Salesforce Marketing Cloud Vice President of Predictive and Web Products, Eric Tobias says:
“forward-thinking organizations are already personalizing customer touch points across physical and electronic channels”
With the latest tech advancements, the rise in the field of analytics and behaviors has appeared. It helps you divide your audience into different segments and demographics. As a result, personalized marketing campaigns with social media integrated into them are on the rise and they deliver!
According to a research by Infosys that was carried across 50 retailers in the US, the customer now demand an all-round shopping experience in-store as well as online.
The study also examined the need for consistent brand interaction with the customers. 86% of the customers say that they have experienced personalization and it affects their purchase decision to some extent and 25% said that personalization radically impacts their purchase decisions.
The report also said that 62% of the retailers offered personalization and had the following impact:
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74% of the retailers enjoyed a boost in sales
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61% of the retailers had greater profits
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58% saw an increase in their online traffic
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55% enjoyed a surge in customer loyalty
Taking into account all of this let’s take a look at some of the best possible techniques out there in the market to personalize your marketing strategies to generate maximum ecommerce engagement.
Personalized Product Recommendations
People are more likely to connect with the marketing campaigns that are built around the products that they have interacted with i.e. viewed, purchased or added to cart.
If someone visits your website and checks out flat shoes, it is likely that they will engage with the marketing campaign that shows them similar products or the most popular flat shoes from the store.
If your ecommerce brand has a mobile app and it is built keeping in mind principles of interactive app design, it should also work well.
On the other hand, if you show the irrelevant or unrelated products like heels or a different category all together (like hair extensions or denim), they are likely to get turned off by your brand.
In 2016, Accenture released a report saying that 75% of the shoppers prefer to buy from the stores who recognize them by their name or purchase behavior.
The stores who recommend products based on the shoppers purchase history or intent to shop are more likely to maximize their engagement and in return sales.
Re-marketing also costs less than the cost of acquiring a new customer. A few ways to do this is by Email Marketing, Facebook Carousel Ads and Display Advertising.
Personalized Content Marketing
Content marketing works. Always! You can find various statistics supporting this here. Now, that has been established, let’s talk about how you can integrate personalized content into your marketing techniques.
Jessica Sprinkel is Director of Marketing Programs at Logi Analytics says, “More recently, marketers have been able to use dynamic content, which means instead of setting up individual campaigns, and trying to route prospects into the optimal one, you can create ONE campaign, ONE email, and ONE landing page – all of which display differently depending on who is on the receiving end.”
Here are a few things that you could do to personalize content:
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Systematically gather data on your customers and visitors
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Track the audience content preferences (send out email marketing campaigns. Test the results. Make changes on your website)
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Do not go overboard with personalization
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Meet the needs of the customer with your content include answering questions about the product. User guides on how to use the product etc.
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Listen more either through analytics or surveys. Learn what your customer needs.
All of the above is not possible without a strong user experience design across your website. We just had to emphasize on that right here and now. Bad design makes you lose customers.
Personalize Your Email Campaigns
Personalized email campaigns are a huge marketing tool to boost your sales and customer engagement. Having a clear idea of a potential customer helps you establish personalized email campaigns for them.
Email segmentation also helps you boost revenue by helping you serve your emails to your buyers at the very point of their need. Triggered or behavioral emails also help increase ecommerce engagement on the website. A good example of a personalized email is as shown below by Fine Art America:
It is simple, informative (useful art blogs included) and has a personal tone to it (the way they ask, do you know a blogger…?)
Personalized Ad Campaigns
They’re also known as retargeting ads or remarketing. They’re for the people who have already visited your website or interacted with your site/made a purchase.
Retargeting ads can be very effective. According to a survey 30% of the users find the retargeting ads as positive or very positive whereas only 11% find them negative.
This is a great marketing tool for someone to show them the products that they’ve already viewed on your website. The customer is already familiar with your brand and is more likely to purchase.
Another added advantage is that only 20% of the marketers have set aside a budget for the retargeting advertising. This leaves an open field for you to play. Retargeting can also boost the ad response up to 400% according to this survey done by CMO.
Retargeting ads also provide you with higher click through rates (CTR). The CTR stands at 0.07% for the display ads whereas for the retargeting ads the CTR is at 0.7%.
That is almost ten times the rate of your display ads. According to Retargeter, some of the best practices to consider while running retargeting ads are:
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Do not annoy your customer by making your ads follow them everywhere
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Do not display offers that the customer has already claimed
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Ensure that your ads achieve the level of engagement by segmenting your audience
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Implement frequency caps on your ad campaigns.
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Get the best ROIs by targeting the right ads at the right time to the right people
Personalized Social Media Campaigns
Social media contains a huge database of customer and potential customers. You can leverage this information into creating marketing campaigns on social media. The best known practices to achieve these goals are:
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Identify your target audience and connect with them through social media.
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Know what social media platform to use for individual campaigns. For example: Instagram is better suited than Facebook for your visual campaigns.
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Social media marketing is essential for business and it should be combined with email marketing and direct advertising.
Here’s an example from the Facebook page of Sophie and Trey where they appear on a live video on Facebook demonstrating their products live to the customer.
Creating a personalized experience for the viewers and giving each person a better perspective of the products that they would be buying online.
This activity is great in order to generate user interaction and has organic 1600 views in just under a day.
In conclusion, the most important thing is paying attention to your customer base’s needs. It can be hepful for you because, as an ecommmerce business, you need to deliver content that your customer cares about. Your focus should always be on asking yourself what your customer wants or needs or cares about the most.
However, since the customers are alwas being bombarded with content (especially promotional emails) on a regular basis but, during times like the holiday season it increases even more, personalization in your email marketing is what will make you stand out from other ecommerce brands.
The best way to get a response from them would be by including useful, informative and exciting content in your emails that they really want to see.
You can use customer feedback collection forms to get a fair idea of what your customers want and then build your ecommerce website around their responses.
Personalized marketing techniques should help you in improving the content that you’re sending out in your emails, targeting your messages through segmentation of the email lists, and creating and defining offers/discounts for special events/holidays.
NOTE: While segmenting your email lists, please take into account the open and click through rate factors, the purchase behaviors of your customers, and their preferences when they choose to sign up for your email list.
The future of marketing is personalized customer service. Not only does it help you keep your brand authentic and consistent, but it also allows you to create highly personalized experiences for the user.
Brands that have found a way to key into this process have seen their conversion rates go up astronomically along with an increase in brand loyalty, as personalization makes he customer feel special and cared for.
By the day, shoppers are becoming more knowledgeable and want the best experience out there in the market. Brands that deliver that, get the cookie.
If you, too, want the cookie, be that brand!
About the Author – Jenny Harrison is a passionate marketing and business blogger. She loves to engage with readers who are seeking B2B and B2C marketing related information on the internet. She is a featured blogger at various high authority blogs and magazines in which she shared her research and experience with the vast online community. Currently she is associated with an Orlando based SEO Company ‘PNC Digital’. Follow her on twitter @MJennyHarrison for more updates.