Anyone who receives unsolicited offers or things that are unrelated to their online actions will feel a sense of fear that someone is watching them. This type of reaction is the third trend in personalizing customer interactions today.
That’s a dilemma for marketers, because when done right, personalization can bring huge benefits to retailers and consumers. Targeted, relevant, and useful information can create long-term customer loyalty and drive revenue growth from 10 to 30%.
The challenge with this trend is not to personalize beyond the limits of the customer and to deliver true value and relevance. But how do you know?
1. Give buyers relevant suggestions that they wouldn't think of themselves.
One of the most common personalization techniques is to remind shoppers about items they have browsed but not purchased. Using a popular digital marketing feature called retargeting, these reminders appear as ads on other websites the shopper visits or are sent via email.
While it is an established technique, it is one that has a lot of potential for error and can easily become creepy or annoying if not done carefully. Shoppers do not want to be constantly reminded of products they have already purchased or searched for, especially if the ads appear too early, too often, or too late in the process.
To offer something that customers might be interested in, companies need to use more sophisticated recommendation algorithms to offer additional products or services rather than just what shoppers have already browsed or purchased.
Ultimately, with any type of targeted messaging, it's important to observe who responds and who doesn't, adjust frequency accordingly, and limit impressions to people, especially those who never respond — continually retargeting these shoppers will only get annoying.
2. Talk to them while they are in the shopping aisle.
When you send a message is just as important as what you say. Figuring that out requires looking closely at behaviors, patterns, and habits.
Sending messages at those specific times means the company is reaching people when they’re still thinking about shopping or when shopping for clothes makes the most sense for their particular schedule. Previous order data can provide helpful hints about activities like ordering a gift for someone’s birthday or anniversary.
3. Remind them of things they want to know but may not be able to follow.
One highly effective way to become relevant to shoppers is through tracking specific events and circumstances that they might want to know about.
This could be a reminder when someone might be running low on a previously purchased item, when a desired item is back in stock or on sale, or when a new style is released for a product or category that the shopper has repeatedly purchased.
However, retailers should be careful about giving shoppers targeted messaging triggers. One shopper told us she received an Instagram ad for cat-themed socks she had purchased from the same retailer a year earlier.
The shopper knows the retailer is trying to get her to buy again, but there is no effort to connect with her beyond the appearance of the ad.
4. Know them no matter where they interact with you on the shelf.
Consumers expect retailers to connect their digital messages with their offline experiences. For many organizations, this is especially challenging, as it requires collaboration between different areas of the organization, such as store operations, event management, PR, digital marketing, and analytics.
But when done effectively, communications that seamlessly connect both online and offline experiences—and provide real value—can make customers feel like a retailer really knows them.
When cross-channel communication involves using information that the customer has not actively provided, retailers should strive to provide information that the consumer will find truly valuable.
5. Share value in a way that makes sense to them.
Loyalty programs and direct purchase information can tell retailers what types of products an individual customer buys, how often they buy them, when they buy them, and what product categories they never buy.
However, many companies fail to fully leverage this information to personalize discounts and communications to their loyal customers.
Customer incentives are an important way to build customer loyalty and prevent churn. Personalizing them (and often rating the experience) is a highly effective way to not only inspire purchases but also encourage new buying behaviors.
Translated by: Phan Cong Duy
