search terms, which is why you have to outbid other marketers on the amount you’re willing to pay per click.
What about Facebook Ads?
Personalisation is all about building a customised website experience for each of your visitors. Instead of offering a one-size-fits-all experience, a personalised website displays an experience based on your visitor’s browsing characteristics. Your goal is to make your visitor feel like they are stepping into their favourite café and the barista already started whipping up their drink before they could even order.
A personalised browsing experience provides numerous benefits to your sales and marketing efforts. Noteworthy benefits include:
1. Better understanding of customers
Personalisation allows you to get to know your visitors, from their occupations and demographics to their lifestyles and buying habits. This allows you to segment your audience and tweak your website, accordingly.
2. More effective calls to action
A good call to action (CTA) encourages the website visitor to buy a product, read a blog post or watch a demo. Personalisation makes CTAs more effective. For example, you would want a customer already subscribed to your blog to take a different action, such as starting a free trial. If you have the same generic CTA on a page, viewers who have already taken that action are less likely to take the next step in their purchasing journey.
3. Relevant product recommendations
A website visitor would ignore any product that they already have or don’t much care about. A personalised experience ensures that the product recommendations on your site are always fresh and relevant, thereby boosting customer loyalty.
4. Enhanced customer loyalty
A survey of 1,000 Australia-based consumers aged 18 and above showed that over 50 per cent of consumers consider customer service as the most important factor for loyalty. To provide quality customer service, brands can personalise their interactions with consumers to make them feel like they are interacting with a friend rather than with a business. When you show people you understand them, they are more likely to do business with you for years.
5. Better marketing strategies
Instead of having your marketing and sales team go through unqualified leads, personalising your website allows you to narrow down your target audience, resulting in more targeted leads. When you know who your product or service is for, it is easier to create an effective, high impact marketing campaign.
Personalisation works
Brands that use data-driven campaigns to customise content for their consumers are seeing results. According to a 2016 research by digital marketing agency Adlucent, 71 per cent of respondents are more likely to click ads that are customised to their interests and shopping habits. A study by a market research company, GlobalWebIndex, also revealed that 34 per cent of consumers are motivated to promote a brand online if the content is relevant to their interests.
Personalised marketing has also provided excellent results for a number of well-known brands. Here are some examples of how some brands have used personalised marketing to its full potential:
- Amazon
Amazon’s recommendation algorithm constantly makes headlines, as it is continuously updated to suggest products to suit not only the individual but also different aspects of their personality. This encourages the desire to purchase and even stimulates the tendency for impulse buying, leading to the brand’s increase in sales.
- Coca-Cola
The soda brand’s first venture into personalised marketing was the “Share a Coke” campaign that launched in Australia in 2012. The concept was for consumers to replace the brand’s logo with their name and to share the brand’s message using the hashtag #shareacoke.
- Netflix
Netflix is known for providing viewing recommendations based on a person’s viewing history. The brand also personalises the artwork that subscribers see when they browse the list of videos to entice them to the right content.
- Spotify
Similar to Netflix, Spotify gathers data based on a customer’s listening history and uses it to generate a playlist. This Discover Weekly playlist introduces consumers to other songs and artists they might like. Spotify also took their campaign a step further with their “Thanks 2016, it’s been weird” campaign, in which they released billboards with funny messages based on a consumer’s listening habits.
Segmenting for more effective personalisation
A personalised marketing campaign will not be effective without the proper segmentation. By grouping customers according to characteristics such as age, favourite brand, gender and geography, you create smaller, more focused groups that have more in common with each other. This makes it easier to optimise experiences and messages to individual customers without worrying about estranging a part of your audience.
Segmentation also benefits the business in the long run, as it allows them to improve the products and services that they offer. It also improves customer retention, because businesses can gain insights as to what they can offer customers as they move to another stage of their life.
There are many ways to segment your audience. Some segments you can consider are:
- New vs recurring visitors: New visitors can be offered a discount for their first purchase, while repeat customers can be rewarded with other offers.
- Customer information: Personal information allows you to choose products that a group of customers will likely purchase.
- Content viewed: Knowing which products a customer has bought or viewed makes it easier for you to make recommendations of related or similar products.
- Device or platform: There can be separate campaigns for mobile and desktop users. The same can apply to customers using Android and Apple iOS.
- Current cart profile: Once a visitor places items in the cart, you can recommend products that have similar profiles in terms of colour, material or theme.
Fortunately, it is easier today to segment your target audience thanks to artificial intelligence tools and algorithms. Just make sure that the information you’ve gathered from your website traffic generates valuable insights for effective segmentation.
Reengaging previous site visitors through remarketing
Aside from offering product recommendations, discounts and other promotions, personalisation allows you to reengage with customers who have browsed through your site but did not follow through with a conversion. This is possible through remarketing or retargeting.
Remarketing is a strategy that targets those who browsed your website but failed to convert, whether they abandoned their cart during the purchasing process, opted out of signing up for a product demo or ignored other calls to action. Through remarketing, these consumers are enticed to return to your site and complete the conversion process.
Different types of remarketing
There are several types of remarketing that help you reengage with your customers online. Some of the popular options are:
- Ads for users who have visited your site
This is the most popular form of remarketing, as it is cost-effective and it can reach a large number of people. You can set up display ads through social media platforms or blogs relevant to your product and target audiences.
- Coupons and discounts
Online promotions are an excellent way to encourage users who abandoned their carts to finalise a purchase. The reasons for abandoning your store might vary – comparison shopping, lack of budget – but the important thing is to bring them back to complete their buyer’s journey.
- Email remarketing
You can create marketing campaigns particularly for users who are on your email list. Since the users who open your emails already show interest in your offers, an email remarketing campaign helps them remember your brand and encourages them to return to your website. Entice these users to consume your content through quality blog posts, free downloads and whatever your content market strategy involves.
- Search engine ads
Another remarketing tool is having your ads displayed on search engine results. With this, you can target users who have already visited your website and are searching for certain terms online. This provides brand recall and encourages users to return to your site to go through the buyer’s journey or go straight to conversion.
- Search remarketing
Search remarketing extends your reach, as your ads show up when users who haven’t visited your website look at products similar to those you offer. This allows you to target people interested in your competitors, giving you a chance to show your unique selling proposition.
Today’s consumers care about a brand that cares about them. Through personalised marketing, you can better understand your prospective and current customers, allowing you to create content that is relevant to them. When done effectively, your personalised campaign helps your customer go through all the stages of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to conversion, thereby increasing your bottom line and growing your business.
The main point of personalised campaigns is to give your prospective and current consumers a unique and memorable experience. Doing so helps make them feel that you care about them and are paying attention to what they want they need. This leads to higher customer loyalty and retention.
