The pandemic has pushed everyone to rethink their sales and marketing strategies.
Interacting with your target audience or prospects face to face has now become a thing of the past, and the focus now relies heavily on digital – and for many, it already did well before COVID.
Customers are now more hyper-aware that they are being marketed to excessively on emails, social media and while internet shopping on their lunch breaks. Ads and content from companies screaming to get in front of their customers are making the online experience a lot noisier and standing out in the crowd is proving to be difficult.
Advances in technology and insights are enabling us marketers to develop more human-like experiences for customers and prospects at all stages of the sales cycle – or funnel, depending on which chart you prefer!
Personalisation in marketing is roughly defined as ensuring the preferences and needs of your customers are addressed and the associated marketing activity presents the right product or service to them at exactly the right time, resulting in more sales or leads. By leveraging data analytics and consumer insights, businesses can create highly customized experiences that foster stronger customer relationships. The benefits of tailored marketing strategies extend beyond increased sales, as they also enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to repeat business. Ultimately, personalized marketing not only drives immediate results but also cultivates long-term brand affinity. To effectively implement personalised marketing strategies explained, businesses must invest in understanding their target audience through segmentation and behavioral analysis. This deeper engagement allows for real-time adjustments to marketing campaigns, ensuring they remain relevant and impactful. As a result, companies can not only meet customer expectations but exceed them, setting the stage for sustainable growth and competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Personalisation gives your customers that warm and fuzzy feeling and makes them feel special and can shift the conversion needle more efficiently than generic, bland marketing.
1. It all starts with clean data
Clean data is the absolute foundation on which successful personalised (and non-personalised, for that matter) marketing campaigns are built.
There is no point in going creative with your personalisation ideas and segmentation tactics if your data is a mess, and all the clever stuff just won’t work if your foundations are messy and inaccurate to start with.
Spend some time cleansing your data and getting it in ship shape – and the results will be worth it.
2. Gather insights
Lead generation forms and sign up points on or offline is a great way of gathering data.
Using landing pages to neatly identify the needs and interests of your prospects means you have all the information at your fingertips.
You do not have to rely on your customers to willingly send you this information though. Monitoring online shopping trends, link clicks from ads and email marketing communications are great ways to subtly gather this information too and can take your marketing to the next level.
3. Keep it simple
There has been an abundance of clever and fun famous marketing campaigns that use personal data effectively.
Some of our favourite examples are Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign featuring the UK’s most popular names printed on bottles, to Spotify’s annual end-of-year ‘Wrapped’ event. (Remember the person that listened to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” 42 times on Valentine’s Day – on THAT billboard? – what a hero.)
This might seem like a far cry from your marketing budget and resources – but when it comes to personalisation, the elements of each campaign aren’t that complicated – it all boils down to smartly gathering data and using it neatly.
Gathering as much data at the point of sign-up, lead generation, or on-site behaviour enables you to paint the perfect picture of your customer and allows you to send them relevant content, offers and other communications. It does not seem so complicated now, right?
4. Take it offline, too!
Direct mail has been a great long-standing example of personalisation – simply using a name and address on a piece of content that lands straight on the doormat of your customers is very personal, albeit on a basic level.
Using personalisation in other ways on direct mail can increase engagement, by putting your brand and your customer’s needs and interests together directly in their hands.
A blend of on and offline personalisation is a neat way of ticking all the boxes and converting more prospects to customers – if everything you send is relevant engaging.
Our other blog post looks at how you can use direct mail in your sales and marketing strategy – you can read that here.
5. Test and learn
If you’re thinking of trying out personalisation in your next marketing campaign it’s probably best not to expect everything to go just as you expected the first time around.
Using A/B testing in your personalised campaigns will allow you to fine-tune your future efforts and give you a better understanding of what your customers are receptive to, and will help you make better decisions.
Want to find out more about how we can help you inject some personality into your marketing efforts? Contact us today by completing the form here.
