Know More About Personalization: A Comprehensive Guide

Personalization is the buzz word of the day, year, and decade. In the digital era that we all live in, whether you are a business owner or a customer, escaping personalization is next to impossible. But why has it become so important? Here is a small guide to the what, why, and how of personalization to give you an insight to this powerful marketing tool. Tailored recommendations or personalization act as a guiding beacon for the customers, helping them make decisions that align with their needs and preferences.

What is Personalization?

The screens are usually flooded with choices, and retaining interest is tough. You cannot give every customer or a potential customer the same blanket of experience. People expect special things that quickly match what they need or like. This is where personalization comes into action.

In the realm of e-commerce, physical and individual assistance is not possible, but the customer expectation for exceptional treatment is rising exponentially. The use of automation and AI comes into play here to drive engagement and ultimately boost sales.

If we define it, personalisation is the intelligent process of making a product, service, or experience tailored and seamless for an individual, specific to their preferences, needs, and characteristics. This is based on the previous buyer experience and customer behaviour. Thus, it becomes the foundation of every marketing campaign.

The aim of personalization is to boost satisfaction, and encourage engagement by adapting data and technology. Personalization goes much beyond just messaging or emailing customers with their names in the ‘to’ field.

Personalization is

• Analysing customer interactions, content, and features
• Making user experience it in such a way that they can feel it on a personal level

It is applicable to both B2B and B2C models. Customers today expect the businesses to understand their needs and expectations.

Key Aspects of Personalization

Personalization is mainly about

• Right message by adapting the approach in a way that it resonates with who it reaches i.e., tailoring the message.
• Right channel by selecting the channel suitable for a specific customer. This way the customer is more likely to engage and boost the company’s ROI.
• Right person, which is understanding everything about the potential customer so that you can tailor the time, message, product, and market to fit the needs.
• Right time i.e., identifying the time when the customer will take action. For example, when to follow up on the lead or when to send the discount code to customer so that he is likely to make a purchase.

In short, it is the complex procedure and the continuous effort of delivering the right message through the right channel to the right person and at the right time.

Advantages of Personalization

#1- Customers expect it. Personalization has become a norm.  From their grocer to the shoe salesman, they have high expectations and want to be spoiled for choices.  They move towards businesses who know what they want and are willing to make it work.

#2- This enhances the comprehension of the customer.  It goes without saying that personalization ensures the companies understand the customers better, for e.g., how they think or feel, what their habits are, etc. This helps the organisation increase engagement and repeat business.

#3- Higher conversion rates. This happens by tailoring the product or service to the specific needs of the buyer. Personalization in marketing also improves the customer’s lifetime value and loyalty. The consumer feels like the organisation is making an effort to include them.

#4- Encourages engagement and exploration. When the consumer feels that the business knows them, they will naturally gravitate towards them. It is the basic nature, we are more happy with people whom we know and who know us. With good personalization each customer gets a unique interaction with the brand, which means they are more likely to recommend your brand to friends and family and even on social media.

#5- More conversions: AI and automation fuel personalization. AI uses visitor data, and employs machine learning to store consumer information, understand and predict the needs, and match the new services and products to each consumer’s taste. Once the customer seeks relevant recommendations, they are more likely to convert to a purchase.

Personalization translates to loyalty. The more the consumer interacts with the brands, the more data the brands get and more they can anticipate customer behaviour, and this means more buyer loyalty.

The Role of Data in Personalization

For any personalization stack to be successful, the type and quality of the data is quite important. Irrelevant data only leads to false leads generation and losses to the company. Data should be clean and well organised and include all interaction data such as clicks, purchases, descriptions, ratings, etc. Usually, data includes

• Demographic
• Browsing behaviours
• Chats and call histories    
• Previous purchases.

Types of Personalization

• Content personalization which includes dynamic content and tailored recommendations.
• User interface personalization such as customizable layouts and adaptive themes.
• Interaction personalization that is based on behaviours, and sending personalized notifications.
• Attitudinal, to understand customer opinions about products and services.
• Demographics, which is based on the age, gender, income, education, work, and other factors of the consumer.

The ways that we see and can use personalization

• Personalised landing pages, which are very common in B2B sales and are geared for call to action.
• Mobile personalization as the static websites become more adaptive. Personalization extends from desktop to mobile websites, and recommendations become dynamic.
• App personalization gives businesses a competitive edge because they can capture additional data and even deepen customer engagement and loyalty with emails, push notifications, and in app messages.
• Personalised searches
• Email personalisation
• Personalized advertisements
• Triggered messages

The current trends in personalization are much beyond simple suggestions and information, they are now armed with AI and automation. MarTech is moving towards hyper personalization successfully balancing it with user and data privacy.

How can you personalise the customer experience in your business?

This is a multi-thronged approach that includes

1- Give the whole picture to the customer by tapping on service data in marketing, product, and sales. Focus on storing personal details, website interactions, previous orders, current order statuses, payment choices, subscription details, device information, other details.

2- Ensure that your tool is compliant to protect customer data privacy. You can also collect only essential data. The mandates include encrypting sensitive information, installing antivirus software and firewalls, posting the privacy policy prominently etc.

3- Be proactive with the support especially for long time customers.

4- Strive to understand customer sentiment, feelings, and opinions on an individual level. Gather content and product recommendations, additional questions, user specific interests, promotion offers etc.

5- Track your favourite channel for personal support.

6- Create, write, and revamp knowledge-based content

Personalization needs to be done in a way that is helpful to the customers. It actually begins even before the consumer becomes a customer. Start with understanding the data to know your customers and then move on to personalising the content, offers and other touchpoints.

Personalization is the future! Personalization is the key.

Also Read- What is Psychographic Segmentation? Example and Benefits