Introduction
Modern-day customers need everything the way they want. And surprisingly, most brands comply! We are living in the age of customization and personalization where companies are putting in their money to create customer-centric products and services.
This has given rise to a whole new form of marketing, often referred to as personalized marketing. In this extensive guide, we will try to understand how personalization impacts modern-day marketing campaigns.
Not just that, we will share the best practices brands can implement to make the most of personalization in 2023. Since our focus is on delivering personalization at scale, the tips and advice will help you maximize revenue through personalized marketing campaigns.
So, stay with us till the very end. Let’s dive right in!
What are personalization and personalized marketing?
Personalization, in business terms, is essentially the act of making a product or service customized to suit the requirements, needs, and interests of an individual customer. When coupled with marketing, personalization can help brands come up with marketing campaigns tailored to deliver experiences that match individual customers’ expectations. In other words, personalized marketing involves changing the product’s or service’s message to match the needs and interests of specific audiences.
Impact of personalization on marketing
Personalized services and products have a major impact on a company’s churn rate as most customers are looking for brands that provide excellent customer service catering to their needs.
Recent research published by McKinsey shows that almost 78 percent of customers tend to become repeat buyers if the brand offers personalized products and services. In other words, personalization helps generate more revenue.
Personalization also helps boost customer satisfaction as it revolves around providing a positive customer experience, which directly impacts business success. Moreover, companies investing in personalization marketing strategies run the least risk of reduced business.
This is because almost 71 percent of modern-day customers expect companies to provide personalized experiences. In a highly competitive environment like the one we live in, offering personalization makes it easier to retain customers.
Best practices to make personalized marketing campaigns
Now that you are well-acquainted with personalization and personalized marketing, it’s time we discuss the best practices to help you make the most of this marketing trend. Let’s get started!
1. Focus on a mutually beneficial relationship
The relationship you will create through the personalized marketing campaign should be mutually beneficial for you and your customers. Engage in a conversation that offers high-quality personalization. While this depends a lot on the quality of user data you have, it also depends on the mindset you establish across the organization. As a brand, your focus shouldn’t be on pushing a message across to the customers. The focus should be on offering value to the customers effectively by weaving a conversation that shows why customers need your solutions. This can only happen if you prioritize mutually beneficial relationships leading to quality personalization.
2. Ensure effective communication
To make personalization work, you will have to ensure effective expectation setting. This is important because we are living in a digitally-centric world of consumerism where customers have incredibly quick access to information. If you don’t set the right and consistent expectations throughout the buyer journey, chances are the personalization strategies will cease to work. So, make sure you have the right information about the customers while creating communication strategies. More importantly, the focus should be on delivering maximum value to the customers and acknowledging their contribution to your business growth. Do this to establish a strong foundation for the upcoming personalized marketing campaigns.
3. Use buyer data effectively
Most companies develop inbound marketing strategies to collect buyer data that later can be used to create personalized marketing campaigns. Buyer data is a commodity that most targeted advertising strategies depend on. Without customer data, it is almost impossible to create personalized campaigns as buyer data not only helps segment the audience based on factors like age, gender, interests, behavior, and more but also allows brands to focus on a niche audience — something that facilitates improved personalization. However, collecting buyer data can be an issue. Indeed, we have automated programs that can pull buyer data from the cookies. But, the recent debacle of third-party cookies makes this quite difficult. Instead, we suggest brands establish a policy that allows all sales team and customer support team members to collect buyer data through each customer interaction.
4. Create a massive value exchange
Personalization works not just because you are addressing the customer. Modern-day customers are smart enough to maneuver through the fluff and figure out your intentions. Personalization works when brands come up with a marketing campaign that genuinely benefits the customers. In other words, there should be a significant value exchange involved in the process. So, here’s what you need to ask yourself — “What are you providing the customers in exchange for the buyer data or first-party data?” We suggest you develop high-value offers or content in return for which buyers would like to provide their personal information. This approach can help you bring in more responses, allowing you to develop more personalized experiences and campaigns.
5. Drive loyalty through personalization
Take personalization to the next level by creating marketing campaigns that push customers to become your elite members. We highly recommend brands come up with marketing campaigns that attract existing and potential customers. This can be done by promoting exclusivity. Brands often develop marketing strategies that revolve around their loyalty programs. Such strategies double down on providing customers with early access to new products, letting them be a part of case studies, or providing their input for effective product development. This is an excellent way to encourage customer loyalty and push customers to purchase more and reduce the company’s churn rate.
6. Be data- and result-oriented
Indeed, personalization seems to be a strategy that is more sentiment-oriented. But, while you can use sentiments to create compelling personalized marketing campaigns, it is crucial that you cater to the results as well. After all, you want your personalized marketing campaigns to deliver and not just eat up your marketing budget. We suggest you become a data-driven marketer that integrates all marketing channels (offline and online) and develop a personalized customer journey. We also recommend running split tests and A/B tests to develop better campaigns in the long run. This way you can save your company from running out of marketing budget.
7. Set KPIs to make better decisions
Is the personalization-based marketing campaign even working? The only way to find that out is by doing the right homework. Before you launch any personalized marketing campaign, make sure you set the right key performance indicators. These will help you figure out whether or not the campaign is moving in the right direction. How can you set the right KPIs? Well, you will have to brainstorm and come up with marketing goals and objectives for the campaign. Once you do that, you can shortlist the basic and complex performance metrics that help you assess the campaign performance and check if the campaign helps you achieve the set goals and objectives.
8. Apply the right solutions
Lastly, you should focus on implementing personalization at scale. This can be done if you invest in solutions that are appropriate for your applications and industry. This will involve customer data management, content development, campaign tracking, and more. Moreover, we suggest you use solutions that help you implement personalization across all marketing channels. The best way to do this is by deploying a centralized data management platform or CDP. The CDP is responsible to collect and feed unified customer data to the applications that require the data.
Final thoughts!
There you have it. We have shared everything you need to implement practical and revenue-centric personalization tactics in your marketing campaigns. Indeed, these tips and best practices will work. But, you need to make sure the personalization directly impacts the customers. In other words, brands should put customers at the core of their personalized marketing campaigns. It’s only then can they make the most of personalized marketing campaigns. Did you find this extensive guide helpful? Let us know in the comments. Also, don’t forget to check out other informative posts on the blog!
