Does your relationship marketing personalization get top marks?

DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP MARKETING MAKE THE GRADE ON PERSONALIZATION?

Start getting great results with these expert tips on cross-channel personalization.

78% of marketers agree personalization has a strong impact on delivering better customer experiences, increasing loyalty and generating measurable ROI. Yet only 4% would give themselves an ‘A’ for personalization (Evergage 2020 Trends in Personalization Report).

Here we’ll share tips from ourselves and our expert partners on how to make the grade with your onsite and digital marketing personalization.

DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP MARKETING MAKE THE GRADE ON PERSONALIZATION?

PERSONALIZING YOUR CAMPAIGNS

Let’s put first names aside. Personalization in your campaigns comes down to more than this simple piece of content. The timing of when you send, the images you used, the message you deliver can all be personalised with the right data and the right technology in place to put it into action.

Personalization in messaging starts with putting your customer at the centre; to meet their needs, reassure them and show your care. You’ll be able to see your successes with an increase to your click through rate, click to conversion rate and campaign traffic.

Here are 5 personalization examples from our Actito team to get you thinking:

Switch your hero image based on preferences, lifestage or recent purchase category.
Show you’ve been listening and personalize with information they’ve provided on their pets or their favourite band etc.
Acknowledge milestones like first Click & Collect order, birthday or loyalty offer qualification by activating a scenario campaign in that moment.
Customise the products shown based on their favourite shopping category, choice of computer type or dietary preferences.
Change how you message that new product release offer based on whether they are part of your ‘early adopters’ or ‘bargain hunters’ segment.

COLLECTING DATA

Good personalization needs to be fed with good data so putting a relational data model in place is the starting point. You’ll then need to nourish that database. There are several types of data you can use:

Zero-party – what your consumers have told you about themselves in exchange for giving them value.
First-party – data you collect about your customers based on their engagement with you.
Second & Third-party – data you’ve considerately sourced externally.

91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them (Accenture). However, keep in mind that 71% said a brand had become ‘too personal’ by personalizing with information they hadn’t shared directly.

Remember to take a humane, balanced approach to data – only collect what will help you tailor the experience to your customers’ needs and what you have a right to know (keeping in mind GDPR).

The further from the consumer (the source) you get the greater the chance of poor quality data and frustrated customers.

Read more on our 7-steps to make your data talk and unlock your data strategy.

USING SEGMENTATION

Segmentation is a powerful tool when it comes to delivering a personalised customer experience. Activating data from across channels you can deliver highly relevant content to customers according to their behaviour.

Here are 4 segmentation suggestions from personalisation partner, Fresh Relevance:

Loyal customers who haven’t bought anything for a while.
Customers who need to refill their stock.
Highly engaged visitors who haven’t made a purchase.
Shoppers who browsed a product that has dropped in price .

Linking in a personalisation partner can allow you to use machine learning, algorithms and AI to customise your campaigns still further – offering the same personalised product recommendations in a subscriber’s email, sms or push notifications for example. This can be real-time AI or through an update feed into your marketing activation database that allows you to leverage the recommendations engine in all your communications (just remember to tie that into what you know about purchases etc).

ONSITE PERSONALIZATION

Onsite personalisation is aiming to increase conversion rate, average basket value and revenue per visit.

Speaking at our recent Best of Activation Day event (#BOAD), Netwave’s Alex Meisl recommended focusing onsite personalisation initially on your:

Homepage
Product listings (category pages)
Product Page
Cart/Checkout

Your website’s Homepage is valuable space so it’s important to personalise it with product selections that add relevance and improve productivity on the page.

On Product Listings (category pages) you can guide the visitor through their purchase with a curated selection of product options that offer a more intuitive navigation. Expect around +49% post click revenue.

Personalised upselling on product pages with product advice can increase your average basket value. You can gain around +30% post click revenue with this approach.

Cross-selling relevant products in the cart can give up to +159% post click revenue. This kind of personalisation also improves the customer experience on a service-level as it reduces the risk they checkout without everything they need – for example, not having the cables they need to use their new camera.

Personalisation is not only a way to improve conversion. Personalisation is also a way to deliver a better level of customer service and experience to your audience.

Think outside the obvious too. As Alex Meisl from Netwave said at #BOAD: “Every single transaction counts. So why not use all the site real-estate you have to grab every opportunity you can”. Personalizing your error pages with previously viewed items can direct people back into the buying process and reduce bounce rates.

Personalisation isn’t just for products either. Consider using your personalisation tool to promote other offerings such as your loyalty program too. At #BOAD, Kameleoon shared 3 great use cases on boosting loyalty subscriptions by tailoring the benefit messages to onsite segments. They’ve seen +22-24% loyalty subscriptions with personalised messaging (crucially without impacting conversion rates). Don’t have a loyalty card? Read our 8 tips on setting up a loyalty program without a card.

THE 'HOW' OF ONSITE PERSONALIZATION (IN A NUTSHELL)

Select a personalisation partner
Make sure your privacy policy is up to date
Use your existing tag management tool to add the tag to your site*
Connect your product feed

*Key for customer experience is a quick website. Look for a partner whose tag is lightweight to avoid increasing your website load speed too much. If you are thinking about personalising main banners, then check the options you have to serve personalized content to avoid any unwanted flickering as the graphics update.

Don’t forget A/B testing to prove the ROI and show the impact personalising your website and your marketing communications can have on revenues.

WHAT ROI CAN YOU EXPECT?

Harvard Business Review figures put the ROI of personalisation at 5-10% increase income, 50% reduction acquisition costs and 10-30% increase efficiency budget.